BAD OMENS ✬ luke hemmings

6.6 | spaces

After what feels like forever, exams are finally over, and following it, Aria's entire high school career. She still can't believe that everything is over and that the day that once seemed so far away is closer than ever; she's graduating tomorrow.

She will walk across the stage in the auditorium the same way her sister did four years ago and the same way all the fictional characters in her favourite TV shows and movies have done, and Aria can't believe it.

Even as she walks out of the auditorium, Luke by her side, after the final graduation rehearsal, she cannot fathom that in a few months, she'll be moving to another country – away from her cat and her friends. No more lazy dinners in the living room with her dad and no more drives to the corner stores with Michael; it's scary.

However, it's not all that bad – at least she's not ending the year on a sour note. Despite the excruciatingly painful, awkward, and lengthy process of restless studying and hidden anxieties, the past three weeks have repaired some relationship between Aria and Michael – who finally warmed up to the idea of her and began looking the girl in the eyes at the end of last week.

Getting Michael to talk to her has been slow.

In the first week, they drove to school in complete and utter silence, but he would wait for her, and she'd drive him home.

The second week went better. She filled the silence by talking—though mostly one-sided—and he'd sit quietly listening, adding a little shake whenever the girl brought something disagreeable up.

Though! The third week, he finally bothered saying 'hey' when she'd pick him up in the mornings. He'd walk beside her as they walked out of school instead of bolting ahead and waiting by the car like a petulant child, and he even laughed – even if it was more of a cough or repressed snort – at her jokes.

This week, on the drive home from rehearsals, Michael asked to stop to buy snacks, although he was quiet and mumbled. It took Aria saying 'huh' and 'what' five times to understand what he'd said. Either way, Michael had offered her one of his sour patch kids, so it's safe to say she's finally in the clear and on the path to redemption in his eyes.

She and Luke follow the others in their grade out of the auditorium and toward the courtyard, where everyone will inevitably sit within their respective groups as they all grab their new yearbooks – filled with photos of strangers, activities, and service groups that no one knew existed – and collect their, very much anticipated, red envelopes.

"I still don't understand what the whole red envelope thing is for," Luke says, letting Aria guide them to a table where a teacher stands, ripping open the plastic wrappings of thick yearbooks. "Do I even have one?"

"Everyone has one," Aria begins, "remember that letter we had to write to ourselves at the beginning of the year?"

"That was for the red envelope?" He asks, vaguely remembering the rambling, incoherent mess he'd written on a poorly ripped-off piece of paper from his notebook – the blond, obviously, did not take it seriously, and from what Luke can grasp from that blurry day, was that he was extremely pissed off at something Aria did or said.

Then again, when was Luke not pissed at something Aria did?

"Uh, yeah. Did your homeroom teacher not tell you?" she says, knowing she has been waiting for the day to open her red envelope. Once they realized the concept, she and Michael got into it over a month ago – thanks to their mothers explaining it.

The two had written letters for each other after Aria begged and pleaded with Michael to write something that could fill more than an index card – and she put a ton of photos in his.