The Only One

Alright, Goodbye

-18-

May was almost over and I was at home reading a novel I had begun months earlier. It's this coming-of-age story I have read three times and I absolutely adore. And I have always thought that the author based the plot on her own life; that what she was really doing was reminiscing, and in the process regretting things she should have done but didn't.

I was about to finish the book, and was incredibly frustrated because the main character had been a coward and I knew nothing was going to end up the way I wanted it to.

When I finished reading I was so upset I was convinced that had it been me who wrote the book, I would have totally changed the last two chapters. It is funny how after having read it two more times, I have come to agree with the main character's choices.

Have I become a coward? Or is it just that I was too much of a hopeless romantic as a teenager? I guess neither, or a bit of both. I guess I've been spending so much time thinking about myself, putting myself in the center of my life, that love has gone down in my list of priorities and so have impulsive decisions.

I put the book back in my bookshelf and decided it was time to go to school and work on one of my final projects. In the end, we had asked Angela because Sara, Roberta and Mia teamed up. It was actually great, come to think of it, the three of them working together. And choosing Angela as our partner turned out to be awesome, too.

Dalia, Angela and I were lying in the middle of the soccer field, taking a break from a morning in the lab, when my phone vibrated. There was no one around us, so I just took it out and saw a text my mother had sent me.

She said my dream university, the one where she and my dad had studied, had already sent her the bill for my first semester, which meant I was in. No congratulations, you've been admitted, no we're pleased to announce that you're a part of our community, no nothing for me, just a text from my mom.

By the third time I read, it finally hit me. I had been admitted into my dream university. My friends looked at my face and thought I had gotten bad news, so I explained them the reason for my initial confusion. And then I let the happiness invade me, because after all that was the best news I could get.

That night my mom took me out to dinner, she was beyond proud. Years later my sister would get into that same university, and it wasn't because we felt we had to, my parents never forced us to pick a certain career or school; we just genuinely love it and I'd always had it as my first choice. For me it was more like my only choice, even if I had applied to other places "just in case".

Soon, very soon, a new stage of my life would begin, one I knew nothing about. I was excited for it all to get started, but there were still things left to be done at school.

One of them was the prom, and I wasn't particularly interested about going because I hadn't yet found a date. The only thing that made me want to look for one was the fact that Mia had told me you were going. And I was sure you weren't going alone, which meant I couldn't either.

Dalia and I were in the middle of a nervous breakdown because we were one week away from prom and had no idea who we were going to take with us. While we talked about what our options were, Sabrina popped up and said she could help because she actually had two friends who wanted to go to prom. I think it was then that I stopped seeing her as such a despicable person. Obviously, we both agreed to her offer and thanked her.

The prom was on a Friday night, which was also my last day of school. I thought I would cry, I thought I'd get all nostalgic for leaving my school, but I didn't. I only had my dress, my makeup and my hairdo in mind.