Alaska

Chapter Thirty-Eight

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Once the loud cheering died down, Lexi stepped aside as Ms.  Olsen took hold of the microphone again.

"Beautiful work, Alexia.  Absolutely brilliant!  Now here I'd like to you award you with your Morgan Term diploma and your scholarship certificate to WSU.  Congratulations!" Ms.  Olsen handed Lexi a framed blue certificate and a white scroll tied with a velvet ribbon and the ball room erupted in applause once again.

At long last, Lexi was allowed to step down and take her seat again as all the other girls began lining up for their certificates.  Anthony and Angel patted her fondly on the back when she stumbled into her seat again, her feet feeling swollen and her stomach feeling enormous.

"That was so..." Ashton stared at her, his eyes teary.  "Beautiful.  Wonderful.  Spectacular!" He lunged forward and smashed his lips to hers, aggressively.

Lexi watched as Ariel accepted her certificate followed by Violet and the rest of the girls.  There was a large group photo of the girls and their bellies or babies and then the crowd dispersed out of the ball room, indicating the end of Morgan Term...

***

Thirty-three weeks...

Next morning, Lexi woke up with a newspaper sitting on her bedside table.  She sat up and wiped her eyes, sleepily then picked up the newspaper.  The front page made her gasp.

CATALYSTS:  A MEMOIR ON ALASKA WATERS

Alexia Whitmore, 16, from Riverblossom Pennsylvania graduated from an English Course at Morgan Term College yesterday with a full fledged scholarship to Washington State University after producing a memoir on the late Alaska Waters who died in September last year.  Ms.  Whitmore has always been talented in writing and is prepared to study further English in Washington.  Her work titled; Living Life is set to be published insideMorals & Psychological Therapy this fall and should appear in stores by October.
Ms.  Whitmore is moving back to Pennsylvania to be with her family after spending five months in Ohio for her English course.  She is also expecting a baby girl, due in three weeks time.

It was as though seeing herself on an A-list movie screen.  She was in the newspapers.  Her.  A girl that had gotten knocked up at the age of sixteen and was barely acknowledged by the quarterback on the football team.  That was when Lexi finally knew she had become someone...  That was when she knew that everything she had written about Alaska was true...

Lexi spent her Saturday morning and afternoon with Violet and Ariel who had taken the liberty of inviting Lexi out to lunch as their last group meal together.  They were all incredibly glum that Lexi was leaving and that they weren't going to see each other for a long time but all the same, they made the most of their time together and promised that they would try and get a road trip down to Pennsylvania for Bianca's wedding in August.

-

On Sunday morning, Lexi woke up to the sound of a grumbling van pulling over outside the house.  Her eyes fluttered open and her heart quickly drooped as she remembered that today was the day she was departing Ohio.

She scrambled out of bed and glanced at the bare room around her.  All of her clothes had been stuffed inside her suitcases and everything else was piled inside a dozen boxes that were sitting beside the door to her bedroom.

She threw on a pink summer dress that gave her body the air it needed, due to the enormity that was her belly and she brushed her hair into a tight ponytail.  Just as she was packing her brush and pajamas into a box beside the bureau, her door opened and Ashton entered, followed by two men dressed in blue uniforms and blue baseball caps.  They gave Lexi a curt nod and began picking up boxes and leaving the room to take to the van outside.