Table for 6

Epilogue

Epilogue

*20 years later*

This was it. It was finally happening. After all these years I was finally able to accomplish something great.

I looked down at my desk and smiled. I saw a picture of me and my five best friends sitting around a small table in the hospital restaurant. I smiled to myself and I even let it a small little chuckle. We were quite the bunch, I'll admit. Now look at us all.

After I finished high school, I went on to become a teacher. Just something about seeing other people learn warms my heart. Just last week it was announced that I had gotten a promotion in my job, and I was scheduled to become the principal at a new school next September. I haven't been able to find the perfect guy yet, but I'm waiting, because I know he's out there somewhere.

For one of my best friends, love was easy to find. She found it while she was in grade eight. Katiniss and Adam, although having some rough patches, were high school sweethearts, and went off to college together. Adam became a pyrotechnic while Kataniss was able to take her love for sports and athletics into a profession. She became a personal trainer and life coach. Only two years after they had finished college, Adam proposed to Katiniss. Even now, years later they are still head over heels for each other. They have two girls, Zoë and Julia, and being their godmother, I see them quite often.

I had to learn to share my godmother position with someone else though. One of my best friends Dr. Kathy. She finished high school with a 4.7 GPA and automatically knew she was ready to become a doctor. She worked hard in university, and after that she met the love of her life. She had known him for a long time, but never knew he was right for her. Ryan and Kathy got married 4 years after she finished medical school. They weren't able to have children but they did adopt their 8 year old son, James.

Macy and Ryan broke up within their first year of high school. They thought it would be better if they stayed friends, and they went their separate ways. I never really knew the whole story behind their breakup. Macy has yet to find anyone else, but I know someday she'll find someone. Now she follows her true passion, art. She became an artist and now has many paintings in museums around the world. She spends all her free time creating art and spending time with her five best friends.

Ryan went into studying the brain when he finished high school. He said he wanted to try to help "figure out what's going on up there". He's

a great father, James and him seem to have a very strong relationship, they were always doing things together. Things were never awkward between Macy and Ryan after what happened. She never held a grudge against him and he still wanted to be her friend. Even Kathy and Macy still get along wonderfully.

As for Aisha, things got better for her after our graduation. Her dad was sent into jail within our first year of high school, and her mother got a divorce. She happily found another man of whom Aisha adored, and she even says she considers him more of a real father than her own. Aisha did struggle in school, but she was able to find her passion, which was, like Macy, in the arts. She became an actress and has even been featured in a few tv shows so far. Although she has found many guys, she says she hasn't felt the connection with any of them yet. The perfect guy is just harder to come by these days I guess.

All six of us have managed to stay the best of friends even though we don't live near each other. Macy moved to England to start her art career, and Aisha went straight to Hollywood after she finished university. Kathy became a doctor in Ottawa after Ryan and her decided they wanted to live there. Katiniss and Adam moved to Toronto after they got married. I was the only one still stuck in my tiny town, but that didn't really matter to me. I was pleased right where I was.

If I could go back, I don't think I would have change anything about what happened to us. It made us stronger, and closer than ever. If we had never sat together, we wouldn't be where we are today. Our table for 6, wouldn't be us. I think I owe Mme. a big thank you, and I swear I will never forget our memories in that classroom.

They say true friendship isn't about being inseparable, it's about being separated, but the relationships will never change. That is us. Nothing between us has ever really changed. The only difference is we're all happy now.

I think I only have one thing to say to my table for 6. If they could all stand before me right now, it would go a little something like this, "I love you five because you guys are the reason I'm still breathing today."