New York Baddies

Graduation

Graduation; it was the one of the few times during a person's life where you could feel happy, excited, sad, confused, scared and depressed all at the same time. Most kids felt happy and excited to finally no longer be a kid. To be able to explore job and college possibilities, and to finally get out of the giant, ugly mess that was high school and never have to see the same fake people and annoying teachers ever again. Even though most kids felt this excitment they also felt scared, depressed and lost at the same time. Most kids felt this way because they felt like they wern't ready to become adults yet, and they felt scared because they didn't have a plan. Even though this was a large portion of the population of graduating seniors in this country we call the United States of America, Ally Jone's school was an exception to the rule. Ally had grown up in a rich small town, where everyone had their whole life mapped out for them by the time they were born. The kids that grew up in this town  would attend some of the best private schools in the country, taking the hardest, most rigirous classes, while being apart of as many school clubs and exteacirriculars as humanly possible and aiming to win as many of the awards that the school had to offer as possible. When they graduate from high school, they are to attend the ivy league schools, and than later go on to move back to the same town that they had grown up in to either work at the companies that their parents had started, or to start their own companies. This town was called Martill, and it was located in the most southern part of Illinois.

Ally Jones hated Martill. She hated the  judgemental people, the school she currently attended, everyone's uber conservative opinions when it came to politcs,  everyone's cookie cutter expectation of what life is supposed to be like, and most of all, she hated that everyone in this town was the same. Ally Jones had never admitted this to anyone in her eighteen years of living in Martill. She had always done her best to fit into the mold, and do everything that was expected of her. She had the highest grade point average in her school, she was the captian of the cheerleading squad and had been ever since she was a freshman, she was apart of every single club in her school,  she was dating the captian of the football team, and she had been accepted into every ivy league school in the country. Everyone wanted to be her, except for her. And now, was the day before graduation. Everything her parents had been forcing her into, everything they had made her work towards had all led up to this moment. Ally tried on what seemed like the six-hundreth dress that her mother made her try on during the whole quest of looking for a graduation dress for tomorrow. The dress was white, fit tight like a glove, and showed just the tiniest bit of cleavage at the top. This was the first dress out of what seemed like six hundred so far that she actually liked. She posed in the dressing room mirror, taking pictures of herself. She loved being able to see all of her curves, and it wasn't ofton where she could wear something that actually showed them off. "Ally, come out of there, we don't have that much time," Ally's mother shouted into the dressing room. Ally rolled her eyes, than walked out of the dressing room smiling. Her mother looked horrified. "Ok, no no no no no!! I will not have you looking like a slut at the graduation. I can see some cleavage, and curves. Take that off NOWW!!" One of the workers at Forever 21 turned around and looked at Ally, than looked away, clearly doing her best not to laugh. Ally walked back into the dressing room, to try on the last dress that her mother picked out for her. It was white, big, poofy, with flowers all over it. Ally hated it, which meant her mother would love it. Ally rolled her eyes once again, and than walked out of the dressing room, to fake a smile and show her mother the dress. "Ally. This is perfect. This is beautiful!! I love it!! This is the one!!" Ally's mother teared up a little bit, as she gave her daughter a hug. Ally pretended to be happy, like she always did, and told her mother that she definetly agreed with her, and that she thought the dress was "amazing."

The next morning, Ally woke up to her alarm, and hundreds of messages from all of her "friends" at school talking about how happy they were that today was graduation day, how exciting everything would be after high school, and how they couldn't wait to hear her valdedictorian speech. Valedictorian speech? Crap. She frogot to write a valedictorian speech! "Oh well, I'll just wing it, and say something corny and sweet," Ally thought to herself as she made her bed, and began to get herself ready for her very last day of high school.

A few hours later, Ally was at her school, graduation ready; she had on the horrible dress her mother wanted her to wear, gown, cap, heels, her blond hair in curls, and a full face of make up. She chatted with her friends, pretending to be super pumped about her valedictorian speech, as everyone waited in a large line in the hallway, waiting for the principal to start calling names. A few moments later, the seniors could hear the principal begin to speak, and they shut themselves up. "Good morning, ladies and gentleman, and welcome to the Martill Private High School Graduation. Your support means the world to not only your children, but to us as well, because without you guys blah blah blah blah blah...." Ally started tuning him out after about twenty seconds into his little ramble on speech. After what seemed like forever, the principal finally began to start reading off names. At the very end, Ally's name was called, and she was to give her valedictorian speech. She got the most applause out of anyone, as she walked up on stage to recieve her diploma, and shake the adminstators hands. After that was all done, Ally walked up to the microphone to give her speech. She wasn't sure if it was the heat of the moment, or if she had just gotten fed up of everyone in the town and their robotic attitudes, but Ally ended up saying something that she never thought she would say. "Good morning, and congragulations to all of you on recieving your high school diplomas. To be honest, I completly frogot that I was supposed to write a speech, but now that I'm up here, I want to say something that I really feel, which is something that I have never done in my eighteen years of life. I want to challenge all of you to not live the rest of your lives like robots. I know that the expectation of everyone in this town is that we grow up to live the lives that our parents had lived; the white picket fence life with kids, and good jobs in a rich suburban neighboorhood. But I want to challenge you guys to find your own path after high school. Otherwise, you'll end up being misrable forever. I want you to try to do the research when it comes to politics and come up with your own conclusions rather than just listening to what your parents believe. And most imporantly, I want to challenge you all to be honest, not only with the people around you, but with yourselves. Thank you." At the very end of Ally's speech, her heart was racing. A few people in the audiance did some awkward, slow, clapping, but other than that there was complete and utter silence. Ally ran out of the building, and into her car. She drove until she reached the nearest airline. "Where is the next flight leaving to, I'd like to buy tickets," she said to the woman working with bags. The woman laughed in her face. "New York City. You're lucky sweety, there's one more ticket, and seat on the plane avilable," the woman said. Ally let out a sigh of relif, as she purchased the ticket from the woman, thanking her repeatedly. She didn't know what she was going to do in New York yet, but she knew that she had to get away from Martill, at least for the moment.