Only a Storm

Final Candle - 3,347 Days After

Today was a turning point in my life. It wasn't an end, it was a beginning. It was the first step to my adult life. At least, that's what the valedictorian said in her rambling speech. Her position could have been mine, considering that my grade point average was at least point two higher than hers, and after sitting on this torture device they called a chair for a few hours, I wish I'd taken the time to volunteer at just one school event - one of the conditions for valedictorian here at Grovesworth High. Instead, the day of the last school event before they chose the valedictorian, I had gone to Stella's Styles, my store of choice, with Roxie.

It was Stella's that we went to at Roxie's suggestion the summer before ninth grade. That's where I bought my first closet full of artfully faded jeggings and patterned skirts to wear over them, fluffed out with petticoats, my vibrant crop tops in all different colors and styles, with a dozen colors of tanks to wear under them. It's where I got my first pair of two inch platform combat boots, so I could stomp the world when it annoyed me and hit five four. It was the only place eccentric enough to match my colorfully streaked hair, which had never held less than three different colors since that first time I dyed it in Roxie's bathroom, despite all of my Dad's protests. Mom, as it happened, adored my new style, and was the reason Dad got nowhere in his attempts to change it.

Since this horrid ceremony started, I was only allowed to stand once - when they acknowledged the three students to have taken and passed a full AP course load. That made me feel very bittersweet. If He were here, He would have stood then too. I stiffled the compulsion to tap my locket. Instead I reached for one of the jingling bangles that usually sat on my wrists, momentarily forgetting that I hadn't been allowed to wear anything interesting to spice up this horrible polyester graduation robe. It was a very unflattering shade of artificial blue - even my electric eyes couldn't pick up any color from it.

I scanned the audience, quickly zeroing in on my parents sitting in the second row. Time hadn't changed them one bit since I was a child. They were still as bright and energetic as always. Mom held a camera tightly in front of her, taking an endless stream of pictures of me sitting on this evil chair, doing absolutely nothing. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Parents.

I refocused on valedictorian Annise Powers and almost sighed in relief. I recognized this part of her speech from the dry run the other day. She was talking about how, in spite of our differences, our class was a family, sisters and brothers who we would keep in touch with for the rest of our lives, etc, etc, etc. We had almost finished. I thought about how much more interesting this speech would be if I were valedictorian. Maybe I'd tell them about the time that we had tried to stay at the school overnight, but everyone ran away screaming after Patricia knocked over a bag of flour in the cafeteria, because the resulting puff of dust resembled a ghost. Or maybe I'd really shock them by telling them about the romantic trysts and sex scandals that only I was privy to, through the whispers of my winged delusions, who, as I had learned over the years, were never wrong about a good scandal. I smiled a tiny smile to myself. I didn't know how, but they always were. Sometimes I even wondered if maybe I'd been wrong all along, and I wasn't imagining things at all. Then I'd remind myself that I didn't want to live in a padded room, and push the thought aside.

At long last, Annise finished with the ending sentence of, "Thank you all for helping us arrive here today," and returned to her seat, the yellow rope around her neck swinging in time with her neon green tassel.

Yes. Our tassels were green. Why? Because the girl in charge of bringing them to school after they were delivered to her mom spilled the hair dye she'd been prepping for me on them by mistake, and the electric blue on the yellow strings had made this lovely shade. I glanced at the culprit where she sat six seats down from me, our positions being dictated by our alphabetized last names.