Vice

1: Graduation Day

Natara Leeson is dying inside as her classmates cheer and graduation caps dance in the air around her. 

The last thing she wants to do is cheer, smile, or celebrate. Why can't she stay in high school forever? Hanging out with her semi-distant not-quite-friends, watching Korean dramas, and occasionally doing homework sound way better than facing that terrifying, totally unknown monster: The "adult" world.

What is she supposed to do now? School had its bad days, sure, ones that were full of tests and late-night project boards with haphazard last-minute research glued on. Ones where her friends snubbed her, where she felt sick but she had to go anyway, and that one awful day when someone threw chewed gum across the bus and it hit Natara in the back of the head. 

She had to wear it off the bus, embarrassingly, and (at her mom's insistence that it would help get the gum out easier) she'd spent the whole afternoon smelling like peanut butter.

But even the worst days of school felt better than the future she now faced: Adulting. 

Natara reaches upward, grabs a strand of her long, curly black hair, and twists it between her fingertips. In her other hand, she holds the preliminary copy of her diploma. It's the fake version they give everyone before they send the real ones out in the mail weeks later.

And that's how Natara feels right now. Like she's a fake adult. How long ago was it when she was in middle or elementary school? How many years ago was she first learning to speak and read? How far back was it when she was clutching at the ankles of her mama's floral house dress, begging for just one more piggyback ride?

God, I'm so not ready for this. Natara raises her eyes toward the clouds and lets out a hard sigh. How does everyone else seem so calm? How can life move so quickly? None of that was that long ago. At least, it didn't feel like it was.

It didn't help that Natara's friends didn't understand, either. They were all excited to leave school, hyped to experience college, and looking forward to pursuing the careers they'd planned since freshman year.

"We're finally done with high school," one of them said when Natara brought it up to them, "isn't that cause enough to celebrate?"

And maybe it was cause enough to celebrate, but Natara doubted everything that came after the initial celebration. It always seemed terrifying to enter the workforce. Where would she start?

The problem was that Natara didn't know what she wanted to do. She wasn't good at anything. Average, sure, at a lot of things. Mediocre at making friends, okay at doing her hair and makeup, and decent at getting C's in class. But she was nothing special.

She wasn't as artistic as Derek, who sat in the back of the class drawing super-realistic portraits of people. She wasn't as smart as Mariah, who aced every math test the teacher passed out. She wasn't as sociable as Dustin, who could make anybody laugh and feel comfortable.

Natara was just...average. She couldn't even keep high enough grades to get accepted to college. And, in high school, that was a failure. Especially when she saw other kids called up for the honor roll, getting praised for their 3.5 and 4.0 GPAs, and having their art posted in the halls.