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5/17/17
"I CAN'T BELIEVE we are done with school," my friend Chase states as excitement tears through his voice. He takes a pull from the beer in his hand and leans a head on Brad, his boyfriend's shoulder.
"I can," Hayley groans playfully as we all sit in the living room of our apartment. Our bodies lazy and drained from the amount of drinking we did the past weekend in celebration of being done with school. "This last semester sucked," she adds with a sigh.
I nod in agreement to her words. "I'm honestly more surprised we all finished on time," I tease before taking a sip of my spiked seltzer. We joked one too many times about failing a course this last year, and having to retake it over the summer and in turn graduate in August instead.
"Cheers to that," Chase salutes with a raise of his bottle.
We all follow along and lift our drinks to tap against his in honor of graduating from college just four days ago.
"Hey, you don't count yet," Chase calls Brad out after we all clinked our drinks together.
Brad rolls his eyes at my friend. "I have a semester left," he points out. "I count," he tells him before knocking the neck of his beer against Chase's playfully.
I sit back in the armchair and watch my friends with a smile pulling at my lips. The familiar feeling of seeing Hayley and Chase back together once again strikes my chest. They were attached at the hip for so long, an understanding of this world that only they seemed to comprehend. But after the inevitable fall out from Hayley pretending to be Chase's girlfriend over winter break and then falling for his older brother and outing him to the rest of his family, well we honestly didn't know if their friendship would ever come back together.
A part of me realizes that their friendship isn't fully back to where it was, but we can all hang out now and not feel uncomfortable. Chase can bring his boyfriend around, and Hayley can speak about Chase's older brother, Clayton, without any tension filling the room like a dam bursting. It wasn't too long ago that we couldn't do this, hang out all together. Laugh together. Just be us, and I didn't know how much I missed that till right now.
But slowly we all came back together. Because our friendship is one that has filled our bones and bonded us in a way that is unbreakable.
My teeth tease the skin of my bottom lip. "I can't believe Grayson is already gone," I murmur relaxing into the soft suede of the chair. "The apartment seems different without her," I comment as my eyes flicker to her now empty room. We haven't decided what we are going to do with her room yet as our lease isn't up until August and she already agreed to pay till then.
"It does," Hayley agrees instantly. Grayson and Hayley have been inseparable since freshman year. They've been by each other's side through every major moment and decision, and now Grayson is gone. If it's hard on me, I know it has to be breaking her down inside.
