The Unsuspecting

Prologue

    Graduation day has finally arrived! I thought I was never getting out of this self-righteous town. All I have to do now is survive the summer and I'll be moving out of state for college in August.  I'm not too worried about the summer though. I have my usual plan set so that I will work in the town 30 minutes away from mine during the day and my local job during the nights and weekends. I can feel the excitement already building up inside of me. 

    The ceremony is about to begin and I am currently with all my other classmates in the spare gym waiting for graduation to start. Everyone is taking selfies with their friends and I just roam from one group to the next.

    "Hey Annabelle!"

    I look behind me to find Stella waving and approaching me. Stella and I are in the same extracurricular activities and we work together at the local restaurant. She also doesn't have many close friends, but she does have an on again off again boyfriend in the grade below, which is more than I've ever had. 

    I leave the current group I'm with to stand by Stella. We briefly talk about work and her graduation party that will happen after the ceremony. We've never been the types to hold long and in-depth conversations. Often times we like to just stand next to each other in a comfortable silence. I think she just got used to silence because her closest sibling is 15 years older than her, so she basically grew up as an only child. I on the other hand learned to say as little as possible because people don't know how to react to my slow response time due to my dyslexia. It's not as noticeable anymore, but everyone here has known me since first grade and still remember how bad it was back then. To them, I will always be the person who struggles to form coherent sentences.

    Suddenly, I feel a presence over my shoulder and I hear the one person I despise the most at the school. 

    "Hey Stella! Come and take a photo with us!" Kacy said with a total disregard of my existence.

    Kacy has been out to get me since she stole my ex-boyfriend from me last summer. He graduated last year, so after our break up I was lucky enough to never have to see him around school, but I think I'd rather see him everyday than deal with his new girlfriend in half of my classes. 

    I can feel this pit of emptiness form in my stomach as I turn to look at her. She looks just as gorgeous as she does every other day with her long auburn hair, clear skin, petite nose, and light blue eyes. She's also wearing high heels even though she obviously doesn't need them when she's a few inches shy of being 6 foot tall. A couple weeks ago she told the entire English class that she wants to be a photographer and dabble in modeling. It took all I had not to scoff when she said that. 

    I sent a slight nod to Stella saying it's okay for her to leave for a photo and I walked away to join another group. Unlike most people in this small school, I was never really designated to a particular group. I often flitted around various lunch tables since I had an array of "friends". No one really disliked me aside from Kacy, but no one really loved me enough to want to hang out after school either. I guess I'm that person everyone loves to talk to when I'm around, but they all just assume I have a better life outside of school. I don't.

    Eventually the teachers made us line up according to our last names and we walked into the other gym for the ceremony. Most of it went by in a blur. There were speeches made by our valedictorians and the principal. The band played during various times and the choir kids stood in the center to sing a couple songs. Finally they started having the students stand up one row at a time to get their diplomas on the stage. You can hear families and friends roar and cheer for various students and for others there were a couple claps. 

    It's time for my row to approach the stage and I'm starting to sweat a little bit and my legs are shaking as I take the first few steps. Crowds make me nervous and all I can think about are the stairs I have to go up to get onto the stage. Unlike Kacy, I wore flats because I knew I did not want to fall flat on my face when I went up or down the stairs, but even that isn't helping much.

    "Annabelle Lea Gardner" My eyes snap up and I start to slowly go up the stairs. I take my diploma from my principal and shake the line of hands after his and descend the other staircase. This is where most parents would be rushing forward to take pictures of their kids, but as I look around I realized that like so many other school activities, they don't feel a need to participate in this tradition. I walk on to my seat and wait for the ceremony to finally be over so I can move on with my life.