Senior Summer

Typical, young, girl meets boy story.

As I approached the entrance to the conference center, I was feeling good. I was wearing my favorite black sundress, sparkly silver sandals, and bright red lipstick, and I carried myself with confidence. Look good, feel good, right? I pulled open the heavy double doors & let the breeze blow my hair back. I was ready. 

            Walking through the halls towards the auditorium, I saw lots of familiar faces, stopping to chat or say hi to each as I passed by. I saw my mentor, Jim, standing off to one side and bounded up to him. “Hey Jim!” I exclaimed with my signature, dazzling smile spread across my face. He sized me up and scoffed. 

            “Wow, you clean up nice,” he teased, allowing sarcasm to satiate his words. I stuck my tongue out at him before curtseying and doing a twirl. He pulled me into a hug and introduced me to the people around him. “Are you here for the graduate ceremony?” he questioned. I responded with a quick nod and allowed my eyes to scan the area for any sign of a check in booth. “They’re in through those doors,” he answered with a nod of his head before I could even ask. “You’ll see Nick and Sam. They’ll know what to do.” I smiled and nodded graciously before bounding off in the direction he’d pointed.

            “Em!” I heard Sam exclaim as soon as I was in sight. I flashed that smile again before skipping over to greet him and Nick with hugs. 

            “What’s up guys?” I cheered. They both muttered something about school and work before shrugging and turning back to Sam’s older brother. “Hey, you two!” I interrupted. When they’d turned back to face me, I asked, “Where am I supposed to go for this whole graduate recognition thing?” Nick pointed to a table where two of my favorite teachers stood. Excitement overcame me once again & I ran off, yelling a quick, “Thanks!” over my shoulder as I went.

            I waved energetically at my teachers before slouching back a bit to avoid intruding on the family in front of me. There was an old woman with snow-white hair, a younger woman with reddish-blonde hair, a tall boy, I assumed the fellow graduate, with blonde hair- make that brown hair with blonde highlights, and two younger children. I didn’t recognize them from the back, so I waited quietly behind them, limiting my intrusion to only talking to the male teacher, Mr. Peters while the female, Mrs. Lily checked them in. After a few minutes of chatting, I overheard Mrs. Lily ask the boy what he was going to study, to which he responded, “Psychology.” I looked over in time to catch a glimpse of the boy I’d never seen before.

            Weird. I knew I’d been gone for a while, but I knew pretty much everyone in this area. I’d seen them at least. Now I was intrigued. I made small talk while being checked in with Mrs. Lily and Mr. Peters, but my mind was elsewhere. I hoped they didn’t notice my preoccupation too much. I really hoped they didn’t suspect that it had anything to do with the mystery boy. As soon as I was checked in, I rushed off in the direction the family had gone, wanting to learn more about the Psych major who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. 

            When I entered the auditorium, he was nowhere in sight. I sighed and grinded my teeth, annoyed. It was already packed, and the assembly didn’t start for a whole half an hour. I retreated back to the hallway and asked one of the ushers where the graduates were supposed to sit. After only half-hearing her instructions, I nodded and thanked her and rushed over to that area. As I approached it, I recognized the boy’s blonde highlights and couldn’t help but smirk when I realized he was sitting next to some old friends of mine. I took a deep breath to regain my cool, calm and collected composure, and strode over to where they were sitting.

            “Hey Lyd!” I exclaimed, sliding into the row behind my friends. Theirs was pretty crowded, so I didn’t want to be a burden. Plus, this put only three small, empty seats between me and my mystery boy. I hugged Lydia, followed by Alexis and Jordan and sat back into my seat. As I talked to Lydia, I noticed Alexis and Jordan talking to the boy and thanked the lord for this happy coincidence. “Who’s that?” I whispered, nodding my head towards the boy. Lydia’s eyes darted over to him and back to me where she hesitated a minute before replying.

            “That’s Mason Carlisle. He goes to our school.” The way she said it made it clear that she wasn’t going to elaborate. It was weird. But I didn’t care. I now knew who the boy was. We both turned, inserting ourselves into the others’ conversation. They were saying something about the beach, and disliking the ocean. They were talking about the beach retreat! 

            “Are you going?” I asked. The question was clearly directed towards Mason, considering I already knew the other three were, and I was only looking at him. He turned towards me, and flashed a smile equally, if not more brilliant than my own. I was stunned. I did not expect mystery boy to look like some sort of Greek god. He had gorgeous, sun-kissed skin, bright blue eyes, an adorable crooked smile that was complete with dimples and everything, and he wore thick black glasses that probably would have looked goofy on anyone else, but looked amazing on him. I allowed my eyes to travel downwards, taking in his extremely toned arms and clean-cut outfit. Why was I just now meeting Mason Carlisle?

            “No,” he said, looking down and pursing his lips. He peeked up at me apologetically as he offered his explanation. “I have swim. I can’t miss it.” Lydia teasingly pointed out that he could swim at the beach retreat, and he laughed. How was it possible for him to look even hotter than before? “Ah, yes, but it’s not the same. Plus the ocean freaks me out.” Jordan immediately began defending the beauty of the ocean, and the two boys were soon too lost in their own conversation to notice us. Hmph. 

            In surrender, I turned to Lydia and dove into my own ocean-scare story to try not to let them see my disappointment. As I finished up telling her about the time I was stranded on a float, surrounded by jellyfish for over an hour, someone made a quick motion towards us. Whoever this person was had caught me off-guard. I was so deeply successful at distracting myself in my story that I actually flinched. Hopefully, nobody noticed.

            As I recovered from my temporary state of panic, I realized that the motion was pointing, and that the person pointing was Mason. I also noticed that he was speaking. Crap. I tuned in just in time to hear him say, “… exactly why I’m afraid of the ocean.” I politely giggled, giving myself time to figure out what he was referring to. Eventually I put the pointing and the end of the sentence together to realize that he was talking about my story. Huh. I grinned. So they hadn’t been too lost to notice us. At least Mason hadn’t. 

            I sat back in my chair, smiling bigger now, and continued conversing with the boys until it was time for the assembly to start. Considering I couldn’t get my mind off of Mason, and the fact that he sat a mere three feet from me, I barely heard a word the speaker said until I recognized two- my name. Crap again. I stood up and scurried up the steps onto the stage. Why was I always such a spaz? I half-grimaced, half-smiled as I glided over to Mr. Peters. He handed me a certificate and shook my hand before sending me off to the rest of the grads. Of course, I ended up in the very middle. 

            It was only after I’d taken all of that in that I realized who was standing next to me. Not even a foot away. I timidly glanced to my left to see Mason smiling confidently at the crowd. Ugh. Where was cool, calm, collected Emily when you needed her, you know? I hurriedly returned my gaze to the crowd of people and did what I did best. I smiled. And smiled, and smiled until they were done calling all of the names. 

            Naturally, the person on my other side ended up being my ex, Luke. I sighed. This was less than ideal. As if being next to Mason wasn’t increasing my heart rate enough, I just had to be between the two. It’s fine. I was fine. Before I knew it, the speaker was telling us graduates to hold hands. Something about unity or teamwork. I wasn’t really sure, but I knew I was extremely close to freaking out. Luke was already reaching out towards me. I cringed. Luke was a nice guy. Actually, Luke was one of the best people I knew, and our breakup wasn’t messy at all. But holding his hand was still weird. 

I sighed and took it, then turned to my left to find Mason’s hand outstretched, waiting for me to grasp it. He gave me a reassuring look, which I returned, and scooped up my hand before I could even think about it. Instantly, all of the nerves in me vanished. Weird. I stood up a little straighter and literally felt the tension leave my body. Holding hands with Mason wasn’t nerve-wracking at all. It was… comfortable. Unlike Luke. While Mason had managed to melt all of my nerves on his front. I was still very much aware of the awkwardness between Luke and me. 

But who cared? I certainly didn’t. I was holding hands with Mason, and it felt right. Man, I really wanted a boyfriend. No, I really wanted Mason. 

Author's Note

Any and all comments/criticism is accepted. I'd prefer it if you were somewhat nice about it, but if not, that's cool too. Writing is just a hobby for now, and I could use some advice to see if it can grow into something more. This is in no way a complete story. Just something I jotted down, and wanted to see a response before deciding to move forward with it.