flash

just in time for grad season

If he were here, he’d say that I don’t look like a circus tent. He’d say that everyone is wearing the same black trash bag robes. He’d also say we should have just celebrated at home, and that walking across a stage is a meaningless social symbol not worth our time, money, and anxiety. 

That’s what he said about his own graduation, anyway.

I tried to dress up, a thrifted white dress with the puffy sleeves he hates. I decorated my graduation cap with a childhood cartoon reference that I assumed more people would recognize but now just feels like I’m trying too hard. 

I get shoved into line with four hundred others, waiting in a hot dark corridor between strangers with proper regalia hanging from their necks while my neck is bare. No colorful cords draping down my front, no acknowledgments of the clubs I did not join, the sororities I was not a part of, or the achievements I did not achieve. A guy near me has his cap decorated with flowers and polaroids and ticket stubs, clearly inspired by his girlfriend featured in each white framed photo. A gregarious girl nearby has probably a dozen cords hanging from her neck, a rainbow of awards displayed along with her perfectly curled hair, and her black robe that hangs on her like it was designed for her frame. It does not swallow her like it does me, it drapes elegantly and I resent her for it. 

“Nice shoes,” scratches a voice beside me. 

I look up at the girl in line in front of me, she’d been on her phone the entire hour we’d been waiting in line so far. I’m shocked she is even aware that I’m here. He always said I blended into the background. Maybe her phone died. She’s wearing pants, checkered and plaid with big clunky black boots beneath them. Under her enormous black gown is a tiny green tank top, the thin straps fighting to stay on her shoulders. Around her neck hangs crystal necklaces wrapped in wire, and on the bridge of her nose, a pair of thin black sunglasses. She stares down at me, waiting for a response, but I am too distracted by the sharp blue eyeliner peeking out behind her glasses.

“Are they Docs?” She prompts again, her voice clearly molded by smoking. I looked down at my feet. They were. Cherry red platform sandals. 

“Mhm,” I reply with a nod, too sheepish to even say yes.

“They’re sick,” She says, leaning into the wall, her graduation gown nearly swallowing her small frame. “My mom’s gonna kill me when she sees I didn’t wear heels. We already fought over the pants.” She pulls her gown back to show off the maroon plaid again. They flare at the ankle and she shakes her leg to emphasize. 

“Thank you,” I somehow manage to slur out. 

“Why aren’t you standing with your friends?” She gestures off to groups of girls helping adjust grad caps and smudged mascara.

I struggle to find words for a moment, trying to find the best way to tell her I don’t have any friends, and thankfully she sees the pain on my face and interrupts.

“Yeah, I don’t have any either. Transfer student.”

“Me too.”

“Figures.”

Someone calls ahead and we shuffle a few steps forward. 

“My parents drove all the way from Sac for this,” She says, “what is it with parents and graduation anyway?”

I want to pipe up and say Well they paid for it, so if they wanna see me walk across a stage I will, but I hold my tongue. Not everyone gets their college paid for, Charley.

“Where are you going after this?” She asks, leaning against a metal railing. 

Why is she still talking to me?

“Oh, um, just home. My parents got a cake.” I say. Couldn’t even lie to fake a grad party, could you?

The girl laughs, shaking her head, her short dark hair brushing past her shoulders. “No, I mean like post-grad, what’s the plan?”

Oh.

“Grad school,” I say sheepishly. “In San Jose. But online. For library science.”

“Oh rad, that’s sick you can afford it.”

See?

We take a few steps forward into the sun now, she shrugs her gown off her bare shoulders and pushes her sunglasses on. 

“What about you?” I ask, stepping into the sun beside her.

“I leave tomorrow for New York,” she leans back, her pale shoulders warming in the sun.

“Oh, wow, that’s so cool!” I exclaim before cringing at my own excitement. 

You’re always so loud. His voice echoes in my head. You’re so enthusiastic it sounds fake.

“Yeah, I’m stoked. Not packed yet though, I’ll figure it out. Is your cap a library reference? For library science?”

“Yes!” I had spent hours the nights before watercoloring an image of Arthur from the PBS cartoon with bubble letters spelling out having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card. I had told him about it months ago and he said it was babyish. 

I thought he liked that, though?

“It’s literally the only original thing I’ve seen on a cap,” She laughs, “So many glittery sorority letters and fake flowers. The plastic from this graduation alone is going to warm our planet by a whole degree.”

We’re herded further down the line. Still in the sun. New York girl keeps her robe around her elbows, letting her bare shoulders warm in the sun. The trash bag robe is like wearing a portable sauna.

“So, who’s here for you? My mom and her boyfriend came. I don’t know why he’s here I’m pretty sure he hates my guts.”

“My parents, and my sister,” I say looking down at my feet. 

“Oh c’mon,” New York nudges me. “No boyfriend out there waiting with a bouquet? No MRS degree for you?”

I feel like throwing up. New York can see it on my face.

“Oh shit, PBS kid,” she says, taking off her sunglasses. She has an eyebrow piercing. “I was only kidding. Shit, are you okay?”

NO, I’M NOT OKAY! I want to scream it from the depths within me. I’ve been empty for months! My apartment is cold! There are bits of him everywhere! He is a ghost in my home and my town and no matter what I do he doesn’t go away!

The scream claws at my throat. 

“I’m okay,” I squeak out hoarsly. 

New York looks down at me concernedly, crossing her arms. 

“Cheater?” She asks so nonchalantly I wonder how many times she’d been lied to.

“I wish.”

It slipped out before I could stop myself.

“Damn, PBS kid,” New York puts her sunglasses back on. “That sucks. Sorry.” 

We’ve inched our way down the line, approaching the photo stand before crossing the stage. Names are already being called. When did that start happening?

The index card in my hand is getting soft corners from my sweaty hands and my fidgeting. It says my name in tiny shaky letters in the middle. I take a deep breath, that’s shaky too.

“You aren’t nervous or something, are you PBS kid?” New York asks, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Petrified,” I stammer.

“For real? It’s chill, nothing matters, seriously.”

“Things do matter,” I say back. 

It mattered what happened. I didn’t waste five years. Did I?

“No, I mean like literally, nothing matters,” New York says, pulling her robe back up. “Like failing math freshman year? Doesn’t matter, I’m still walking at graduation. Pissing off my mom by wearing pants instead of a dress? Doesn’t matter, we’ll both still live. Went negative in my checking out? Doesn’t matter, it’ll come back, always does.”

“Do you seriously live by nothing matters?” I say, feeling my heart rate rising again. “Everything matters.”

“Hey, hasn’t let me down yet,” New York shrugs. “I’m a college graduate about to live in Manhattan like I always said I would. Nothing matters got me this far.”

We’re inside now. In a hallway, approaching the wings of the stage. The noise of the announcer shakes the walls. I plug my ears. 

I follow New York, the sea of black gowns feeling like a weird snippet of a dream, a scene from a movie superimposed on my college. I was hardly here, can I even call it my college? I don’t even have any cords. Or a sash. I don’t even know the college President’s name, what is their name again? What if they don’t say my name right? People always say it wrong. I should have practiced walking in these shoes more before, what if I trip? He hates these shoes. He hated these shoes? When do I start putting him in the past tense? He isn’t dead but he sure feels like it to me. He was supposed to be here. He said he wouldn’t miss it for the world. He was supposed to be here. Why did he have to do this to me? Why did he have to-

“PBS? Hey, dude, what happened?”

I’m collapsed on the floor, the squeak of shoes anxiously filing towards the stage surrounding me. New York is the only one who stopped. She’s knelt before me, her sunglasses off, her robe is dropped down to her elbows again. 

Under her army green tank top, I realize New York isn’t wearing a bra.

“Dude,” she pulls me to my feet and picks up my graduation cap. “You almost killed Arthur.”

“I can’t do it,” I whisper. People keep moving around us toward the stage.

“What are you talking about? Do what?” 

“Graduate!”

New York laughs. “Are you kidding? Dude! You already have! This is just the ceremony.”

I shake my head. The sounds of the stage and squeaking shoes are filling my brain and pushing out all the words. 

“He said he would be here!” I almost have to shout over all of the commotion and people squeezing past us.

“The worse-than-cheater?!” New York laughs again, pulling me closer to the front of the line. Toward the stage. “Didn’t I tell you? Nothing matters!”

“No! Everything matters and everything sucks and I wish I didn’t come at all!” I say, tears filling up the bags under my eyes. I haven’t slept in days. I am so tired. “They are all gonna see I’ve been crying and they’ll say my name wrong and all of those people will look at me and feel bad for me. I’m fucking tired of people feeling bad for me!”

The boy with the cap with pictures of his girlfriend is called up. 

New York is up next.

Once she crosses that stage she’s gonna be gone too.

New York turns to look at me and smiles. Did I just make my first friend in college?

“Hey, good luck in grad school, PBS kid. You’ll kill it.”

I’m frozen, clutching my name card, as New York runs out on stage, running right past the faculty giving out handshakes and diplomas. She pauses in the middle of the stage, looking back at me with a mischievous smile. 

She mouths the words.

Nothing Matters.

The announcer stops midway through her name.

“With her bachelor's degree in Political Science, Congratulations Maris-”

Before he can finish, New York lifts her army green tank top to her chin. 

She flashes the audience.

Pierced nipples make eye contact with the crowd. 

Before I can even comprehend what's happening, what happened, two staff members whisk New York away and off the stage. She flips two middle fingers to the University President and shouts something about her tuition lining his paycheck, but I don’t hear the whole thing.

She’s gone. 

And it’s my turn to walk and no one is looking at me. They are looking at each other, asking themselves what the fuck just happened?

I walk across the stage slowly. 

I don’t trip over my feet.

I get my diploma.

I shake the hand of the College President. I still don’t know their name.

He’s not there.

They same my name wrong.

But nothing matters.

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