Can't Live It Down

The wind whipped through the air making the heat of the June weather seem a little less hotter. The once abandoned soccer field was filled with those uncomfortable orange chairs all resting in front of a pop up stage. A banner that hung over the stage read, “Congratulations Class of 2009.”

All over the field, parents were hugging their children and preparing to take their seats to watch their children graduate. The graduates sat in their cap and gown awaiting the ceremony to start so they could finally call themselves college students and could happy drive home and pack their bags and go off to whatever beautiful college they planned on going to.

Then there were the few whose parents couldn’t make it and they just say in their assigned chair thinking about what they really wanted to do with their lives. Did they want to go to college? Or did they want to stay at home and live with cats or follow in their parents footsteps and run their business.

For eighteen year old Casey, all she wanted to do was to get out of this town. All she wanted to do was push her life in this small little town behind her and forget every little thing she ever did, said or saw behind and as she sat in that orange chair, the back of it marked with her name she couldn’t help but to remember everything that happened once she started high school. She couldn’t help remember how it changed her. How everything that has happened in the past four years flipped her life upside down and when she looked around she wished she could see her parents there for support but instead she saw no one. No one there to congratulate her for graduating in this school who pushed you to the brim where you had no time for fun and work and just time for homework and studying. Where every girl except Casey wore these cute little shoes that cost hundreds of dollars while she was stuck with farming boots and where every other girl wore clothes that showed off their curves, Casey was stuck with hand-me-downs from her older brother.

Casey shifted uncomfortably in her seat, waiting for the long awaited ceremony to begin. Her eyes wandered around the field, looking for no one in particular. Yet, she was at the same time. She always looked for one person. One person who she would continue looking for and as the ceremony began and the students began to take their place in the alphabetically sat chairs, she couldn’t help but wonder why he couldn’t be there that day.

“Welcome parents and welcome students of the class of 2009. You’ve finally all made it here. How does it feel?” their principle stood at the podium, waiting for an excited reply from the student body which she full-heartedly got from most of the students. Most of them meaning all but Casey, who couldn’t help but to sit in that orange chair, racking her memory until all the way back to the summer before freshman year started and before the four years that changed her life began.