How to Stay Afloat

~28: Where She Finally Gets Closure~

CHAPTER 28:

Where She Finally Gets Closure

~~**~~

|Fallon|

"How's the speech coming along?" I asked Peyton as I placed an Ice Latte in front of her and slid into the seat across from her.

She'd been seated at the corner table at the coffee shop for the past hour working on her graduation speech. I had just gotten my break so I joined her.

"It's coming along horribly but thanks for asking." She said dramatically and I rolled my eyes good-naturedly.

Peyton was this year's valedictorian so, much to her dismay, she was responsible for delivering the final speech at our graduation ceremony which was only three months away.

She took a huge gulp of her Latte and moaned in bliss. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

I laughed. "You do but it's nearly not enough." I teased.

She sighed. "I can't believe I'm going to college next year and you're not going to be there with me." Her eyes suddenly shone with unshed tears.

I could feel a lump start growing in my throat.

Peyton had gotten a fully funded scholarship to California State University's Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Program. It was everything she'd ever dreamed of and I was absolutely thrilled for her. There wasn't a single soul on this planet who I thought deserved the Scholarship more than Peyton. I remembered the days when she'd stay up entire nights to study because she'd been working double shifts at her job.

For a moment I felt a pang of sadness. Everyone around me seemed to be heading somewhere, doing something. There was no way I could ever afford college and unlike Payton, my grades weren't good enough to get me a Scholarship. I just felt stuck.

"You know I'm going to call you all the time, right?" She sniffed.

"I know," I told her, my eyes were starting to get damp.

Even though there was no mistaking the happiness I felt for her finally achieving her dreams, there was also sadness because I knew it meant that she wouldn't be around all the time anymore.

The two of us had been inseparable pretty much since the first day of high school. I'd been sitting alone in the Cafeteria and all around me, people had been whispering about me, either talking about the plane crash that took my parents or snickering about my clothes. 

Peyton had walked straight up to me and asked to sit with me. She'd given me the prettiest smile and told me that she loved my pink sequence pants. And when I told her that they'd actually been curtains someone had thrown away and I'd salvaged them and sewn them into pants myself, she'd looked at me in awe instead of disgust. I'd known then and there that I'd love this girl.

"You better come visit me every weekend," I told her seriously.

Peyton laughed and her expression suddenly became mischievous. "And now that Archer might be going here as well you might just come on campus to see me every other day." She teased.

I could feel my heartbeat stutter at her words.

"What?" I asked breathlessly.

Peyton gave me a confused look, "Archer got accepted on scholarship to the same program I did." Her eyebrows drew together, "I got to know when I went to the career counselor a couple of days ago, she asked me if I knew whether he'd accepted the offer or not." She paused. "Didn't he tell you?"