Chapter 45
It turns out that I could’ve killed more time before the ceremony.
From how long Dani’s acceptance speech is, we’re about to break the Saint Agnes record for longest graduation in the school’s history.
Dani already stood up before Sister Marissa announced the recipient of the Gold Leadership Award. She strutted up the stairs, carrying a whole journal with people she wanted to acknowledge for sticking with her through all her campaigns.
“This is for feminism, for allyship, for inclusion, for peace!”
She shouts out every single social justice cause to end her speech.
I laugh under my breath when I spy Kayla mouthing along to Dani’s speech like she’s watching her favorite singer perform.
Third-wheeling Kayla and Dani has made me warm up to some of Dani’s …
Dani-ness. I also figure it’s a good self-preservation tactic in case Dani Bautista actually does rule the world one day.
After Dani takes multiple selfies onstage and steps down, members of the faculty march in to award diplomas. Achi already turned in her resignation, but the school still invited her to go up, so she can see off her last graduating class.
Our row gets called and I pull on the hair tie on my wrist when the names get closer to mine.
The gap between me and the stage closes in and I force my feet to keep moving forward—it’s too late to back out now.
My eyes scan the gym filled with hundreds of people and I feel a tug in my heart when I find Ma’s face.
Auntie Baby is ordering around Seph and Dr. Derrick to help raise the giant posters she brought, but Ma is oblivious to all the chaos. She blows me a kiss from her seat and mouths, Go, Superstar.
Pa once told me that the secret of the universe is when something bad happens to you, the universe then owes you something good in return. To this day, I’m not sure if my dad really believed in the saying or if he was just making something up so I’d feel better.
Would he think that this is the universe’s way of balancing things out? The Ilagan family lost Ton, so Nika gets to graduate, Jackie gets to earn her PhD, and Beth gets to franchise her bakery.
I’m not sure how the world operates, but I’d like to look at it differently.
If good things happen after the bad, I don’t want to think that only bad things happen after the good.
Because making it here after everything my family has been through feels like something good—and I want to believe that the universe will always be capable of good things.
“Annika Nicole Lee Ilagan.”
Sister Marissa announces my name and my family’s corner of the gym erupts in cheers, most audibly from Auntie Baby.
I shake hands with my teachers onstage and stop short when I see my achi openly crying at the end of the line.
“Lost your shades today, Ms. Ilagan?”
She lightly punches my arm and tells me to go pose for my photo before I hold up the rest of the graduates. “Don’t hog the spotlight, Superstar.”
The photographer guides me to where I should stand and I make sure my necklace with the butterfly pendant is visible and centered.
This time last year, I never would’ve imagined I’d end up at graduation.
I always thought that not having my dad here would make all this seem empty, that it would feel like losing him all over again.
But being here surrounded by all these people who are my home and my family, it’s when I feel Pa most of all.
I still see him everywhere I go—and I sometimes whisper to the sky, telling him to please take care of himself.
Because if the moon can control the ocean’s tides, who’s to say that our dead loved ones can’t hear us?
Just as I make my way down the stage steps, I spy a small white butterfly land on my sleeve.
“We’re doing okay, Pa,” I whisper under my breath.
And I swear, I catch the butterfly smiling before it flutters away.