Skyler
“Smile, ladies!”
Cassie holds out her Polaroid camera as far as she can with all of us piled into Erin’s queen-size bed, taking a picture with a grunt. When she pulls the photo out and starts waving it around, she frowns.
“You cut off all our faces?” I tease.
“Surprisingly, no — but I look like I’m taking a poop.”
“You do not,” Erin argues, stealing the picture with a smile. “We all look perfect.”
It’s the night before graduation for Erin, Ashlei, and Jess, and with all their families coming into town and graduation parties and campus-wide celebrations, this will be our last chance to be all together, just the five of us.
Maybe for a very long time.
My heart twists, and I hug Cassie tight. “Welp, it’s just going to be me and you now, Little.”
“Hey! We’re not dead,” Ashlei argues.
“We’re not even leaving the zip code,” Erin adds.
“Still, it won’t be the same without you here here,” Cassie says with a pouty lip.
We all fall quiet at that, and I roll over to squeeze Jess. “You okay over here?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” she says on a sigh, scrubbing her hands over her tired face. “I’m trying to be present, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t all the way fucked up right now.”
“I cannot believe Jarrett is here,” Cassie says.
“I can’t believe Jarrett and Kade are brothers,” Ashlei chimes in.
Jess just groans, rolling until her face is buried in the covers. “Just kill me now.”
“What are you going to do?” Erin asks.
“Move to Mexico?” Jess answers hopefully, popping her head up long enough to say the words before she face plants in the pillows again.
I chuckle, sweeping her hair back. “It’ll be okay. You’re with Kade now. Jarrett lost his chance, right?”
There’s a long pause, and the girls and I exchange worried glances.
“Can we just talk about something else for now?” Jess begs.
“Sure. I can join in your misery and remind you again how I fucked up the best thing to ever happen to me,” Ashlei offers.
“Lei,” Erin says sadly.
“I was just trying to make a joke,” Ashlei says, holding her hands up.
“But, honestly? I’m doing okay. I think I’m starting to accept it…
at least, a little bit. I wish he would talk to me, but I can’t force him to.
” She shrugs. “There’s nothing left to do, really, but to pick myself up and move on. Starting with a new job.”
“Have you been putting in applications?” I ask, letting her avoid the fact that I know she’s not okay.
Ashlei is a lot like me in that regard — when she’s hurting, she doesn’t want to make a big show of it.
She just wants to pretend like everything is fine and that she’s moving on to bigger and better things.
But we’ll be here when she needs to fall.
“I haven’t had to. As soon as word got out that I was leaving Okay, Cool, my phone started ringing off the hook. I’ve got offers all over Miami and in other states, too.”
Jess leans up and glares at Ashlei. “You’re not allowed to leave. Not right now.”
Ashlei chuckles. “I’m not going anywhere, Bossy Pants.”
Jess face plants into the pillows with another grunt.
“You’re going to be amazing, no matter where you end up,” Cassie says to Lei. “And, I agree with Jess. I just want you all to stay here. Forever.”
“Says the one who will leave for med school,” I point out.
“Well, when that happens, you all have my permission to leave, also.”
We laugh at that, and Erin catches my eyes from across the bed. “So, a little birdie told me that Kip is transferring here for the spring semester?”
I bite my lip, nodding. “That little birdie would be correct. And, he’ll be here for the summer, too.”
“How?” Cassie asks with a frown.
“He’s going to be working on his show… about us.”
“As in, how you two met?” she asks.
“As in everything — how we met, our crazy dating story, the tournament, all of it. His professors loved the concept and want him to bring it to life. He has through the end of the summer to shoot the pilot season, and then he’ll submit it to compete for the chance to turn it into an online series hosted through the university. ”
“Holy shit!” Ashlei says on a grin. “That’s a big deal.”
“It is,” I agree. “I’m so proud of him.”
“So, do you get to help with casting?” Erin asks.
I laugh. “Oh, whether he knows it or not, I will be casting director — especially when it comes to who plays me.”
“They’ll never find anyone who comes close to the real thing,” Ashlei says.
“What about you, Little? What are you doing for the holidays?” I ask Cassie.
“Adam and I are going to see our families… it’ll be the first time for him meeting my parents and me meeting his aunt.”
“Wow, big step,” Erin says.
“It is… but we’re ready. We’ve both decided this is it — no more games, no more letting other people get between us or standing in our own way. We just want to be together. Zero drama.”
“Good luck with that,” Jess says, her voice muffled by the comforter.
I pat her ass sympathetically.
“But there’s something I wanted to tell you guys…” Cassie continues, biting her lip. “I’m going to graduate early.”
Erin cocks a brow. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’m ahead in my classes. My GPA is killer, surely enough to apply to my med schools of choice. Adam graduates next semester, and Big,” she says to me, smiling. “I think I want to graduate with you. Next fall.”
I beam. “One last year together.”
“One last year to raise some serious hell,” she agrees.
“I’m proud of you.” I wrap her in a hug, and then Erin takes her turn.
“Oh, and I was thinking… I know I’m a little late now, but… what if I did take a Little next fall? I’d only have one semester with her, but then she could start her own family, carry on our line.”
At that, Erin sits upright, her eyes welling. “Wait. Are you serious? You really want to take a Little?”
Cassie nods. “I really, really do.”
Something of a squeal comes from my Big, and then there’s more hugging, and Jess makes a comment under her breath about us being entirely too mushy for her current depressed state.
She gets the next round of smushes.
For a long time, we just lie there in bed, cuddling and reminiscing on the past few years. Sometimes we laugh, other times we cry, and through it all, we hold onto each other and the memories we’ve made.
Everything is about to change.
It feels that way at the end of every semester, but this one is unlike any I’ve felt before. I’m officially the president of Kappa Kappa Beta — a responsibility I won’t take lightly — and with Jess, Lei, and Erin graduating, it’ll just be me and Cassie left.
The changing of the tides is cold and unfamiliar, and it leaves me wishing I could wrap myself up in what has always been and never let it go.
But this is the way life is. It’s constantly ebbing and flowing, throwing us into new waters, testing our ability to float.
One thing I know for sure is that no matter where these girls end up in the world, we’ll always have each other.
And as long as that’s true, there’s nothing we can’t survive.
“Welp,” Erin says when it’s almost midnight, rolling out of bed. “As much as I’d love to just pass out right now, my bag isn’t going to pack itself.”
I frown. “Don’t you mean your entire room?”
Erin shakes her head. “Nope. Mom and Dad are going to take care of packing up my room, actually. They’re going to store everything at their house until I get back.”
Jess sits up, blowing her hair out of her face. “Back? Back from where?”
“I don’t know, actually,” Erin says with a blush.
The girls and I exchange looks. “Okay…” I say after a minute. “You mind telling us what the hell you’re talking about?”
Erin giggles — giggles, like a freaking kindergartner. “Gavin and I are going on a trip.”
“What?!”
We all say it at once, and then it’s a chaos of questions — Where? For how long? Is this safe? —before Erin holds out her hands to shush us all.
“We don’t know where we’re going,” she says with a smile. “That’s kind of the point.”
Jess blinks. “I’m confused.”
“We’re going to let two strangers in the airport choose our gate, and then we’re just going to buy a ticket and… go.”
“Go,” Ashlei repeats. “You’re just going to get on a plane and fly wherever that plane is going with whatever you can fit in that bag.” She points at the suitcase Erin has unfolded on the floor.
“Yep.”
“Who are you and what have you done with our best friend?” Jess asks.
Erin laughs, jumping back into the bed with us.
“I haven’t been this excited in a long, long time, you guys.
I trust Gavin. And I know it’s out of character for me but…
hell, I’m about to be in law school. There won’t be any time for fun.
” She shrugs. “This is all I have for a while, and he wants to make the most of it.”
“I like him,” I say, definitively.
“Me, too,” she whispers, her eyes meeting mine. “As much as it terrifies me, me too.”
Cassie sighs, throwing her arms around all our necks. “I can’t believe this is it. This is our last cuddle session in this bed.”
“Hey, this bed is about to be mine,” I remind her. “Consider it open for cuddle seshes.”
Cassie holds out her pinky. “Let’s make a promise. Anytime anyone needs us, all they have to do is say the word, and we’re right here in this bed. No matter what.”
We somehow manage to all loop our pinkies in one giant knot, and then we lean forward to kiss our knuckles, laughing when we bump heads.
And again, I’m reminded that no matter how things change, no matter what bumps lie ahead, I’m surrounded by the strongest, smartest, most badass girls to ever live.
The bonds of sisterhood don’t just go away with graduation… and thank God for that.
Because something tells me we’re going to need each other more than ever.