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I glance back at the audience, knowing Elijah is there somewhere, watching me. I can’t pick him out in the crowd, but I know he’s there, those blue eyes crinkling with pride.
“Raquel Clearwater,” the speaker says.
My feet move, taking me across the stage to where I shake someone’s hand, and then I’m given a fake diploma and I move forward, shaking someone else’s hand. I guess it’s the dean, but things move so quickly my head is spinning. At the top of the stairs, I pause, smiling — I’ve been smiling this whole time — while a photographer snaps my picture.
As I walk down the stairs, following the graduates in front of me as we head back to our seats, I realize I’ve been handed more than just a diploma. Wrapped around the cardboard tube with a rubber band is an envelope.
My name is written on it in pink Sharpie.
Hands trembling, I somehow make it back to my folding chair in the middle of the floor, in the sea of burgundy and gold graduation gowns.
I rip open the envelope. My heart shoots up to my throat when I see a fat cat dressed like a professor, a shiny red apple on a desk and books stacked up next to it.
I glance around. Everyone is on their phones, heads pressed together to snap a selfie, some turning around and waving at their parents. On the stage, the rest of my graduating class continue getting their diplomas.
I open the card.
Hey there Miss Graduate,
Did you miss me? I bet you’re wondering how I pulled this one off, huh? Well, it was easy. You’ve had your heart set on being a vet since you were eight. I knew you’d choose Texas State University because it has a great science program and I knew you’d never leave Texas because, well, I just know you.
The rest was easy. I contacted Dean Marshall and told her my story. She said it was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard, and promised to deliver this card to you on your graduation day.
This is a big day, Raquel. It’s only one of the big days that will happen in your life, and although I’m not actually there, hollering your name like a crazy person from the stands, know that I am still with you. I’m in your heart, and all that sappy BS, right? And I’ll be there when you graduate as a fully legit animal doctor and I’ll watch you from the clouds when you go on to save puppy lives and cut dried poop off Persian cat butts. (Hey, no one ever said the honorable field of animal doctoring was a glamorous job, Rocki.)
I hope you are living an awesome life, now that you are no doubt a super sexy twenty-something ready to conquer the world. How’s my brother? Did the two of you fall in love even though I told you not to? Are you two married? How are Mom and Dad? I realize by now that you’ve probably had to introduce them to Elijah, and they’ve probably put two and two together. I guess that’s okay. I just want you all to be happy.
I better see some gorgeous Rocki babies in the future. You tell them Auntie Sasha is watching them from heaven if they ever try to pull some teenage rebellion crap on you, okay?
Thank you for being the kind of friend who makes me want to go through these extraordinary efforts in my final days. It’s been a blast leaving notes for you. I can’t imagine a better way to slowly drop dead than to spend all my time making these adventures. So how about one more?
(Check the back of this card.)
Love you and miss you always,
Sasha
