“Yeah, I know, you’ll break my nose,” I laugh.
I let my eyes roam the length of his body, his black button-up and slacks a contrast to my white-and-grey ensemble, and his Chucks a contrast to my loafers. The eyes that I’m not supposed to comment on are brighter these days. He’s onto a lower dosage patch now, and a few days ago, he willingly went through his stashes of ‘emergency cigarettes,’ whatever that means, and threw them in the trash.
I emptied out the cans as soon as he turned his back, just in case.
“Let’s go,” Julia says with an excited pat to my chest. “I want to see her before she walks the stage.”
‘Congratulations’ banners and decorative caps hang from a bunting draped across the port which covers the driveway. Accompanying them on the front lawn are picks stuck into the ground to signify the graduating class, and hung on the railing outside of the front door sits a sign which reads ‘party inside!’
I huff a laugh at the gaudiness of it all, because it’s so unlike my sister. Irina doesn’t decorate. She doesn’t host. She’s a very giving person, but she doesn’t love having people in her space unless she’s close with them; and she’s hosting an after party for her friends tonight.
A knock on the door opens to Grady who, to my surprise, is dressed in a full suit. A man of few words, he greets us with a nod, using his head to gesture into the house.
“She’s almost ready,” he tells us.
“Connie!”
Following the demanding shout, I trek toward the back of the house and into the bedroom, where my sister is standing before a tall mirror and fussing with the back of a navy blue dress that sits just above her kneecaps.
“Tie me,” she orders, shimmying her shoulders to bring attention to the thick bands of ribbon at her back.
My eyes move between my task and my sister’s reflection in the mirror while I work to tie the bands into a bow, the same one that I used to tie into her shoes and on her dresses when she was little, and the corner of my mouth pulls up.
As the ribbon finally takes shape into something resembling a poofy butterfly, we catch each others’ gaze in our reflection and I offer a shake of my head, warmth flooding my chest.
“If you ever get married, I’m completely screwed,” I tell her with a chuckle to force away the tightness building in my throat.
My hands grip onto her shoulders as she slips her feet into the rhinestone-lined shoes waiting for her.
“I would,” she tells me with a gesture out of the room. “If he asked, I would say yes.” A laugh forces itself out of her as she secures the final strap around her ankle. “But then you’d have to be my brother of honor, and you’d have to be in front of a crowd and make a speech, and I don’t want to deal with that.”
I follow as she floats effortlessly out of the room, offering a last-second adjustment to my tie before all of us pack ourselves into the waiting SUV. I sandwich myself between Irina and her boyfriend, because what kind of brother would I be if I didn’t mess with her at least a little bit?
We’re separated as soon as we reach the campus, the four of us going to find our seats while the graduates gown up and get ready for their ceremony; and my nerves are on fire the entire time.
It’s at least an hour of speeches and last names being called which don’t start with S before the name we’re waiting for is called. When it is, I can’t help but to shoot to my feet, hooting and hollering across the auditorium.
“Yes!” I shout, slapping my hands together. “That’s my sister!”
I don’t care that it’s rude. I don’t care that I can see her mortification from here to the small stage. I don’t care.
None of the people here know what she went through to get to this point, to be walking across that stage with her hard-earned diploma in hand and a dream of helping someone else the way that her counselors helped her.
And not a single one of these people matter at all to me, becauseshe did it.
Julia’s hand wraps itself around my forearm with a laugh as she pulls me back into my seat, and as I settle, I look toward the ceiling with my eyes blurring behind a wall of salt. My fingertips press against my lips and I send them upward.
You would be so damn proud of her.
Sitting through the rest of the ceremony feels almost more impossible than it was to sit through the first portion and wait to hear her name being called. My eyes burn as the sea of graduates reach for their tassels to swipe them across the tops of their caps, and I hope she can hear our dad cheering on his ‘Curly Sue’ as loudly as I can; even if she doesn’t remember what his voice sounded like.
The reception area is a mess as everyone filters into it, but I push through the crowd, temporarily leaving behind Tripp, Jules, and Grady in search of my sister.
“You are beyond embarrassing,” she calls out when I finally catch sight of her.
In spite of her scolding, a wide grin spreads across her face, her body slamming into mine as we wrap each other in a tight hug.
“We’ll have to do this all over again in two years,” she reminds me, and I press a hard kiss to the top of her head.
