I picked up my pace, taking the front steps two at a time to make it to the doors before Keenan could close them in my face for being too slow.
The atrium was already crowded with our classmates and family members who had gotten to the graduation ceremony early. Congratulations and chatter about college plans echoed through the halls.
My eyes scanned the sea of people in the lobby outside the gymnasium. No sign of Sierra yet. It wasn’t like her to be late for anything, much less something as important as graduating high school.
“Yo, Chase! What’s good, buddy?” One of Keenan’s friends, Jack, pulled him into a bro hug.
“Not much, just ready to get this shit over and done with.” Keenan’s mouth curved into a flashy smile, the type that had all the girls in our class falling at his feet.
“A-freaking-men, dude. I can’t wait to get out of this town for good.” Jack threw his arm over Keenan’s shoulder as they climbed up the short set of stairs leading to one of the common areas.
I checked my phone, noticing Sierra hadn’t read my message yet. Thinking maybe she just didn’t get the notification, I shot off another text to her.
Are you going to be here soon?
After scanning the gymnasium for Sierra—maybe she’d gone inside early—I realized I still needed to grab my cap and gown.
“Hey, Hayden!” A few of my classmates called out their greetings as I passed them in the halls.
I waved at a couple of them and gave the others a brief hello or a head nod.
Today would likely be the last day I saw a lot of them. Most of my friends planned to go to school out ofstate—or at least out of Goldfinch. I, on the other hand, was perfectly okay with going to school at Sapphire Gulch.
I’d tried to get Sierra to apply for SGU with me. If I was able to get a rodeo scholarship, there was no way she wouldn’t also get one. But she’d brushed me off or changed the subject every time I’d asked, a sad glint in her eyes.
I knew she had a complicated relationship with her family. If I was being honest, “complicated” was an understatement. Her dad was a piece of shit, and everyone in town knew it. Spencer Bayley had been arrested more than a couple of times in the four years I’d known Sierra. I probably knew far more than she intended. Even though she tried her hardest to keep secrets, I could read her like a book.
Something was bothering Sierra. I knew it because she’d been avoiding me all week, and a bad feeling settled in my chest.
“Skip! Wait up!” I called her name down the hallway, but she didn’t stop like she normally would, keeping her head down as she continued walking through the waves of students trying to get to class.
Slamming my locker shut, I jogged after her, eventually catching up. She was no match for my five-foot-eleven stature.
“Sierra, hey.” I lightly touched her elbow, but she flinched back like my hand was a hot iron that just branded her skin.
Recognition, then something like shame, flickered in her expression. “Oh, hey, Hayden.” She wouldn’t maintain eye contact with me, her emerald eyes always averting toward the ground or the ceiling.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, trying not to sound overly concerned.
Her walls immediately went up like a shield, and her mouth set into a hard line. “Why wouldn’t everything be okay?”
I tried not to let it hurt me, but Sierra and I didn’t keep secrets, and knowing she was holding things back from me stung. Especially since I was confident I already knew what she was keeping from me. “I just feel like you’ve been avoiding me. You know you can talk to me if you need anything, right?”
Her gaze flicked up and down and back up. “Yeah, whatever. I’ve been busy, okay? You don’t need to keep tabs on me.”
I knew she didn’t mean it. This was her defense mechanism. She pushed people away so she didn’t have to be vulnerable. I’d known her for over two years now—spent almost all of my weekends with her—so I knew when she was trying to deflect.
It was hard to stand by, though, especially after knowing what had happened last week. My dad didn’t want to tell me, but I would have found out eventually.
Everyone would.
The slam of a locker forced me out of my thoughts, and I remembered where I was.
Cap and gown. Right.
It was like I was in a trance, moving through a dream sequence where everything was distorted and blurry. All I could think about was Sierra as I moved through the motions to get my cap from my locker and shrug on my graduation gown.
It wasn’t until Keenan grabbed my hand to pull me down the hallway that I snapped out of it.
