The glue had dried unevenly. I loved it anyway.
Around me, families filled the rows with balloons and flowers and signs that said Class of 2026. A little girl kept yelling her brother’s name even though the ceremony had not started. A father in a baseball cap wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. A mother near the aisle held up her phone and whispered, “There she is,” like her daughter was a miracle walking on two legs.
I watched them.
I am not going to pretend that watching them did not hurt. It did. It hurt in the specific way that borrowed light is not the same as your own.But I also thought: I see you. I see all of you, and I am glad these moments exist, and I am going to be someone who notices them and does not look away from them just because they are not mine.
When my name was called, I stood.
“Renata Morales.”
My classmates cheered. I heard them. I smiled because I had to. But my eyes went searching through the rows anyway. I looked for my mother. I looked for my stepfather. I looked for Chloe, even though Chloe had already told me makeup mattered more.
There was no one.
Just strangers clapping politely and an empty seat I had been saving in my head since I was a little girl.I shook the dean’s hand. I accepted the diploma. I walked across the stage in the rented gown with the uneven glitter cap and the aching feet, and when I reached the other side, I exhaled a breath I had been holding since I enrolled.
After the ceremony, I took one photo outside with my diploma. A classmate named Amanda snapped it for me under the campus lights. The air smelled like cut grass and hot pavement. My cheeks hurt from smiling the way people smile when they are trying not to cry.
