Sexy SEALs by Sarwah Creed

10

Chaz had such a dirty mouth that it should have turned me off, but I couldn’t help but be turned on every time he sent me a text.

I wishI was there to see you graduate. C

I knewwhat he really meant, so I didn’t hesitate to texting back. He knew that graduating wasn’t an option. We had to go back home and quarantine for the next fifteen days.

You meanyou would like me to get on stage with no panties.

He wrote back within seconds,and I felt as if the moment I hit the send button, he had a reply already waiting for me. Was I really that predictable?

No,if I knew I could look up the stage, then that would be a different matter. Today, I just would love to see you, watch you feeling proud of all you achieved.

I didn’t havethe heart to tell him, that as much as I would love to do that. It wasn’t possible. The rumor started and then the next day, we had the email telling us we were back to lockdown again. No more enormous crowds and certainly no more ceremonies.

Already, Stanford had a backlog of ceremonies, they’d been promising to take place one day, but the rumor was the day would never come. We were in 2025, and no one thought it would take a back-turn so damn quick. Especially when the leaders said that the vaccines were working and the virus was a thing of the past.

My phone rang, and I rolled my eyes as I saw mom was calling me again, she’d called at least three times every day for the past three days. The reality of finding out that no ceremony was going to take place, and her calling me wound me up and I knew it wasn’t a good idea to pick up the phone, I had a feeling that I would take my frustration out on her.

“Hey mom.”

“Hey you. Just calling to find out if you’re still coming?”

There she went again, and it annoyed me even more.

“Life has a funny way of showing it’s face and spitting in it!” I said to mom on the phone, after she was trying to convince me once again, to hang around in campus and not rush back home.

“Do you have to be so depressing?”

I barked back, “Do you ever listen to me?”

She said, “Yes, I do Kiara. It’s just that the news are saying one thing, and you’re saying another.”

“Who do you believe your daughter or the news?”

“It’s not that I don’t want you here. It’s just that it would be a shame if you came here and then found out that if you’d stuck around that you could have graduated.”

“I’ll graduate anyway, that is, without a doubt. I need the grades to graduate, not the ceremony. If I stay here any longer, I could end up being quarantined here alone, nearly everyone has gone back home.”

“I don’t know why you’re upset. You can come home whenever you want, you know best.”

“Mom, I need to go,” I lied, thinking that we were arguing, I hadn’t even made it back home yet and we were already arguing and the idea of staying here didn’t feel like a bad one after all.

“Ok. Bye. Love you.”

I hung up, and then I sighed as I rolled back on to my bed. I got up early and I was going to head out, and leave campus.

“Why do you talk to your mom that way?” Lucy said as she stood up by my bed.

I sat up, feeling bad that not only had I spoken to my mom that way, but someone had witnessed it. I wanted to explain to her, but I couldn’t.

“It’s just that you have all the freedom in the world, and it’s like you’re not happy. My parents have my life all mapped out for me, and I would never talk to them how you just spoke to your mom.”

I was stubborn, that was one thing for sure.

“I know you’re not sleeping,” she insisted.

I sat up and shrugged.

“I feel crap for doing it, and never understand why.”

She sat next to me, and rubbed my back.

“Isn’t it better that you have one parent alive rather than none.”

I shot a look at her, thinking that I’d never thought that, not for one second. Sure, mom and I fought once in a while, but I never wished her dead in dad’s place. But then that wasn’t what she meant, actions spoke louder than words.

I sighed, “I’ll go back home and make it up to her. Or at least try.”

She winked, “Do better than try!”

I wrapped my arms around her, thinking that I was going to miss her. I didn’t have any friends in high school, and now I had two in college. I would go back home to no friends, and no dad. That didn’t mean that I was going home to no one. I still had mom and Nan, which was a lot better than most had, and I had to learn to appreciate them a lot better than I’d been doing to date.