Chapter Ten
Graduation
It was time to say goodbye to high school, goodbye to everyone and everything that went with it. Bianca went with me to Grad Night at Disneyland. We went on all the little kids’ rides together. Then we danced in the club scenes and munched on cotton candy at 4 o’clock in the morning. I was exhausted when I got home, and I slept all day.
Saturday was the graduation ceremony. I invited all the most important people in my life: my family, youth leaders at church, Bianca, Nico, and Ansley.
After the ceremony, I took pictures with my family and friends and Bob. The only person missing was Kelly.
“Where’s Kelly?” I asked Bob.
“Kelly went to the Burbank graduation with Paul. It was at the exact same time, so I came here and they went there,” he said.
“Kelly and Paul?” I asked. I was stunned for a moment. “When did Paul get back?”
“Yesterday.”
Wow. I was thrilled beyond belief and completely bummed at the same time. My graduation. He could have come to my graduation.
I thought he might call me that night to let me know that he was home, but he didn’t. And I couldn’t bring myself to call him. I was too embarrassed about the cheesy letter that I mailed, and I was traumatized by the fact that it may have hurt his feelings, like my mom had said. Maybe that was why he wasn’t calling me. Maybe that was why he didn’t come to my graduation.
The next day was Sunday, and because the graduating seniors were leading the youth service that morning, I arrived at church early. As a part of the student leadership team, I was scheduled to sing during worship and give my testimony in front of the group. I was nervous and excited.
Everything went very well: the senior table game, announcements, and worship. Toward the end of the singing time, I prayed and quieted my heart so I would be ready to give my testimony.
When I opened my eyes, I saw him come in through the back door: black Euro hair, a new perfectly shaped beard, and tight black clothes. And there he was, the man of my dreams, with his hands in his pockets. The man I had been waiting so long to see. He was home.
My instinct was to run off the stage and throw my arms around him, but, of course, that was ridiculous. I had to pretend I felt nothing. That was the normal thing a normal person would do, right? Stuff everything inside and act normal. So I just smiled and felt the words of the songs sink into my soul. I closed my eyes again and sang to my God, thanking him for helping me finish, helping me through every last difficult task to be done—done!—with high school. Then it was time for me to speak.
As the band left the stage, I walked up to the microphone and looked out at the crowd, still finding their seats and buzzing with chitchat.
Suddenly, I forgot what I had planned to say. I knew God had a different idea.
Trust me. Share your heart. Share your story.
So this is what I said.
“As a senior, I can tell you this has been a year of digging my nails into everything I hold dear. I don’t want to let anything go. There are so many things that I do not want to slip away from me. I don’t want everything to change in the next few months. I will miss my friends, my family, and my teachers. But at the same time, God is teaching me that change can be good. The unknown can be good. And sometimes, even though it hurts, I have to let go of what I hold most dear to my heart.”
I looked at Paul, and he was standing in the back, frozen still, with his arms crossed.
“Last year, when I was a junior, I got in a huge fight with my best friend, Lana. I like to say we broke up, because that’s what it felt like. We got in one huge fight, and our friendship was completely over.”
Paul seemed to relax. Did he really think I would spill it in front of everyone?
I continued, but I couldn’t look at him anymore. I had to pretend he wasn’t there.
“Does God let us have broken hearts? Yes, sometimes. Now I know something new about God. He will let my heart break in order to change me.”
This is the part of the story I didn’t share that day. Lana and I were best friends for two years. We did everything together: homework, sleepovers, concerts, beach trips, movies, and pre-professional ballet classes six days a week. Lana had her own car, and she drove me everywhere. Because she had emigrated from Slovakia when she was 10 years old, she was a year older than me but still in my grade. Lana was so down to earth. Once a person asked her what the hairstyles were like in Slovakia, and she said, “Like this.” And she spat in her fingers and smoothed her hair with her fingertips.
Well, Lana started dating a guy named Ethan, and suddenly I had to share my best friend with another person. I didn’t like that very much. I had to take the back seat in the car; I had to give them time alone in her room; I had to put up with Ethan smoking cloves and marijuana and offering it to Lana as well.
I decided that Ethan was a sleaze and a womanizer. But Lana didn’t see it. One night, when Lana had to stay home for a family event, all our friends went to a concert at House of Blues. Ethan started coming onto me in the back seat of the car, but I didn’t stop him. I wanted to see what he would do so I could report the bad news to Lana, and they would have to break up. He kissed my cheek and my neck; he put his hand on my thigh; he whispered drunk nothings in my ear.
What a mistake. Lana did break up with Ethan, but she was so hurt and disappointed in me that she broke up with me as well. On a hot night in August, soon after things were over with Ethan, a big group of our friends were hanging out at a donut shop, celebrating our friend Sarah’s birthday. Lana was already dating another guy named Richie, and Richie had been drinking. While we were outside in the parking lot, he started swinging his wallet around, which was connected to his pants with a metal chain. He swung his chain right into my face, and I fell backward in surprise and disbelief.
“Watch it, jerk!” I yelled at him.
“You watch it!” he yelled back at me.
I was stunned. But I had gone to school with Richie since third grade, so I knew it was the alcohol affecting his good judgment. I was still checking my mouth to see if it was bleeding, when Richie started walking away—and Lana followed him.
“Lana!” I called. “What are you doing? Did you see what he just did to me?”
“Yes!” she replied, and she kept on walking.
“Are you going to follow him like a puppy dog? What kind of friend are you?”
“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Miriam!” Lana had a stutter, so she wasn’t good at arguing in English.
Then our friend Sarah stepped in and started yelling and cussing in my face. “Shut your mouth, Miriam. Lana can do whatever she wants.”
“This is none of your business, Sarah. Stay out of it.”
“This is my business because Lana is my friend. And I don’t like seeing you treat her like this. So get out of here!”
“Shut up! You can’t talk to me like that!”
“I can say whatever I want; it’s my birthday. All of us hate you. None of us even like you.”
By this time I was crying, and I could hardly speak. I couldn’t defend myself. Suddenly, I realized that I was standing on one side, and all my friends were standing across from me, surrounding Sarah as if she was their queen.
“Lana, are you going to let her do this to me?” I cried. She didn’t answer. She was already getting into her car.
I looked around for someone to care about what was happening. They just looked at their feet.
I felt like a piece of crap on the bottom of Sarah’s shoe. After a few more awkward moments, my friends started filing into their cars and driving away.
“Who’s going to take me home?” I called pitifully to my enemies. Sarah’s boyfriend, Steve, came over to me. “I’ll take you home, Miriam.”
Steve was a Christian, and he attended my church. I sat next to him in the front seat of his truck. It was a quick drive home. When he drove into my driveway, I felt a burst of gumpt
ion, and I spoke.
“Just watch out, Steve. Sarah will do the same thing to you. She’s a back-stabber!”
“That’s not true,” he said.
“Just watch,” I said as I stepped out of the truck. I knew for a fact that she was cheating on him. “Thank you for being a true friend and driving me home.”
I ran into my house and bolted upstairs to my room. When I reached my bed, I collapsed in wailing sobs. I was crying so hard that I couldn’t see anything for what seemed like an hour. My sister Anna and my mom ran to my room and held me. “Are you OK? What happened, Miriam?” They just held me and let me cry in their arms. It was the hardest I had ever cried in my life. My heart was torn open, devoured, and cursed. I didn’t know if it would ever heal. I didn’t know if I could ever trust a friend again.
Lana didn’t call me the next day, or the day after. She never called me again, and I never called her. Partly I refused to apologize because I insisted that she was in the wrong. But partly I never apologized because I knew God was tearing me away from a crowd that was not good for me. God had to tear me away because I was not taking good care of my soul. I had been choosing pleasure over truth, purity, decency, and good morals. It was a painful separation, but God let it happen for my own good.
When school started that September, Lana and I ignored each other in the hallways and at ballet class. Our ballet teachers were completely confused. “Weren’t you two inseparable last year?”
In December, Steve pulled me aside in the hallway between class periods.
“You were right,” he said.
“About what?”
“About Sarah. You were right about her. You warned me, and I didn’t believe you.”
“Aw, I’m sorry. I wish I wasn’t right.”
“It’s OK. I just—I feel bad about what she did to you. And I wanted to let you know that.”
“Thanks. But I’m OK now.”
“Good,” he said.
“Are you going to be OK?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I have to be.”
“God knew you had to get away from her,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“When you meet someone who treats you right, you’ll understand why God tore her away.”
He sort of smiled. “I gotta get to Spanish class. Adiós.”
I gave the group the edited version of that story.
Then I concluded: “After God took away my best friend, I was so lonely. I was honestly so bored that I started reading my Bible again—every night before bed. God gave me friendship in my relationship with Jesus. And he gave me this youth group. In this group, I met my new best friend, Bianca. God brought Bianca into my life at the perfect time. God’s timing with friendships and relationships is perfect. It is not always what we would choose, but it’s perfect in the grand scheme of holy things. Finally, I learned senior year that to have good friends, I needed to be a good friend. And most important, when no one else was there for me—when my most trusted friend abandoned me—Jesus was there, ready to be the best friend I could ever have. I couldn’t have made it through high school without him.”
After I spoke, a senior guy gave his testimony, and we sang one last song. The service ended, and one girl after another came up to me and told me she had lost her best friend too.
After lots of hugs and goodbyes, it was time to clean up. I finished my duties with a fine sense of maturity and piety. Now that Senior Sunday was over, I had ascended into the college group at church. And I knew exactly what that meant. So where was my prince?
At the back of the room, Paul Greer was talking to a few seniors. At a calculated pause in the conversation, I approached him confidently, and he looked at me with inviting eyes.
“Miriam, hello,” he said.
“It’s so good to see you, I can’t even tell you! Can you talk for a minute?”
“Yeah, sure.”
We sat down together on a small stage in the back of the room. Mostly everyone had headed to Coral Café. Just a few people were still stacking chairs.
Finally, together. And I didn’t know what to say.
“So, you’re home.”
“Yeah, I came home a little early. I was ready to be done.”
“So you are not going back to the soccer ministry?”
“I’m home for good. I’m gonna soak in as much California sun as I can.”
“I wanted to call and write to you while you were away. I missed you,” I said. I sensed that I was starting to sound obsessed, so I backed off again.
“Yeah, I thought you forgot about me,” he laughed. It was so good to see his smile. Being with him felt like home.
“So do you want to hang out later?” I asked.
“Miriam, I don’t know if I can.”
“What do you mean?” I got a little worried but not too worried.
“Here, I want to give you this.” He held out his hand. He was holding my bracelet from Mexico.
Hesitantly, I took the bracelet from him. It felt light and flimsy in my hands. My whole body began to tremble.
“Oh, no, it’s OK, I gave it to you,” I insisted. I tried to hand it back to him, but he wouldn’t take it.
“You need to keep it,” he said.
“Is something wrong?”
“Miriam, I wanted to tell you this a long time ago, but I was so far away. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. After I spoke to your mom on the phone, I decided to take things easy for a while, you know, and just put everything in the Lord’s hands.”
I couldn’t get the words out fast enough, or in the right order: “My mom? Everything’s OK now. I’m sorry; I apologize for whatever she said. She can be really intense. She’s a little crazy.”
“Girls turn into their moms,” he said quietly and robotically, looking away.
“Is that it then? I have no chance to be different, to be me?” I was becoming intense. “I’m not like her,” I promised.
“I just can’t take that risk.”
“Oh…oh. Well it’s in the Lord’s hands, right? I’m OK with that,” I said. My throat was clenched so tightly, I didn’t even sound like myself.
“Yeah. We’ll leave it in His hands,” he said.