Free My Soul to Save (Soul Keeper) by Melissa Solis Page B

we'll get through it. Don't you?" he asks, looking up at me with his soul capturing amber eyes.
    "As opposed to what, breaking up?" I blurt out.
    "Don't even say that. Look, here's how I see this going down. We get to school and at first we'll talk several times a day, then we'll get busy with school and so maybe it will be a call before bed. We will miss each other but we'll be too busy to notice. Before you know it, the break will be here, and you'll be back in my arms."
    "That's not how I see it. That's not the way loneliness works. Maybe at first we will be able to be strong for the sake of our love, but month after month, year after year, it will wear us down. We'll form new bonds with other people, people who are minutes away, not plane rides. One day you'll forget what it was that you liked about me, because people grow and change. I'll never be that sweet girl you fell for that shared her spot under the tree with you during lunch."
    "It's not often you're wrong but one day in the far, far off future, I'm going to rub your nose in this conversation when we're on our honeymoon." He smiles out, completely convinced he's won this one. Of course the only words ringing in my ears are far, far off future and honeymoon.
    He puts the truck back into drive and we make the rest of the trip. I bury my head on his shoulder and pray he's right. The campus is packed with our graduating class and half the population of Virginia. It seems a bit excessive for a class of only three hundred.
    Emily spots us and waves from across the football field. I make my way over to her while Sam has to check in on stage.
    “Good luck on your speech.”
    “Thanks, I just hope I can see your pretty face from up there. You’re all the luck I need.” He gives my waist a squeeze before heading off.
    "I can't wait to get this over with and get to your party Em's."
    "You're not the only one. You'd think they'd come up with a new tradition over the years. Who thought wearing stupid cardboard squares on our heads and parading around in blue nightgowns was a good way to commemorate thirteen years of education?" she chides.
    "What would you have us in? I mean if the world got rid of the cap and gown what would be the universal symbol for graduation be?"
    "Bolo's and fedora's of course."
    "I love it."
    We find our seats and I prepare myself to listen to the principal's droning cadence for the next half hour. Sam takes the lectern and clears his throat. He looks nervous. He hates public speaking more than the cafeteria food. 
    "Class of two thousand and fourteen, we did it. Parents, thank you for helping us get here. I pray that you all go on to be successful in whatever it is you have chosen to do with your life. The reason that this stadium is so packed tonight is because this is the moment your parents have been molding you for. The day that they finally get their lazy, annoying teenager out of the house. See– they’re nodding.
    They’ve paid for the next four years of college so that you can go annoy your professors and be lazy in your own place. See – they’re nodding again.” The crowd laughs.
    “This school is for the politically minded, so perhaps many of you will go on to do great things for our community. You’re all nodding, but there’s a lot that we don’t know, that we think we know – that’s what makes us so annoying. See, now your parent’s heads are bobbing again.
    So I implore you to go humbly into the world and learn the things that matter to you. If it doesn’t move you then don’t do it. My mother died of cancer when I was a young teenager , and ever since, I've made it my personal mission in life to kick cancer's ass. Sorry Principal Horn."
    The crowd cheers out and Mrs. Cohen, our lit teacher stands up, clasping her hands to her mouth before applauding. My mother arranged for her five year old to be cured from Leukemia as a birthday present to me. Principal Horn frowns at Sam's profanity but Mrs. Cohen keeps him in