A/N: Well, I hope y'all enjoy it :D I'd appreciate it if you reviewed.
Charlie's Story.
I had never enjoyed being the centre of attention. As one of the few students at a small town high school, it had been inevitable that everyone knew my name, but I had always declined invitations to parties and trips to La Push. For the most part, I liked to keep myself to myself.
But, however much I disliked the limelight, when it came to graduation, I didn't have much of a choice. It wasn't a high point of my high school career, but, thankfully, the genetic clumsiness I had inherited managed to stay hidden as I shuffled up to the principal, collected my diploma and shuffled down off the podium.
With the horror of the ceremony itself over, I went to meet my parents, who greeted me with proud smiles and expressions of delight - as well as the dreaded words: "Oh, how fast our little boy has grown up! It seems like only yesterday you were only a baby/wetting the bed/starting school (insert mortifying comment here)".
What is it about graduation ceremonies that makes parents ten times more embarrassing? It is, after all a truth universally acknowledged that any son or daughter, on graduating high school, must wish to disappear into the ground and hide - is it not?
It only took me a few moments to notice that it was not only my parents who had turned up to see my graduation, but the entire Swan clan. Luckily, I was saved from hours (or perhaps, more accurately, minutes) of meaningless small talk and congratulations by an overexcited figure clad in a luminous yellow graduation gown who bounded up behind me, and invited me to 'guess who'.
"Renee," I said, turning round to face her, and adopting a tone of slight exasperation, "I know it's you. Who else would it be?"
Her suddenly despondent expression filled me with guilt, and I immediately backtracked, making profuse apologies, and I attempted to charm her with a winning smile.
It worked, and within seconds she was blabbering away about something unimportant. My girlfriend, Renee. The most delightfully scatterbrained girl I knew. She was unable to stay fixed on one subject or emotion for any length of time. At times this was exasperating, however, for the most part, I found it endearing. Renee has a unique way of looking at the world that makes every moment I spend with her a new experience.
The relief she offered from fawning relatives was short-lived however, as her own parents claimed her, and I was forced to return to the Swans, to face repeated coos of delight at my graduation. I also discovered, to my horror, that my entire family were now heading to The Lodge, in theory to celebrate my graduation, but more likely in order to speak loudly about the wonderful achievements of third cousins six times removed, and otherwise bragging about the superiority of their own bloodlines.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------