Daniel adjusted his cap and gown and stared at the mirror in the boy's bathroom. This was it. No more would he have to hear people whisper about how stupid he was, or listen to his mother say "Ya know, if you just got a job and dropped outta high school, you would make our lives much easier." He owed it all to Lindsay too, and he knew it.

This was very tough for him to admit it. He had always been the "cool guy", the one who corrected Nick and Ken, the one with the hot girlfriend, the one who smoked pot so much he usually looked like a human chimney, second only to Nick (and probably Jerry Garcia.) Ken would laugh so hard he found out he actually cared about graduating, or if other people talked about him behind his back.

When he saw Lindsay walk through the door to say, "Let's go, guys. You're gonna be late for your own graduation," he felt like hugging her. Without her tutoring every day for three hours, he knew what this day would be like; a depressing homage to the fact he's a total moron.

Kim walked in next with her cap and gown. She looked so beautiful in her graduation gear, like she wasn't scared of anything. He kissed her passionately, and she returned the favor. As it happened, he thought "Please don't ever let this moment end."

He knew he loved her. He had known loved her ever since he had broken up with her, and he knew that she loved and needed him as much as he did.

His bubble of happiness burst when Ken walked in and started making kissy faces. Kim broke away, leaving him longing for more. Curse you, Ken.

As he heard the opening bars of Pomp and Circumstance, he ran to the back of the stage in the auditorium. Nick was one of the first people up, so he didn't get a chance to tell him that his fly was up, so he probably wouldn't figure out until… well, let's not talk about that.

He looked out until the beaming faces in the audience. He saw Lindsay's parents, her brother, Sam, and Sam's friend, Neal, who had a not-so-secret crush on Lindsay. He saw Nick's dad, Col. Andopolis, and as he turned his head, he saw the Millers smiling at Ken, grateful that he graduated at all. He even saw Kim's parents, although she looked as she usually did when something involved Kim; angry, annoyed, and not clean (well, she looked like that all the time.)

The three faces in the audience he was missing were the ones that he had hoped the most would be there. His mother, his father, and Joey were not there. He didn't know why he was so upset. His father was kinda hard to bring anywhere ever since the accident. Her mother did have a lot of stuff on her mind.

But he was sick of excuses, sick of hearing her complain about how hard she works, and how he should respect her more. This was an important day for him, and they should've been there.

After the graduating class tossed their "diplomas" in the air, he did the only thing he could think of doing.

He ran.