Carnations for Graduation
As soon as the bell rang, Beck, Jade, and Tori were the first ones out of the classroom.
"Ugh, I am so glad it's lunchtime. Hard tests make me so hungry!" Tori complained.
Slinging an arm around Jade's shoulders as they walked, Beck said, "I know. That test seriously kicked my butt."
"I think I might have failed," Jade sighed. "And what up with that last extra credit question? It didn't even make sense."
"I think it was supposed to be some sort of sick joke," Beck guessed.
"Well, I'm not laughing," Jade said irritably.
Tori stopped at her locker and tossed her heavy math book in, never wanting to see it again. "Whatever. At this point, as long as that class doesn't stop me from graduating, I don't even care."
"True chiz," Jade said as Beck nodded in agreement.
Tori shut her locker and leaned against it tiredly. André, Robbie, and Cat weren't there yet, and since the three of them were in different classes, they always all met up at Tori's locker before lunch.
"Hey, what are Sinjin and Burf doing?" Tori asked, noticing that they were sitting at a table across the hall and handing out white flowers.
"Probably something stupid," Jade guessed, not bothering to turn and look at them.
Looking over his shoulder, Beck said, "They're handing out carnations for Carnation Day."
"Oh, what's Carnation Day?" Tori asked, thinking it sounded exciting.
Jade groaned. "Seriously, Vega? Carnation Day happens literally every year. You've been here since you were a sophomore, and you still know nothing."
"I do too know things!" Tori defended, although not noticing a yearly event did weaken her case. "Come on, just tell me about Carnation Day!"
"Hollywood Arts tradition," Beck explained. "Every year on Carnation Day, all the seniors get a carnation to give to the person they want to walk with at the graduation ceremony."
"The carnations are white because they're supposed to symbolize good luck and pure love, or something stupid like that," Jade added, rolling her eyes.
"That's such a cool idea! I love this school," Tori said fondly, hardly believing that she and all her friends would be graduating from Hollywood Arts so soon.
"Here, let me demonstrate," Beck said, earning a smirk from Jade as he took her hand and pulled her across the hall.
Beck took a carnation off the table and held it between him and Jade. "You are sadistic and beautiful, and that's why I love you. Will you walk with me at graduation?"
"Yeah, I guess so," Jade teased, taking the flower from him and examining it up close. "This will look lovely between the blades of my scissors," she said before pulling a smiling Beck into a kiss.
"Aw," Tori said, beaming at her friends.
After he and Jade had pulled apart, Beck told Tori, "And that's how you do Carnation Day."
"Okay, I think I got it. So Carnation Day must be a big deal around here," Tori concluded.
Beck shrugged. "As far as Hollywood Arts traditions go, I'd say it's pretty lighthearted."
"Lighthearted, huh?" Then Tori got an idea. "Oh, you know what I should do? I should give one to André! It'll be a surprise! What do you guys think?"
"No," Jade responded automatically, but she hadn't really been listening to Tori. Instead she was texting Robbie, letting him know that the carnations had arrived.
Ignoring Jade's response, Beck smiled knowingly at Tori and said, "Yeah, I think he would like that."
"Tori!" André yelled, appearing at the top of the main stairs, looking like he was really excited about something.
"André!" Tori yelled back with just as much excitement, but then she remembered that she was supposed to be surprising him. "Don't move!" she yelled at him suddenly, causing him to throw his hands up in surrender and stop on the second to last step.
"Give me a flower," Tori whispered to Beck and Jade, putting an arm behind her back and waving her open palm.
"André, your shoe is untied!" Beck called, improvising a distraction.
With his hands still raised, André looked down at his sneakers. "Really? I could have sworn I double-knotted them this time…"
While he was distracted, Jade quickly grabbed a carnation off the table and slipped it into Tori's hand.
"Thanks," Tori whispered.
"Not welcome," Jade whispered back.
"Man, my shoe isn't untied," André said, looking up just in time to see Tori running towards him.
Tori stopped at the foot of the stairs and then got down on one knee, catching André off guard.
"Oh my goodness," he said, putting a hand over his heart.
"André... even though I've only been here on earth, I'm guessing you're probably one of the best people in the entire universe," Tori said. "If it weren't for you, I never would have had the guts to come to this school, and without you, I never would have gotten through it. Will you do me the honor of walking with me at graduation?"
Tori pulled the carnation out from behind her back and held it up to him.
Instead of reaching to take the flower like Tori had expected, André sat down on the steps so that he and Tori were on the same eye level. He had a very serious expression on his face, and Tori frowned in confusion, not having considered that he might say no.
"Only if you'll do me the same honor," André said, pulling a carnation from his back pocket.
"Aw," Tori said softly, looking at his carnation and then at the teasing smile that was spreading across his face.
Laughing, they exchanged flowers and hugged each other tightly.
Robbie walked up beside Beck and Jade, having gotten out of class a couple minutes late.
"Bonjour, Bec et Jade," Robbie greeted.
"Don't 'bonjour' me," Jade said, wishing Robbie had never signed up for that stupid French class.
"Bonjour, Robert Chapiro," Beck returned, saying Robbie's full name the French way because he knew Robbie liked hearing it. Beck didn't speak French, but with Robbie's help, he was gradually adding a French accent to his repertoire.
"What did I miss?" Robbie asked, seeing Tori and André hugging it out on the stairs.
Beck answered, "Not too much. I gave Jade a carnation. Tori and André gave each other carnations."
"Aw," Robbie said cheerfully.
"So, are you gonna give Cat a carnation or not?" Jade asked bluntly, twirling her own carnation between her fingers.
"Cat? No," Robbie answered, acting as if the possibility hadn't even crossed his mind.
"Why not?" Beck asked, frowning.
"I mean, Cat and I don't have to walk together just because we're the last two people not paired off in our little group," he said, gesturing to his four friends. "She has other friends."
Jade scowled and nudged Beck forward with her elbow. "Fix it," she said shortly, folding her arms and walking away.
Beck shook his head at Robbie and pulled him to the side.
"Am I in trouble?" Robbie asked.
"Pretty much," Beck said. "Now what's up? Why don't you want to ask Cat to walk with you?"
Robbie told him, "I'm sure someone else will ask her, and she'll say yes. Why should I get in the way of that?"
"I have no idea," Beck said sarcastically. "Maybe because I thought you two were best friends? Maybe because there's no one else you'd rather walk with at graduation?"
"I don't want her to feel like she has to walk with me."
"Rob, it's just graduation," Beck said. "It's not like you're asking her to marry you… But if you ever need help with proposing, you should definitely ask Tori."
"Huh?" Robbie said, confused.
"Never mind," Beck said, crossing his arms and getting back to the point. "It's not as difficult as you're making it."
"It's not as simple as you're making it! Whatever. Graduation is just a silly ceremony, and… and Cat can do whatever she wants…"
"Rob, come on," Beck said, seeing that he was starting to get to Robbie.
"No," Robbie said stubbornly, collecting his resolve. Glancing around to make sure no one nearby was listening, Robbie said, "Look, I decided to back off with Cat a while ago."
"Really?" Beck asked. "Because it seems to me like you guys have been getting closer lately. You're always hanging out. She's always smiling when she's with you."
Robbie hated that he was blushing. "No, that's just us getting back to where we were before my last bout of idiocy."
Beck wasn't buying it. "Rob, your bouts of idiocy are constant, but she's still sticking around."
"I'm not talking about my regular bouts of idiocy; I'm talking about my romantic bouts of idiocy," Robbie said, pushing up his glasses. "I've been rejected by her more than once, and it hurts."
Beck uncrossed his arms, not wanting to see Robbie upset. "Robbie, I think if you asked her, she would be ecstatic, and she would say yes. Things have changed, and you and I both know you two are much closer now than you ever were before."
"Maybe it looks like that from the outside, but Cat and I have an unspoken agreement that anything romantic between us isn't an option."
"Unspoken agreements aren't real," Beck insisted. "A real agreement requires speaking, or a written contract, or at least a spit shake!"
"I don't need a spoken agreement or a spit shake to know that Cat just likes me as a friend. And you know what? That's great, because I don't deserve someone like her as a friend in the first place!"
"That's stupid and untrue," Beck said candidly, "but even if you wanna pretend to believe that, you can just ask her as a friend!"
Robbie explained pseudo-calmly, "I can't just ask her as a friend. I can't even talk to her about anything serious for long because I love her so much, and I always feel like I'm about to spill my guts out to her, which would freak her out. It's not fair to her if I keep making these grand romantic gestures that she can't return. She needs her space to do what she wants without the pressure of potentially hurting me."
Beck looked away, wanting to stand his ground but also feeling that Robbie's heart was in the right place (though his head was another case entirely).
"And she is my best friend," Robbie added. "So I'll give her whatever she wants."
Jade stomped over to them impatiently. "And who are you going to walk with?" she asked Robbie, revealing that she had been listening the whole time.
Robbie shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I'll just see who doesn't have a partner at the end of Carnation Day, and I'll walk with them."
Beck looked at Jade and said, "This is confusing. He's being kind of mature, but he's also being kind of immature. I'm very conflicted."
Jade stared Robbie down and said to Beck, "Yeah, it's a problem. And we're friends with both of them, so it's unclear what we should do now. Especially since we don't know what Cat's thinking, because let's face it, Cat probably doesn't know what Cat's thinking. My gut instinct is to just beat him up until he agrees to ask her, but some strange little voice in my head is telling me that might not be the right thing to do."
"Ah, the weekly visit from Jade's conscience," Beck said, as if he had just encountered a fond acquaintance of the past. "Well, just like Robbie can't make Cat's decisions for her, we can't make his decisions for him," he concluded.
"Fine," Jade conceded. "It's not actually fine, but you know… Fine."
"Well, I'm glad you two could come to a consensus about my life decisions," Robbie said indignantly.
"I'm hungry. Let's go to lunch," Jade said, clapping a hand on Robbie's shoulder.
"Wait, where is Cat?" Beck asked, looking around but not finding her.
"Probably hiding from me," Robbie admitted dejectedly.
"Come on, I'll buy you a taco," Beck said apologetically, pushing Robbie forward.
"Wait for us!" Tori called, catching up to the group with André in tow.
"What's wrong with Robbie?" André asked, despite the fact that Robbie had swiftly wiped the sad look off his face.
Jade cursed André's emotional perceptiveness under her breath. "Robbie's mad because I threatened to cut the pants off of him," she lied.
As they went through the doors toward the Asphalt Café, Tori said, "Again? Jade, how many times do we have to tell you to stop threatening Robbie's pants?"
Robbie was barely listening, but he appreciated the distraction of Tori and Jade's back-and-forth banter. He never thought he'd hear Jade admit out loud that he was her friend, or that she would be so invested in protecting him, in her own frightening way. Then again, things didn't usually turn out the way that Robbie expected.
A/N: Since they're seniors now, some of the characters and their relationships have changed/matured. The inspiration for Carnation Day came from a deleted scene from my Cabbie fic, "Earworm." This chapter is 1 of 2, and the second chapter will be up next week. Thanks for reading! Reviews are appreciated. :)