Castle Rock High's principal, Mr. Love, reached up, smirking with suppressed admiration and pride, and switched Chris' tassel to the other side of his cap. Chris grinned at the aging man and quietly thanked him before he crossed the stage.

He was a high school graduate. It surprised him just as much as it surprised everyone else in the audience and in his class. Chris Chambers, kid brother to Eyeball Chambers, was amounting to something, and he couldn't help but look smugly at the faces that had doubted him.

When the grad ceremonies were over and everyone had thrown their caps up in the air, the class of '65 mingled around in the parking lot of the school. Some girls were actually crying nostalgic tears. Chris was so happy to be one leap closer to being free of Castle Rock's hellhole that crying was the farthest thing from his mind. He weaved his way through the crowd of milling people to Gordie. Elizabeth was standing with him with her hand holding onto the crook of his arm.

"Chris," Gordie called when he saw him. "How does it feel?"

"Oh, it's alright." He smiled broadly. "Hi Elizabeth."

She smiled at him, and brushed back her hair with the back of her hand. "You look like a priest."

"Thanks," he said. "Who gave you permission to be here?"

"Gordie! He invited me."

Gordie shrugged. "Yeah, I kinda like her so I asked her to come."

Mr. and Mrs. Lachance approached them. Shaking his hand, Mr. Lachance said, "Congratulations, son."

Smiling politely and awkwardly and looking at his feet as he often did around his parents, Gordie murmured, "Thanks, Dad."

"We're real proud of you, sweetie," his mom told him.

Chris studied their faces. He couldn't tell if they really were proud of him or if they felt obligated to say the words. He knew that Gordie's mom cared about him in a sort of distant, wounded way, but was unable to really mother him because her love of everything had been shattered along with Denny's life years before. Whereas Mr. Lachance just didn't really care and he never had. Denny had been the one that he had felt proud of as he graduated. Gordie wasn't important like Denny had been. Gordie wasn't gifted like Denny was; wasn't worth as much. So as he stood and watched the obvious strain between the broken family, Chris felt uncomfortable and put off, and he could tell by looking at her easily read face that Elizabeth felt the same.

"We were thinking we might take you out for supper, would you like that sweetie?" his mom asked him.

Mr. Lachance looked at his wife. "Dorothy, don't talk to the kid like he's eight. Son, we're taking you out for dinner, say goodbye to your friends and let's head off alright?"

"Alright." He glanced at Chris and Elizabeth and shrugged. "I'll see you around. Bye Chris." He leaned over and furtively kissed the top of Elizabeth's head.

"Oh, invite Elizabeth along, sweetie, she's such a nice girl," his mom said.

"What about--" Gordie began, stealing a look at Chris, but his father cut him off.

"Chris has got his own parents to take him out for dinner. Let's go."

"Sorry man." Gordie appeared embarrassed and disappointed in his father. "See you tomorrow, okay?"

"You bet," Chris replied.

Elizabeth hung back for a moment, unsure of what to say to Chris. "Um…go talk to Ren, alright? She's over there, and she looks miserable."

"Elizabeth, she's not gonna want to talk to me--"

"You don't have to get married, just go talk to her!"

"Elizabeth, if you're coming, come on," Mr. Lachance called.

"I'm coming," she called, but first gave Chris a quick hug before she hurried after the Lachance family.

Looking up at the sky and sighing, Chris turned on his heels, and, with some courage, walked over to the girl he still loved.

She was sitting in a plastic chair, looking through their yearbook. She had set her cap down on the ground at her feet, letting her flawless raven hair cascade onto her shoulders. It seemed to Chris that she was looking a lot thinner these days, but nevertheless, she was still perfect to him.

"Is this seat taken?" he asked, standing above her.

It was her caramel-coloured eyes that truly took his breath away when she looked up at him. They were so unlike anything else, so shy and so brilliant that he had to look away, scared that she would see through him. "Um, hi, no…sit," she stammered, a blush rising to her forehead.

"So…" Chris sighed, totally at a loss for words. "What are you looking at?"

With a sad laugh, she replied, "No one signed my yearbook."

A wave of pure pity washed over him. He realized then how lonely she must feel. Not one person in their graduating class had asked to sign her yearbook, so she was sitting alone looking at the blank pages where her peers should have written stuff like have a great life and see you in ten at the reunion. There was nothing there for her.

"You got a pen?" he asked.

Before she could say anything to him, she caught herself looking at him in awe. He wasn't very big. He was tall, but he was lanky. But there was something so worldly and encompassing about him, and as she sat next to him, she felt small. His face was innocently beautiful, and something sunk her stomach as she realized that she was going to keep on falling in love with him more every day no matter how far apart they were.

"A pen?" she asked at last. She dug through her purse and retrieved one. "Here."

"Thanks." He took her book from her lap and opened to a fresh page. As he wrote, he asked, "So are we going to keep in touch?"

She smiled. "Do you want to?"

He gazed up at her playfully skeptical. "What do you think, numb nuts?"

Ren laughed. "Okay. We will."

"Are your parents here?" he asked her. He was looking down at the page, but hadn't written anything except for hi Ren.

"Yeah," she replied and gestured to the refreshment table. "My dad's talking to Mr. Hendricks and my mom's with Ryder. My sister's around somewhere too. Did your parents make it?"

"My mom came for the ceremony, but she left right after."

"I'm sorry," she told him.

"For what?"

"Never mind," she muttered.

"You don't have any reason to be sorry."

"I have several reasons," she said. "But never mind."

"Okay. I won't."

Ren tried again. "I really miss you, you know, Chris."

Chris nodded, still looking down at the book. "I miss you too Ren."

"I don't want you to leave."

"I have to leave, Renny, there's nothing here for me in Castle Rock. When I go, no one's going to know me or who my family is, and they won't know that they have to hate me just because I grew up poor and my dad's a drunk. They won't even know my name. And I want that. All my life I've wanted that." He murmured, as if trying to convince himself, "I'm going to be someone."

"You already are someone," she insisted fervently.

"Just because I'm leaving though…it doesn't mean you and me have to stop being friends," he promised.

"There's going to be a lot of new people in Portland," Ren said. "You're not going to care about some girl with mood swings you knew back in high school."

"I'll always care, and you don't have mood swings," he sighed impatiently. "You're just an incredibly sad girl, Ren. And I'll always be ready to help if you need someone."

Staring at him, every wish and hope for him raced in a jumbled mess through her mind. "Chris--I love you--"

He stood, handing back her yearbook. "I should go. See you later, Ren."

Willing herself not to cry, she sat there dazed with the book in her hands. She ran her fingertips over the cover, and then opened it to the only page with writing.

Hi Ren was scribbled out. All that was left was I love you.