Now I come to the last chapter. But it is only the last chapter in this particular story, not the last chapter I will ever write for Gordo. I have several ideas for stories that will show other events in his life. Bear with me, because I may jump around a bit.

Someday I'm going to write more fully about Parker's obsession with him, and that little trick she pulled at the beach. I also have a vague idea about him graduating college and who he will actually end up with, perhaps even marrying.

I am also just now planning a story I think I will call "Gordo's Girls" which will document a few months in 10th grade, when "Gordo's life is a soap opera of misplaced affections and unrequited love. Surrounded by more girls that he can handle, guilt-ridden Gordo searches desperately for a way to make everyone happy---including himself!" Sound like fun? hehe

But right now, will The Graduate have a happy ending? Please let me know what you think about how this turns out. Because there really were only two main paths I could have gone down---either they do it or they don't do it, the high road or the low road. I have an alternate ending in my head, but the one I committed to paper (so to speak) is the one I think is more realstic, more "canon" and thus I am more happy with this. I see that a number of you want to see them "do it" and I find that surprising, since I anticipated there would be a lot of resistance to the relationship.

So anyway, thanks so much to all my loyal readers, and to anyone who might find this story sometime in the future, please feel free to comment about anything at any time! I write for myself, but your comments are icing on the cake!

-

It was a good thing that the little going away/wish you well celebration my co-workers planned for me took place at lunchtime, and not at the end of that day. There was cake and lots of joking all around, but I wouldn't have been able to get into the spirit of it if I had been forced to sit still at the end of that day, knowing Jo was waiting outside for me with bad news.

After Jo came into the store and all but said "We have to talk," my mind was elsewhere. I tried not to think about it, not to analyze or guess, but in the fifteen minutes between our encounter in the store and our conversation in front of Baskin Robbins, I think I had already guessed, I just didn't want to admit it to myself. I could tell Jo had been crying. I could tell this was not going to be anything good. And then she dropped the bomb and my worst suspicions were confirmed.

My gut reaction, of course, was totally selfish. I wanted sex. I thought I was going to get sex. All I could think about was sex, and now she was telling me it wasn't going to happen. That was why I was crying, because I wasn't going to get sex. Selfish! Selfish pig! Later on I beat myself up about it quite a bit.

The only thing that stopped me from slipping into utter self-loathing was the fact that by the end of our conversation, when I told her I hoped everything turned out well for her and Sam, and that I hoped she and Lizzie could patch up their differences, when I said all that I really meant it. As bad as I was, at that point, I really was thinking about someone other than myself. So I'm not all bad.

Probably just human.

But "just human" has never been good enough for me. Sure, I've eased up on myself a lot as I've grown older, but it still hurt to know that when push came to shove, I was no better or worse than the average guy. So this was not so much about Jo, as it was about me, about my own unrealistic expectations of myself.

And, well, of course, it was also about the sex.

-

That night I continued packing up my room. As I placed each box and bag beside the front door, waiting to be put into the Mustang in the morning, I felt more and more how much I could not wait to get out of this stinking town. There was nothing left here for me now. My life was all about the future. I had to concentrate on the future.

And yet, as I tried to sleep that night, as much as I attempted to think ahead, I could not help looking backwards first. As much as I grieved my own lost opportunity, that's how much I eventually came to realize, sometime around two o'clock in the morning, that everything had really worked out for the best for Jo.

I found it hard to believe that Sam could be so forgiving of his wife, if in fact she had told him everything, as she said she had, if in fact she had told him that her intention had been to have sex with me. I don't know that I could have been so understanding if I were in his place. Perhaps he was a bigger man than I was. Or perhaps he was just more in love with his wife than I had ever been with anyone in my life.

But what if Jo and I had done the deed? Would Sam still be so understanding? What was his breaking point? Maybe it was better we had not gone far enough to find out. As it was, it now appeared their marriage was back on the right track. And that was a good thing. I was happy for her. I really was. Happy for her, but sad for myself.

And I understood what she meant when she said my first time should be with a girl who belonged to me and me alone, a girl who would light up my life. Jo had lit up my life, if only briefly, but she did not belong to me alone. On one level I knew I could "do so much better than that," as she had suggested. Yet on another level, I still could not believe I could ever do any better than Jo. It would have been great. It would have been the absolute best I could possibly imagine. And I still stood by my statement. It would not have been spoiled.

So I was a mixed bag of emotions as some time around three a.m. I finally drifted off into a restless sleep.

-

Thankfully, in the morning, Mom and Dad did not wake me. I slept till ten. They had both scheduled time off from their patients so they could be here to see me off, and I was glad that they were neither holding me back nor pushing me out the door. I think they understood some of the issues a young man might face when striking out on his own for the first time in his life.

But I know they did not understand all of my issues at this moment. As I packed up the Mustang, for the first time I thought of how great it was going to be to unpack on the other end, filling my new room with my familiar stuff. Adam would be there, and I knew he would come in to help, and we would talk, and at last I would have the chance to really let go about all this.

I had been e-mailing and phoning both Tudge and Danny all summer, but I had never mentioned anything about Jo to either of them. With their ties to Hillridge, I couldn't risk either of them making a casual remark to anyone who might make a casual remark to someone else, and before you knew it, the whole town would be talking about the sordid way Jo McGuire had carried on with that teenage boy. I wasn't going to risk embarrassing her in that way. To say nothing of how much more Lizzie would hate me if something like that should happen.

It was almost noon when the car was finally packed. Dad handed me $300 in cash "just in case" and Mom cried all over my shirt and told me a dozen times that I should call if I needed anything, anything at all. I promised I would call them the moment I arrived at Adam's house. Then I pulled out of the driveway, seeing them waving at me in my rear view mirror. I headed down the block.

-

A few hundred feet into my journey, I passed the McGuire house on the right. The mixed bag of emotions that had tormented me all night suddenly puffed up and started rattling around uncontrollably inside me. Something felt wrong, but I couldn't pinpoint what it was. I knew I couldn't leave yet, but I didn't know why. I got to the end of the street and turned, circling the block, trying to analyze this strange sensation.

Was it that I wanted to see Jo one last time? Had we not said our goodbyes the previous evening, in front of Baskin Robbins? The wound was only now beginning to heal. Was it possible I was stupid enough to want to open it up all over again? What was I thinking of, I wondered, as I drove past the McGuire house a second time.

There were pieces of me still in that house. Aside from the obvious pieces of my heart in every room, and the remnants of bodily fluids perhaps even now still being washed away through the plumbing, I also recalled that I had left a set of work clothes last Friday night, and a DVD on Saturday.

The work clothes were no big deal, I decided. I wasn't going to need khaki workpants where I was going, and if Circuit City missed their shirt, they could always deduct the cost out of my last paycheck. I wasn't concerned about that.

As for the DVD, I decided I wanted to leave it for Jo. It was very funny. Maybe she and Sam could watch it together, laugh at it together, while drinking a bottle of wine. I smiled sadly and passed the house a third time.

At the end of the street, though, I turned, circling the block yet again. No. Something was still not right. Something was still bothering me very much. I couldn't leave until I figured out what this was. And so I drove past the house yet again.

This time, I saw Josh's Jeep Cherokee pulled up at the curb, and I saw that Josh was still sitting behind the wheel, blasting his horn. Josh was the kind of jerk who would never go in and say hello to a girl's parents, or even do the courtesy of calling on his cell phone to say he was waiting outside. He just sat at the curb and blasted the horn.

If he was blasting, I knew that meant Lizzie would be coming out of the house at any moment. And as I thought of how she would look, skipping down to the curb, her long blonde hair swaying back and forth, her eyes beaming, that was when I decided to also pull up to the curb, several spaces in front of Josh.

I turned off the ignition and took a deep breath. What was I doing? Was I a glutton for punishment? Had I not beaten myself up enough in the last twenty four hours, now I needed some more abuse from Lizzie? Surely nothing good could come from this. And yet I needed to try.

I looked back at the house, and there was Lizzie, skipping down the front path, her hair swaying, here eyes beaming. I got out of the car and began to walk towards her.

She saw me and her smile deflated. She stood still in the middle of the pathway, her hair now lifeless, her eyes glaring, not beaming.

"My mother is not home," she said flatly, as I approached.

"I know," I said. "I mean, I can see that her car isn't here."

"She and my dad went out for lunch. And after that they're going to the travel agency. They're planning a trip. They're going away for a week. Far, far away."

From you, I added, in my mind. That's what she really meant. My mother is going far, far away from you. She's back with Dad, you've lost her, you loser, get out of our lives!

I took a deep breath and said, "I'm not here to see your mom, Lizzie."

"Oh?"

"I wanted to see you."

"What for?"

"To say goodbye. I'm leaving for college. Right now. I'm driving to Berkeley."

"Oh!" she said. She seemed to have softened the slightest bit, so slightly that someone who didn't know her as well as I did might not have noticed. Then I saw her glance at the Mustang. "Is that your car?"

Lizzie was a sucker for sporty cars, I knew that. I sometimes wondered if I had had a muscle car in tenth grade when we broke up if that might have made a difference in my ability to win her back.

Not that I would have wanted a girlfriend who only stayed with me because I had a cool car. No more than I wanted Lizzie to agree to talk with me now only because she suddenly saw I had a cool car. That wasn't why I wanted her to stay and talk with me a moment, but if that was the only way I could get her to do it, then I was going for it.

"Yeah, " I said. "That's my 'Stang. I got it a few days ago. Want to see?"

Lizzie didn't answer, but she walked down to the curb towards my car, running her hand along its pretty blue rump. Josh, behind us, beeped impatiently.

Lizzie held up her hand. "Hold on!" she called.

Then she looked at me. "Gordo…this is a beautiful car."

"Yeah," I agreed.

"And you're taking it to Berkeley?"

"Yeah."

"And you're leaving now? Right now?"

I knew Lizzie McGuire like the back of my hand. I knew from the look on her face exactly what she was thinking. As much as, on one level, she hated me, on some deeper level it was suddenly hitting her that her oldest friend in the world was leaving town.

With Lizzie, even when she did not actually care to have anything to do with me, she still needed to know that I was there, in the background somewhere, ready to come to her side, should she call. She knew that I would always come to her side, should she call. In some sense I was her security blanket, her safety net. But now that safety net was being pulled out from under her, and I could see how much that was bothering her.

Good. Because that made it easier for me to say what I wanted to say next. I mean, I hoped it would make her a little more receptive.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm going right now. But before I go, Lizzie, I just wanted to say---"

Josh beeped the horn again. I looked and saw him raising up his hands in exasperation.

"Hold on," Lizzie said, clearly growing impatient.

She ran to Josh, talking to him at the driver's window. I cursed the situation. There was just as much chance she would fly around to the passenger door, calling "Sorry, Gordo! Gotta go!" as there was that she would actually come back to talk to me. Now I was the one who waited, not impatiently, but expectantly.

In a moment I saw Lizzie walking back towards me and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"We're going for lunch," Lizzie apologized. "He's very hungry. I only have a minute."

"That's okay," I said. "What I want to say will only take a minute. But I want you to listen to me, Lizzie. Really listen to me. Please? Because this comes right from my heart. Even though you may not believe I have a heart any more, but guess what? I do, and it's been kind of broken for a long time now."

I saw her cross her arms over her chest and look at me. Man, this was hard! But I went on.

"I know you've been really mad at me, Lizzie, for quite a while, and now with everything that happened with me and your mom these past weeks, that hasn't made it any better. But you need to know that I never meant for anything bad to happen with your mom. I wasn't trying to break up your parents or anything like that. I only wanted to help her, and things got….well…they got a little out of hand, that's all. But now I hear she and your dad are going to make things work, and I'm glad. Nobody is more glad about that than me. Well…I'm sad, but I'm also glad. Do you understand?"

She still had her arms crossed and now she was barely looking at me, biting her lower lip. But at least she wasn't lashing out at me with angry words, so I felt encouraged to continue.

"And there's another thing," I said quietly. "Something you need to know. Something I tried to tell you before, but you wouldn't listen, but I hope you'll listen now. Not that it will make any difference at this point, but I still need to say it. And since it won't make any difference at this point, you can know there's no reason for me to say it, except because it's true.

"I just need you to know that that day at the beach, what happened with Parker…I'm really, really sorry about that, Lizzie. I wasn't trying to cheat on you. I didn't want to cheat on you. I was just stupid, okay? I was stupid, and not strong. I was just a kid. I never meant to hurt you.

"And it broke my heart as much as it broke yours when you wouldn't talk to me anymore. Not only because I lost you as my girlfriend, but also because I lost you as my friend that day also. And since that day, nothing has been quite right in my life. There's always been this giant hole in my heart where you're supposed to be.

"I don't know…." I said desperately trying to make sense of all this. "Maybe that's why…on some level….maybe that's why it was so easy for me to hang out with your mom. Maybe I was looking for something, for someone to fill that hole, and she wasn't you, but she was the next best thing. The same way that for her, I wasn't your dad, but I was the next best thing. Maybe we were both looking for love in all the wrong places. Isn't that a song?" I joked, feeling that this serious talk had gone on long enough and needed to be lightened up with a stab at humor.

But Lizzie did not laugh. She could not laugh, because she was crying. Not out-and-out crying, just a few tears she was trying very hard to hold back. She squeezed her eyes together and turned away from me.

Josh pounded on the horn.

"For Christ's sake, hold on!" I yelled, glaring at him.

Lizzie gasped out a sob. "I have to go!"

She started to go, but I caught her wrist, not sure what I was going to do, not sure if I had anything else to say, but hoping somehow that I might hear a word of encouragement from her.

I got better than a word. I got a hug. She wrapped her arms around me, so tightly, I almost couldn't breath. Though it may not have been the physical strength of her embrace that knocked the wind out of me, so much as it was its unexpectedness.

I put my arms around her, not giving a damn about Josh, who was once again blasting the horn, and now even yelling out the window, but still would not get out of the driver's seat

"Oh, Lizzie….Lizzie…" I said, squeezing her. "I'm so sorry."

"I'm so sorry, too, Gordo…."

"What the hell!" Josh screamed.

"Josh, be quiet!" Lizzie cried. "Gordo is leaving for college. I'm saying goodbye. I'm saying goodbye to one of my oldest and dearest friends, so could you just give me a freakin' moment here, please?"

I laughed, still hugging her.

"I can see we don't have much time," I said. "But would you mind if I gave you a call sometime, Lizzie? After I'm settled in. And maybe…maybe we could e-mail each other. It doesn't have to be anything serious. Just enough so that I know you don't hate me anymore. Because I can't stand going on like this anymore, thinking that you might hate me."

She nodded, then looked up, wiping her eyes as she smiled. "Gordo, I'm so sorry. I don't hate you. And it would be okay if you wanted to…to stay in touch a little. That would be okay," she said. "Yes, actually, I think I'd like that."

I nodded, and I felt that my smile at that moment must rival the sun.

"Okay then," I said. "Thanks, Lizzie. Okay."

-

-

When I came home to visit on the long Thanksgiving weekend, my freshman year of college, Lizzie and I went out for dinner that Saturday night. We had been phoning and e-mailing each other since early September. Now, sitting across from each other in the restaurant, I could clearly see how much her eyes sparkled when she told me about her new college boyfriend Roger, as much as I'm sure she could see my eyes sparkling when I talked about Jenny.

Afterwards we drove back to her house, where, after much debate, she finally persuaded me to come in for a few moments to say hi to her mom and dad.

At first I thought this might feel somewhat awkward, but when I got inside, Sam was at the kitchen counter, so intently painting a gnome that after, "Hey, Gordo! How you doin' there, buddy?" there was not much more interaction between us, for which I was grateful. I had always imagined him harboring a secret resentment towards me, but apparently this was not so.

Jo looked great. Not only was she as beautiful as I remembered, but also clearly much happier than the last time I had seen her. We hugged briefly, then sat down together on the couch.

"So Lizzie tells me you've got a new girlfriend," Jo smiled playfully. "Do tell!"

A short time later, I hugged Lizzie good night and she allowed her mother the honor of walking me to the front door. As we stood in the foyer together, it suddenly occurred to me that everything Jo has said had come true. Jenny lit up my world, and I was so glad that I had waited to create the memory of my first time with someone I loved so much, someone who was mine and only mine. My Mustang, though not exactly drawing Jenny as a moth to the flame, had played a major role in how we had met.

But that's another story altogether. One I might tell some day. If I'm in the mood.

On this Saturday night in November, as Jo and I stood in the foyer to say good night, she reached up to kiss me on the cheek. As she did, I was extremely careful to keep my head turned, even though I was quite sure that at this point in our lives it was highly unlikely there would be any more accidents.

And it occurred to me, as I walked down the front path of the McGuire house, approaching my car at the curb, that my shoulders suddenly felt looser than they ever had before.