July 17th 2022
Chapter 198
Our Legacy of Graduates
It was strange to think sometimes about how, when they had started off with this group of students, they'd had one child. Marianne had been only two years old at the time, nearly three. Ella had been in their lives, but she'd still been Summer at the time. Now here they were, parents to six, grandparents to one… and this group was still with them, still at the early stages of their final year. It didn't make it any easier to see them go, not at all. It lifted them up to the levels of when Maya had seen her first all-four-years group go on its way. Their memories remained tied to those who'd been around at the time, and for Maya especially but Lucas as well to some degree, it was particularly true.
Today, they were remembering the first time they had accompanied this group on a museum field trip. They remembered those kids as they'd been back then, and they saw them as they were now. It wasn't as though they were complete strangers by comparison, but they had all changed so much… It wasn't just her art class here today, it was all the seniors, so Maya didn't know every single one of them as well as she did those that she'd seen in her class for the last three years and some, but by now she could say that even the other kids were familiar to her, names swimming in her head along with stories from her colleagues, or memories from this team or that event… She'd get hit with this strange sort of nostalgia for them, like she wished she could have gotten to know them better and now time was running out.
"I need help," she whispered to Lucas after sharing this notion with him, and he chuckled. "You are so rude," she squinted at him, and he took hold of her hand, which made her feel better… a little… Okay, she wasn't really hurt at all, so it just made her feel happy, but she didn't need to say it, did she?
They were the furthest thing from strangers in this place, him, and her. Their story held so many beats in this building… and outside this building… and maybe it was that they'd passed that twenty year mark with her in Texas not too long ago, but they were really feeling it today. The search for weird stuff when they'd been kids on a field trip, the rainy date that wasn't, the time he'd spent as a tour guide, and several chaperoning tours nowadays since Maya had become a teacher. If that wasn't enough, they would come with their girls maybe once a month since they were all babies. They were all pros now at being in there, even Remy, the loudest of their bunch, found an unexpected calm when she came into this museum.
"How's it going with her?" Lucas quietly asked, nodding over to where they could see Olivia Zhu. She was trailing behind her friends as they were moving along, looking to the casual observer like she was paying attention, but to the more observant… She was still stuck in that bubble of not knowing what she wanted to do about college, and now that the year had started, advancing at a steady pace, they knew that the bubble was growing firmer, harder for her to try and escape it.
"Still nothing," Maya sighed. "We're all doing our best to help her, but I think it's only making things worse for her. The logical thing would probably be to leave her alone to think it through for a while, but the problem is that she's at school, five days a week, and even if we try to not bring it up…"
"It comes up anyway," Lucas understood. Maya wouldn't be the only teacher in that school looking to help Olivia figure this thing out. Uncertainties aside, she was still very much one of their top students, so everyone saw a bright future ahead for her… but in the long run that almost made it harder for her. She already didn't want to let her family down, but now she didn't want to let her teachers down either. Lucas gave Maya's hand a squeeze, and she didn't have to look at him to know what he was trying to tell her. They'd figure something out, somehow, sooner or later. He had no doubt.
"Maybe she needs to do what Dylan did and wait until something comes up, but I'm not sure she'd go for it. She wants to go with Kelsey and Ava, so they can live together and go to school together," Maya told him.
Lucas remembered how it had gone for their friend and his parents when he'd told them that he planned to not go to college right after high school. That was how he'd ended up moving to Houston, him, and Sophie, and eventually Riley, Maya, and Lucas. It had all worked out in the end, but he tried to think about how this idea would fly with Olivia's parents. He had known the Zhu family since long before the senior was even born, and they were all lovely people, but it was also very important to them that their daughters get their education. Somehow, he didn't see them looking at this idea of Olivia not going next year as a good plan. If it was the right thing for her, then she'd just have to do it, but until then…
As Maya had said it, at least she wouldn't be alone. Like many clusters of friends that they'd see come and go over the years, there was already a big plan for Olivia, Ava, and Kelsey to get a place together as they graduated high school and moved forward with their lives. The plan so far included their staying in Austin, though it wouldn't be completely out of the question for them to go a bit further. That would put them in a similar position as Maya and TXNY had been when they'd gone to college. In their case, two of them had gone to Houston, while one had remained where she'd always been, in New York, and the other had gone to Boston, so the band had been reshaped, with Maya and Riley bringing on Rosa, Kayla, and Willow.
We Are Sisters had one member already through with college, happily settled in Austin with her husband and son, plus two girls currently in their junior year, with one more to go afterward before they could think of college. If the other two members plus their songwriter went away, what would it mean for the still young band? Right now, they were still having to take in the possibility that theirs would have to be a short-lived glory. The band could not hold them back from what they wanted and needed to do with their futures.
Kelsey had a long standing grand plan. Of her many loves, growing up, animals had always been at the top. For that, it was a surprise to no one that she was seeking to become a zoologist. She was only hesitating now to wonder where she might focus her attention in the long run. It was hard for the Friars not to immediately go and think turtles, with how associated she'd become with them in their hearts, but Kelsey went far beyond the shelled ones great and small. Whatever she went for in the end, they could see her giving it all that she had. That had always been her way, hadn't it? The one thing that could potentially hold her in place, far more than the band, was her family, her mother. Yes, Haruna was better now, clean bill of health and all, but no one would blame Kelsey for still worrying about her and about ever losing her.
Meanwhile, it was also very true to what they'd known Ava to be that she wanted to continue developing her hair and makeup skills, wanted to make her living from it. She'd started off just being into it from a necessity, managing her naturally curly hair, then evolved into touching on makeup, not even for her own self but because she loved what it could do. She'd learned plenty by herself before ever getting to work behind the scenes at the school musicals, and then as part of Backstage Ready she'd learned even more. This had all played greatly into her ideas of her future, and then once her connections to Maya and Lucas had led to a sort of mini internship on the set of Katy's series over the summer, there had been no going back.
Easily the most striking news they'd seen come churning out of the college chatter around the school was Anton Day's choice of career. He wanted to be a doctor, wanted to study the brain, become a surgeon. At first, it just seemed to come out of nowhere, but then… No, it didn't come out of nowhere at all. It came out of one January morning nearly four years ago, when the then fourteen-year-old boy had found his older brother's body in his bed. It had been such a trauma for him that it felt as though a lot of them had nearly forgotten about that part out of an effort not to bring it up around him. For that, they couldn't see how it had shaped him, more and more so as he'd come to understand just what had happened with Lambert and been faced with the idea that, if things had happened differently, if by some chance they could have known… maybe he would still be there with them.
It was a lot of 'ifs' and 'maybes' and none of it was for certain, no, but it was enough to make him know that this was what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to be the someone who could maybe prevent a loss such as he and his family had suffered. Was it a guarantee that he'd be able to do it? Maybe not, but it didn't have to be. If he could save just one, it would already be something… and he planned to save much more than one. He would do it for his big brother.
"Enjoyed the trip?" Maya asked Britt O'Connell with a smile as they waited along with a few others at the gift shop's register. The XC had picked up a few things for her family back home, and for her host family right here, too.
"Yeah," Britt nodded. "I was never really big on museums," she admitted, and Maya nodded, understanding. "But it's different when it's like this, with school, with friends," she nodded over to where Kelsey, Ava, and Olivia were still browsing, at the risk of running out of time if they didn't get in line soon.
"Glad to hear it," Maya replied.
"Can I ask you something?" Britt started, hesitation in her eyes.
"Sure, what's up?" Maya asked.
"I think… Ava's got this idea in her head like I'm going to make a move on Kelsey?" Britt confessed, eliciting not a hint of surprise in her art teacher's face. She had been seeing the questions playing at Ava's face, whenever it'd be the three of them together and she'd look to her girlfriend and the girl that was and would be staying at her house until June. She could see this thought in her eyes, and it wouldn't even be that she mistrusted Kelsey, or even Britt, the more she got to know her, but at the same time she couldn't help but be afraid.
"I don't know how much she has or hasn't told you about herself… knowing her, it's probably less than what there is by a long shot, but… I'd say try and talk to her. Don't come in with any suggestions that could sound like accusations, just… share some of yourself, let her do the same." Letting people in had required so much work for the Nash girl, and now that she'd done it, she feared losing the ones she had and Kelsey… Kelsey may have been most precious of all, which loaded her with even more fear.
"Okay… I can do that," Britt nodded. "Thanks, Mrs. Friar."
"Anytime," Maya smiled at her before looking around. "Alright, last call, seniors!" she called around the shop, bringing up a few heads, Lucas included. Many of them scurried over to the line. Lucas came to join her, arms loaded. "What… even…" she tried not to laugh.
"Don't look at me, I got inspired."
"You know we're going to be back three more times, yeah?" Who was she kidding? She was as hopeless as he was, and the proof of it was in the basket on her arm. They were just going to have to mutually agree to call the matter settled. "So, what'd you get?"
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
