Mark Burgess

The Quiet Kid

Excerpt

I should’ve been suspicious when my mom, at 5:30 on a Tuesday night, suggested we go get some frozen yogurt. 

“Your graduation day is almost here!” she said after backing the car out of the garage. 

“Yup.”

“When is the actual date, the fifth?” 

We both knew that my high school graduation was on Sunday, June fifth at 11 a.m. 

“Somewhere around there.”

“I think it’s the fifth, but in any case, it’s only a few weeks away! We need to finalize our plans for your graduation party! Now, I know you’re feeling nervous about it…”

She wanted me to say something. 

“Yeah.”

“And I understand that honey, I do. The thing is, if we don’t invite people soon, they might not be able to come.” 

I didn’t want anyone to come, that was the issue, but I didn’t bother with repeating that point again. I could already tell that this wasn’t about what I wanted, but what I was getting.  

“What if we just have a small family party at home?” I said.

“Yes, absolutely! Just a small, family party.”

  I had meant my parents, my two older brothers, and my two grandmas, but I now understood what my mom heard was, “I want you to invite all of my uncles and aunts and cousins and family friends.” I became nauseous as I pictured all those people at our house, looking at me. Yet, at the same time, I knew I had to accept it if I was going to avoid what I was really dreading. 

“Yeah, and we could just skip the graduation itself, even,” I said, trying to slip in it there.

“Skip the graduation?”

“Yeah. It’s just a boring ceremony, and it’s what I’m most nervous about.”

“You’re nervous about the actual graduation?”

“Yes.”

“What about it makes you nervous?”

I was nervous because I was embarrassed that I looked so young for my age and afraid that everyone’s family at the graduation in their mind would be like, why is a ten-year-old graduating from high school? And to make that issue worse, I was also scared that they would somehow skip my name when it came time for me to walk across the stage and that I would be standing there awkwardly and would have to go and tell the person my name, all the while everyone would be looking at me and would thus have even more time to notice that I looked extremely young and to laugh at me in their head. And on top of all that, I knew that the graduates, in addition to taking pictures with their families, would also take pictures with their friends and celebrate with them, and I didn’t have friends, so all my invited family would see that I was a loser with no friends. 

“It’s hard to explain.” 

“Can you try?”

I took a deep breath.

“No.”

She laughed, and I laughed too. Then we stopped laughing.

“It might make you feel better, to talk about it.” 

I decided to give in a little, if for no other reason than to get the subject dropped. 

“I’m nervous about, ya know, the looking young and having no friends thing.” I had told my mom all this around nine months before, right before the start of the school year, because I was tired of pretending that I had friends. Having no friends was hard enough as it was. 

“OK…” she said, obviously wanting me to elaborate further. I didn’t.

“OK, I understand you’re nervous, I do. But a high school graduation is an important milestone, and I think you’ll regret it if you skipped it.”

She just didn’t get it. 

“Would I regret it, or would you regret it?”

“Yes, you’re right. I love you, and your father loves you, and your grandmas love you, and we want to be there to celebrate your accomplishment,” she said as she stopped at a red light. 

I thought that of those four only my mom cared if I went to the graduation, and that if she loved me, she would respect what I wanted. Yet I also knew that if I loved her, which I did, then I would respect what she wanted. 

“It’s my graduation, shouldn’t it be my decision?” 

“Is it your decision, or is your anxiety deciding for you?”

She probably understood more than I thought. 

“It’s my decision,” I said stupidly.  

“I’ll call people tonight to tell people about the party, and we’ll talk more about the actual graduation later,” she said as the light turned green. Talk later meant, “You are absolutely going to your graduation.”

“OK.”

We drove on in silence. 

About the Author

Mark Burgess is currently at work on a novel titled The Quiet Kid.