บท 140: Highest honors

"It's finally here," she said as she glanced around at all the other graduates. She hated how this day felt ruined to her.

She worked so hard to make it here, but everything went down the drain at the last second.

She wasn't prepared to feel this way today. She thought that things would be different.

"And we're going to party hard tonight," Zoe said with a bright smile. She handed Cole her phone. "Can you take some pictures of us, babe?"

Cole smiled and nodded as he lifted her phone up.

Zoe leaned near Alyssa's ear.

"Smile. When you're happy and successful in the future, you don't want to look back and see how much he ruined this for you," she whispered.

Alyssa met Zoe's gaze for a moment and nodded. She didn't need to let Elias ruin anything else for her. She smiled at the camera.