And Sarah took the stage, she was announced as valedictorian but James only saw a beautiful girl that had grown into a woman these past four years. He saw a friend and once, a lover. He saw the girl that he lusted after for 3 semesters before he even worked up the nerve to speak to her. He saw the futures that had bloomed into fiery luminescence in his mind’s eyes and then, like sunlight faded, leaving only the echo that blurs the eyes until finally that fades too. She was shimmering, robes rippling in a soft breeze, hair dancing on unseen winds and when she pursed her lips in that little smile he saw her not there on the stage at all, but held tightly in his arms on a wintery night. And he was kissing her softly again, as he had then, neither one of  them knowing it would be their last night together as lovers. “We’ve been through four long years together,” she said smiling. “More for some of us, I won’t mention any names. We’ve studied, we’ve partied, probably not in the proportions we should have. We’ve made lifelong friends and some of us have probably made life long enemies too. But perhaps most importantly, we’ve grown and changed. Our lives have changed so much, so many times over the course of these four years. And now our lives are about to change again, as we go out into the world and find our way, as we build families and have children of our own and send them off to school. The important thing is not to hold onto past experience… but, as we face the future, simply to remember…