Oh, Steve Taggart. Sweat has painted circles through his yellow robe. The random smattering of claps that follow his final sentence must be more for his underarm artwork than his terrible speech. My personal applause is for the end of Steve Taggart’s reign as smartest kid in school. See you in hell, Steve Taggart! Or at Notre Dame, but maybe the universe will grant me one kindness and make it so we never cross paths there.

At the rate I’m going, it won’t be a problem.

Steve walks back to his spot, smug and sweat-­drenched, and settles into the innermost aisle seat of the front row. The rest of the top ten sit alongside him in order of class rank. The chosen ones.

I’m in the miserable middle, plain old Petra McGowan of the M section, sandwiched between my alphabetical neighbors. Three different middle schools merged into our high school, and while there are faces nearby that I’ve known my whole life, there are also faces I swear I’ve never seen before. Like the two complete strangers on either side of me. For four years, we’ve coexisted, sharing walls and desks and hall passes and gossip without ever managing to cross paths. When you try hard to be good at this whole school thing, you end up with the same group of people in every class. As the years tick by, the numbers dwindle. No one ever randomly decides to take an AP course. This is the first and only time we’ve all been united; a bunch of squirming and vibrating cells being observed by the microscope that is the high-­noon sun, waiting for this pomp and circumstance to end.

Steve Taggart’s speech marks the end of one part of the ceremony and the beginning of the next—­the ever-­important receipt of the diploma. It begins with the parade of our most intelligent: Valedictorian Steve, Salutatorian Marissa Huang, third in the class Jay Cattaro, and then, my favorite mouthful of a name, Cameron Catherine Elizabeth Hannafin-­Bower.

Cameron’s wiry auburn hair engulfs her profile until she becomes nothing but a moving ball of energy, all warm colors and excited twitches. She turns to face the crowd and flashes her most vibrant gap-­toothed smile at me. Or in my general vicinity. I’m not sure she can see this far back. Rank eleventh like me, and there is no fanfare. You’re deep among the plebeians, permanently imprinting your lower half into a foldout plastic chair while waiting for your spot in the alphabet.

At least I was blessed with McGowan for a last name, not Prabhu or Stetson. Poor Aminah and Daniel. It’ll be hours before they get to graduate. P and S may not seem very far from me, but I’m almost positive a third of our graduating glass has an M last name.