The auditorium was packed with teenagers milling around, filled with a general hubbub of children talking to families. Mostly, though, it was filled with a sea of black gowns all arranged in orderly rows, thankfully not by alphabetical order.
Aerienna Johnson sat fairly close to the back, knowing she would be the last one called. In her hand was a much-crumpled piece of notebook paper that had her speech on it. This row hadn't filled up yet; there were two open seats on one side of her and one open seat on the other side--
Make that one seat on either side, as her best (and only) friend, Astra Shepard, slid in next to her and hugged her.
"Hey, Aery! Why so serious?"
"I h-have to give a sp-speech... i-in front o-of all th-these people..." She started to cry, shamefully, softly, hiding her face under the sleeve of her too-big gown. The smallest size they'd had was for a girl 5'2"; she needed more like a 4'4".
Astra pinched her cheek, hugged her tighter. "Oh, love, don't cry. You're the scary one, when you get up on that stage and get your transcript with your 4.75 GPA, when you're fourteen years old and going off to Johns Hopkins on a full ride."
"Y-you're going too, though. Y-you a-a-and Jake a-and Joe. I-it's not that special." But she quit crying, enough to wipe her eyes and smile a tearful smile.

The band was starting playing, the cue for all the soon-to-be-graduates to take their seats. Aery scanned the crowd, looking for Joe and Jake.