“JUST follow me.”
The two of us knocked on the door, before it swing opened, revealing my mother who immediately gave us a warm smile plastered on her face.
“Hi, Nats. Why are you home so early? No celebration for the results of the exam, eh?”
“Mom don’t listen to Nathan’s nonsense words,” warned her.
“What are you talking about?”
“This is not pure nonsense, Aunt. I’m here because I wanted to tell you something...”
“And what is that, Nathan?”
“I don’t want your daughter to be my best friend anymore. I want her to be more than that... I love your daughter, and I want her to be my girlfriend. So please, would you allow me to court her, please?” Nathan stated, making me and my mother gasped in shock.
“You want my daughter to be your girlfriend?” my Mom asked him, and he immediately nodded, as if too determine to get her approval.
“Yes, I love her... So much,” he looked at my direction, making me blushed by the way he said it in front of my mother.
“Well, it will be up to my daughter. If it was me and Jessica to decide, we would want you two to be married right away,” my Mom chuckled, making me want to be eaten by the ground.
Nathan chuckled, before grabbing my Mom’s hands to kiss it several times.
“Thank you, thank you so much! I promise to take care of her!”
“Oh, boy. Looks like you have to convince her first. I will leave you two alone for one moment to talk, alright?” she asked, before closing the door shut.
“Mom, wait!” I called out, but she ignored me. “Nathan... What was that?” I asked, turning to face him this time.
“I am courting you now, whether you like it or not. My mother and yours already agreed, so you don’t have worry about them.”
“But are you sure about this? Do you really...” I trailed off.

“Love you? Of course. I always do... Ever since middle school. I know for a fact that what we have right now... It could be more than just best friends... Now tell me... Do you love me too, Natalia?” he asked, eyes hopeful, and I know for a fact that I can’t just crushed him down like that... In fact, the truth is that I love him as well.
“I do, Nathan. I love you too,” I finally confessed.
He chuckled, before pulling me in for a tight hug, one that immediately made me blushed.
“Thank you... Thank you for feeling the same, Natalia,” Nathan stated, before giving me a gentle kiss on the cheeks.
Last day of school. It was a big relief, and a little bit sad, of course. But we know to ourselves that in order to grow more, we should learn to move on from our own lives. High school is fine, yes. There are times when you will just realized that life is a bitter sweet series of endless challenges. Challenges that will eventually turns out to be a golden memories.
Because it is the last day of classes, my classmates seems to be feeling gloomy. Also, our classmates are all wearing the same, plain white T-shirt... Something that we will let our fellow classmates to sign on later so that we could have a little remembrance from each other aside from the memories that we created inside of four years of being together not just as classmates, but as a family as well.
“Here, sign my T-shirt, Natalia,” Scott demanded, and so I signed it, near on his shoulders.
“There you go.”
“Me too!” Becca stated.
We exchanged our signatures, together with Lia and Elyzz, before Nathan came over towards a my direction and then pointed his right chest, as if trying to tell me something.
“Here, sign here, Nat. Then put it inside of a heart,” he answered, making Scott and Becca shoot us some mischievous grins.
“Someone is not telling us something,” Becca said, before pinching my cheeks.
“Are you two already dating or something?” Scott added, looking as curious as ever.
“Not yet. I mean, you know. I’m still courting my favorite girl,” Nathan stated, before winking at my direction.
“Someone’s blushing.”
I turned around, trying to ignore them before looking for someone. As I finally saw Freeda, I came over her direction. Her shirt was plain white, as if nobody tried to sign on it yet.
“Hi,” I sheepishly greeted her.
“Natalia. What are you doing here?” she asked me.
“Uhm... Can you sign my T-shirt? I will sign yours as well as an exchange. How about that?” I innocently asked her.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course... So?”
She nodded, before getting a pen to sign my shirt. I did the same, before bidding my farewells to her. But just as I was about to leave, she called my name, making me stop to look at her direction.
“Natalia, wait!”
“Yes?”
“Uhm... I just wanted to apologize for everything and–”
“Shhh,” I cut her statement off, before showing her the blue string on my hand.
“Is that...”
“Nathan already told me everything. You don’t have to explain everything is you feel uncomfortable doing it... What matters right now is... I finally forgiven you. And just like what I said before, I will be forever thankful for you, because you are the reason why my high school life is getting more and more exciting each day. I just realized that there will always be some days and nights when life would be so hard... But I will always have someone to surpass that as well...”
“Then thank you, Nat. I may not have the red string with me right now but... I would like to thank you, so much. I’ve learned a lot from you... And I will never forget you.”
“Friends?”
“Friends.”
We shake out hands, before smiling at each other. This might be the end for our high school days but it wasn’t the end for our friendship. We can always stay as friends, no matter what happened, and how far we could be apart from each other. And that’s how we spent the last day of school.