He stood there in his worn leather vest, stained with dirt and grease, surrounded by a sea of strangers—doctors, lawyers, professors—the kind of people he’d never dreamed of standing beside. In his trembling hands, he held a small gift—something I didn’t want from him, from the man I’d spent the last ten years pretending was dead. He was a ghost I’d buried long ago, one I swore I’d never face again.
My classmates stared, eyes wide and unkind. A few whispered in curiosity, others in contempt. My professors murmured behind their hands, and the Hamiltons—Richard’s parents—wore expressions of tight-lipped disgust. This was supposed to be the day I left everything he represented behind—the trailer park, the grime, the chaos, the life I’d fought so hard to escape.
“I drove two hundred miles,” he rasped. “I just wanted to see you graduate. Just once.”
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