Throughout the whole day, his emotions were in turmoil. Excitement, fear, nostalgia, grief, and extreme joy seemed to course throughout his veins as Marc walked into his high school for the Last time ever.

Everything that day was a Last; Last time sitting in Mrs. Dujon’s class, Last communal lunch table with the friends that he had grown closest to throughout his four years in this school, Last time singing with his chamber choir. They even went out into the lunchroom and performed for the Last time ever.

In the past, the last day of the school year had also been the best day; it was a throwaway day, a day for parties and potlucks and fiestas and movies and plans for summer vacation, with work and learning farther from their minds than on any other day of the year.

This year was different. This was the Last year, and it was a much more somber parting than Marc had ever experienced before. Everyone had finally realized that this may very well be the Last time that they ever spoke with the people that they had spent the last four years with.

And so it was that as Marc walked into the school, he found that his mind was confused and muddled between the joy and celebration that usually accompanied the end of a school year, the grief and sadness of this final parting, and even the excitement to move on to higher things and begin his first semester at college.

Opening his locker proved to be the first struggle of the day. As he stared upon it, it dawned upon him that this was, indeed, the Last time he would use this locker -- or perhaps any other locker, for that matter; he would scarcely need them at college, where he would be allowed to carry his bag around with him.

His first class was Economics with Mrs. Wesberck. Upon entering the room, he greeted his friends with a subtle, “Hey,” before finding his seat, and they nodded at him in return.
She started with a speech. “I’m so proud of each and every one of you! You’ve all worked very hard to get this far, and I can’t wait to see you walk across the stage in just a week’s time! I love the chance to meet so many students, and though I’m sad to see you go, I know that you all have big things ahead of you!” She rambled on like this for a couple more minutes before letting them all talk and eat the food that they had brought for the rest of the hour.

The rest of the day progressed like this, each teacher talking about how they were going to miss their students, and wishing them the best of luck. It did nothing but heighten Marc’s nerves and anxiety about the day, and he finally began to comprehend the inexpressible finality of it all -- This is it. Of course, there would be graduation, and maybe a few graduation parties or get togethers, but knowing that their time left was so limited and unsure left an uneasy pit in Marc’s stomach, one that became deeper and deeper throughout the day as an unreasonable sense of panic filled him.

The general mood within the school, or at least among the senior class, seemed to mirror his own; increasingly people hurried across the lunchroom or hallway to bid farewells and exchange hugs; many tears were shed. Of course, a nervous excitement also filled the air like so much static electricity, excitement and anxiety for the unknown that lay ahead so ominously, a dark cloud upon the horizon.

And finally Marc reached the end of his day. He slammed his locker shut for the Last time ever and hoisted his backpack up on his shoulder. The day had been unbearable; he had not been able to decipher his muddled emotions. The tension in the air was palpable, as if one quavering pluck would bring it all crashing to the ground.

And then he shouldered through the front doors and all of the emotions that he had felt throughout the day felt truly real, so vivid that he could taste them upon his tongue, but they were also fleeting, and as he hurried away from his school for the Last time, he was finally able to shove them out of his mind, to be categorized and dealt with later.

And as he drove away from what had been his school, he felt an unrelentless sense of freedom and boundlessness, an excited rush to reach the next stop in the journey that is life.