Her eyes filled with tears, but she refused to let them fall.
“I need to do this myself.”
I wanted to tell her that no promise was worth allowing strangers to humiliate her. I wanted to remind her that she had worked too hard for her diploma to risk being escorted out of the gym over a piece of cardboard.
But then she placed one hand against Felix’s printed shoulder and whispered something so quietly that I almost missed it.
“You said we’d walk together. I’m keeping my promise.”
I swallowed the words I had been preparing to say.
“All right,” I whispered. “I promise.”
I had no idea that, before the morning was over, I would wish I had found a way to protect her without breaking my word.
Or that the man who tried to stop her from graduating would be the same man who eventually asked her to forgive him.
