“So, why did you invite Tristan to your final speech?” Dr. Greyson asks me at our next and final meeting.

The weather has turned from cold to wet, but remained just as grey. It has been drizzling all day today. It feels like each raindrop that falls from the sky sucks me of a little bit of my energy. Dr. Greyson is wearing bright red heels, which compliment her bright red lipstick and stand out nicely against the grayness of her suit. Looking at that splash of color gives me a little bit of a boost.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “I guess I’m looking for a little closure.”

“What is the speech about?” Dr. Greyson asks.

“It’s free form. It can be about anything. So I decided to write something about him. About us. But I don’t even know if he’ll show up.”

“And if he doesn’t?” she asks.

I think about that for a moment.

“You know what?” I say. “It’ll be okay. If he doesn’t show up, that’s fine. This speech isn’t really for him. It’s sort of for me.”

Dr. Greyson’s face explodes in a wide smile.

“I’m very proud of you Alice. You’ve come a long way.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well, I don’t make it a habit to comment like this,” she says, “but since this is our last meeting and you’ve made plans to go elsewhere next year, I might as well go ahead and tell you.”

I take a deep breath and brace myself. Dr. Greyson is not one to offer up compliments easily. In fact, everything with her is all about being a work in progress. But I guess that’s what life is, isn’t it? A work in progress? You’re never done growing or changing and there’s always room for improvement until that moment when you’re no more. I’ve never thought about it, but that perspective makes Dr. Greyson quite an optimist about humanity. More of an optimist than I am, probably.

“When you first came here Alice, I saw a broken, hurt little girl. Someone who was afraid to own her feelings. Someone who was afraid to listen to her heart. Someone who was to a large extent not very true to herself. And now, you’re a different person altogether. You have grown into yourself. You have gained self-esteem. You believe that you have worth and your feelings have worth. That makes me very proud, Alice. You’ve become quite a young woman, my dear.”

I smile. I want to jump out of my seat and hug her. And then…I do. I wrap my arms around her shoulders in a warm embrace.

“Oh my.” She laughs in a surprise. And then hugs me back.

“I hate to say it, but I think I’m going to miss you,” I say, sitting back down across from her. “Coming here hasn’t always been my favorite time of the week. But I think I really learned a lot from you.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” Dr. Greyson says. “But I want you to remember that it’s not me that you have learned a lot from in this office. It’s through the process of reflection. I don’t mean to undermine my own credibility, of course, but it was you who has done all the work. All the work of looking back and examining your feelings and actions.”

I nod. She’s right, of course. Yet again.

“Well, I’m going to miss you anyway,” I say with a shrug.

“And I’ll miss you.”

I look at the clock. Our last meeting has come to a close.

“I hope that USC ends up being everything you’re looking for,” she says at the end of our session. “And if you ever find yourself in New York City again, don’t be a stranger.”

Walking back home from Dr. Greyson’s office, I feel like I’m floating on a cloud. My feet don’t seem to be connected to the ground. It’s an amazing feeling to feel like someone, a stranger, is proud of you. My parents have always told me that they loved me and were proud of me, but now hearing it from a complete stranger, I beam with self-confidence. Dr. Greyson is right. I have made a lot of progress this semester. Everything that has happened has made me a stronger and more self-assured person at the end. And that somehow made it all worthwhile.

* * *

I arrive at the auditorium where I’m supposed to give my speech early, as usual. There’s a line of nervous students backstage waiting to go on. The auditorium is filled with five classes of public speaking students. There have been two sessions of this particular kind of torture and this is the second one. Everyone backstage has been assigned an earlier time. And the rest of the people who are going today are waiting in the audience. I make small talk with some of the others, but we’re all focused and not really into it. We’re all too focused and too nervous about the speech that we’re about to make. I’m the third one up and I look over my flash cards. I’ve written the speech in big letters with a lot of spacing in the words to make sure that I could see it well when I’m up there. I did not take anything to calm my nerves and I’m jealous of the two girls and guy behind me who are talking about the anti-anxiety meds that they took to calm theirs.

“I can do this,” I whisper to myself. “I can do this. I’m going to be fine.”

Finally, it’s my turn. Everyone is still clapping for the last person who went up. I didn’t hear a word of what he said. I walk out onto the stage and force myself to smile. The lights are blinding and I can’t see a soul. Something about this experience feels different than the intimacy of my previous speeches. They were all in a room of about thirty people where I could see every set of eyes. Here, there are no individuals in the room. They’re just a sea of people. I take a deep breath and clear my throat, quietly. I open the lid of my water bottle so that I don’t have to fumble with it during the speech, if my mouth runs dry.

“Ladies and gentlemen I am extremely honored to be here and for this opportunity to speak about my friend Tristan Hilton. For many years, Tristan and I were very close friends. We did everything together. Played with light sabers in our own third-grade version of Star Wars, played endless games of Release and tag and slept over at each other’s houses until our moms grew concerned that we were getting too close for ten year olds. They had nothing to worry about, of course; we were only kids, and then we turned 13. Our feelings for each other grew and eventually, during our junior year in high school, we started dating.

“Dating in high school can be a complicated thing for many. There are a lot of letdowns and mixed feelings, but Tristan and I never experienced these things. Once we were together, we were together for good. We were best friends and nothing could break us up. But then we got to college. Things were more complicated for us in college. For one thing, we broke up right before we got here and then found out that we were going to be roommates.”

I pause for effect at the end of the sentence and let the crowd take that line in. There’s a gasp that emanates from them. I smile, turn a flash card, and continue.

“Not the easiest thing to go through, as many of you can imagine. College was a time of change. Both for us individually and for us as a couple. We weren’t a couple for a long time, and then we were a couple again. But our togetherness didn’t last either. I won’t bore you with the details, but I’m sure that many of you either heard me relay some of the more sordid ones in one of my unfortunate speeches in class or at least heard about it.”

The crowd laughs. I thought that maybe only a few of them would laugh, the people from my class. But the laughter spreads throughout the room. Juicy rumors do fly rampant.

“Well, anyway,” I say with a smile, “what I really want to talk to you about is not really our history, but friendship. In college, friends come so easily. You meet someone in class, they like the same music as you, they also like to go out on Thursday nights, and you’re friends. And because they come so easily, it’s easy to take them for granted. You think that it’s no problem; you’ll just make more friends. But what my relationship with my friend Tristan taught me is that it’s not that easy to make friends. And it’s way too easy to lose friends. And so, to close, I just want to ask you all to look at the people in your own life who you care about and give them value. Don’t fight over stupid things, and if you fight, at least forgive easily. Friendships are important because they define who you are. The people you meet here will be the people who will forever know you as a nineteen or a twenty-year-old. So, when you’re an old fifty-seven-year old, there will still be people in your life who knew you when you were fun and vibrant and full of life. No offense, of course, to all the fifty-year-olds out there. I hope you know I’m kidding.

“And so, in closing, I want to say thank you to my friend. Tristan. No matter what happens to us in the future, you will always be special to me because you’re my oldest friend. You knew me even before college. You knew me as a third grader and I knew you. And I will always value that. Thank you.”

The auditorium explodes in applause. I smile and nod and smile again. I can’t believe that I actually did that. I gather my notecards, which are limp with sweat, grab my water bottle and walk backstage. A warm sensation spreads throughout my whole body. Relief. My heartbeat returns to its normal rhythm.

“You were great,” someone tells me.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, that was really good,” someone else says. I’m not paying attention to anyone who’s talking to me. I’m simply nodding and smiling and walking further backstage, toward the exit.

I take a big sip of my water. But I don’t stop at one gulp. Suddenly, I’m thirstier than I’ve ever been. And I drink the entire bottle without stopping.

“You were amazing,” someone says.

“Thank you,” I mumble and walk past him.

“Alice?” the voice says again. It’s mildly familiar.

“Yeah?” I turn around and see Tristan.