After the students had walked out onto the field… After the band stopped playing Pomp and Circumstance… After the sun went down behind the bleachers… After the students had walked across the stage… After the tossing of mortar boards… After the fireworks… After all that, I saw Jon amid the blue.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Mr. Edgar.
Jon saw me coming.
“Mr. Hasan!” he shouted.
“Jon!” I said, returning his broader than usual smile.
He was standing with Isabel. She and he and a group of rascals were in my fifth period class a year ago. She did well. He did not. And he made a point to remind me that I had failed him whenever the two of them passed my classroom this year, although he would do it with a smile on his face as we bumped fists and they continued walking down the hall.
“Mr. Hasan,” he said. “I did it!”
“You did it,” I said and held my fist up for a bump.
“I need to give you a hug,” he said.
So we hugged each other. And Isabel and I hugged, too.
“You did it!” I said to him again, pointing a finger right at him. “You did it.”
Isabel smiled.