I’m 18, and I graduated from high school last week.
People keep asking me what’s next, and I keep giving the same vague answers, like I’m reading from a script I didn’t write.
Because the truth is… it doesn’t feel like anything started.
If anything, it feels like something ended too soon, and the world forgot to hit play again.
Everything still smells like the cafeteria — warm rolls, industrial soap, and that sharp cleaning spray that clings to the back of your throat.
Sometimes I swear I hear her footsteps in the kitchen.
Even though I know better.
My grandma raised me. Not part-time. Not “she helped out sometimes.” I mean she was it. The whole deal.
My parents died in a car crash when I was little. I don’t remember the crash itself. Just a few flashes from before — my mom’s laugh, my dad’s watch ticking against the steering wheel, a song playing low on the radio.
Then it was just me and my grandma.
Her name was Lorraine. She was 52 when she took me in. She was already working full-time as a cafeteria cook at the same school I’d eventually attend. We lived in an old house that creaked when the wind changed, and we had no backup plan besides grit and each other.
And she made it work.
At school, people called her Miss Lorraine, or just “Lunch Lady,” like it was an anonymous job title instead of a person.
She was 70 and still came to work before dawn, her thin gray hair tied back with a scrunchie she made herself.
Every apron she wore had a different fabric. Sunflowers. Strawberries. Tiny cats. She said it made kids smile.
And even though she spent her whole day making meals for other people’s children… she still packed my lunch every morning and slipped a sticky note inside.
It was always something sweet or ridiculous.
“Eat the fruit or I’ll haunt you.”
“You’re my favorite miracle.”
We were poor, but she never acted like we were missing out.
When the heater broke one winter, she filled the living room with blankets and candles and called it a “spa night.” My prom dress was $18 from the thrift store, and she stitched rhinestones onto the straps while humming Billie Holiday like she was making couture.
“I don’t need to be rich,” she told me once. “I just want you to be okay.”
I was okay… until high school made it harder.
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