“It’s so weird,” Lexi said bringing the glass to her lips as she talked to Ian and Chris in a small corner of the patio. The graduation party was about the fifth the trio had attended and there was still about half a dozen more to go before they shipped out late next week for their assignments. By now the graduation parties were not the raucous events celebrating that they had survived their four years at the Academy. It was the in-between stage of the graduation party series where everyone was starting to realize they were Starfleet officers and would be shipped out to God knows where in the coming weeks. Maybe that was why she, Ian, and Chris had found a secluded corner on the patio. Their nights of long talks would be ending. Lexi wasn’t so sure how ready she was for that to happen. “If someone had told me what I would be doing now four years ago I would never have believed it,” she sighed as she took a deep drink from her glass. “I should be reclining back on Noah, not you,” Lexi stated the sentence firmly.

Wiggling a bit, she found her comfy spot in the chaise lounger against Chris. Her body rose and fell with the rhythm of his breathing as she looked at the starry night. “I think I need you to find my North Star,” she requested as her hand moved towards her neck. Her fingers found the pendant on the necklace Chris had given her years before and began to move it back and forth. “I am not sure I know my way anymore.”

Cadet Lexi Garfield