A/N: real quick, I appreciate your patience with me taking a month off to work on getting a book properly published lol
but I also wanted to say that the outfit above is an old Polyvore one I found on Pinterest so I have no idea who it belongs to, but it isn't mine :)

updates are gonna be slow for a bit coz I'm graduating this year so bare with me, but you guys are my only source of serotonin rn so I'm posting coz I miss you lol

Somehow, Katherine had managed to pass physics with a B.

Sure, the exam had taken her an extra hour that they provide you with and she had bullshit her way through the last half, but after four hours of staring at the same question written different and trying to see through the smudges on her glasses lenses before giving in and cleaning them several times, she was happy with that.

Her, her dad and Stiles had all gotten take out Thai food for dinner and binge watched all the Hobbit's and Lord of the Rings in celebration of her no longer having mental breakdowns on the kitchen floor as she'd been so stressed out that dropping a chip with queso on the floor had triggered it. Stiles had panicked and called Liam after only understand chip and sad while she'd sobbed, and he'd spent the rest of the night on the kitchen floor with her.

It had been an eventful night.

The moment they'd finished having dinner, though, she'd put tinker bell on in her room, double checked that she'd taken all her pills and slept for 15 hours straight.

She spent her weekend wandering around in her pyjamas, since she didn't have anything else she needed to do, and continuously called Jackson and Isaac as she knew they were both graduating from whatever school they went to now, as well. She'd gotten some good information on how Ethan was, as well, which she appreciated. Then she'd texted Kira, and had gotten a short answer saying that she was okay and that the skin walkers were helping a lot more than she'd thought they would. After a good few hours of conversation with each of them, and then went to sleep early.

The graduation ceremony for the seniors started at noon that Monday, and she knew that if she was going to deal with the rats nest she called hair beforehand, then she'd have to wake up early.

But instead, Katherine woke up to a text from Lydia. It took her a second to properly read it, since she had yet to completely sleep off the sleeping pill, but when she finally blinked herself awake she couldn't help but smile.

LYDIA
did you want to come
over and get ready with
Malia and I today?

🍫KAT🍫
hell yeah I do

should I bring my
own clothes???

💞LYDIA💞
no, I've got something
that'll fit you so just
bring your cute self

🍫KAT🍫
Lydia you're adorable

She rolled herself out of bed and, cocooned in her blankets, slid down the stairs on her back. Their dad was at the kitchen table reading the news paper, a cup of coffee half way to his mouth. "Are you okay?" He asked after she made no effort to get up.

Katherine blinked and poured. "Coffee," she grumbled, sleepily rubbing her eyes while doing the shittiest sit up in the world to lift her upper half off the floor.

"You look like a zombie rising from the dead," Stiles commented from behind her.

She just grumbled at him as he stepped over her, then grabbed himself a couple pop tarts from the kitchen cupboard.

Their dad just sighed as she continued to lay there, only getting up when Stiles dropped one of the pop tarts on her head. Immediately, she frisbee tossed it back at him and smiled triumphantly when he flailed to get it off of his shirt. "You two — please, just give me one day of not this," their dad groaned, rubbing his temples with his middle and forefingers.

She turned to look at him, frowning.

"It's totally fine—"

"—what do you think we do when you work the night shift?" Katherine cut her brother off, brows arching.

He just sighed stood up, passing her an empty Silvermist mug so that she could get her own coffee, and he left the room while shaking his head. When he was gone, she turned to look at Stiles, who was now at the table, with a sad smile on her face. "Did you screw up the Jeep?" He asked curiously, brows pulling together as he bit off a chunk of pop tart.

"The fuck? No? Why would you ask me that, are you kidding me?" Katherine gaped at him, filling the mug up as much as she could without spilling any over the brim.

"Because you're looking at me all sad and pouty and you only do that when you break something or accidentally did a thing that you definitely should not be doing."

She stared at him for a moment, debating on whether or not she actually wanted to tell him what was wrong, then she sighed. "It's just, you graduate today, and...everything's gonna be real weird without you here," she grumbled, avoiding all eye contact with him. Then she cleared her throat before she had the chance to say anything. "I'm going to Lydia's to get ready with her and Malia, so...I'll see you at the school, okay?"

"Alright," Stiles nodded, squinting at her slightly. "And KitKat?" He smiled faintly when she glanced at him. "I'm always just gonna be a text, phone call, Skype call away, okay? Don't even think that I won't be."

She smiled back at him and brought her coffee up to her mouth to hide the sad frown that was twisting at her lips.

🐺🌑🥍

Lydia and Malia had both been at the door waiting for her when she'd set her bike in the back yard, and she'd given them koala hugs to start off the beginning of a very long morning.

They spent a good chunk of time just eating breakfast and talking about the day, and what their plans were once they were done with high school, and then they made the decision to head upstairs.

The first thing they all did was choose what they were going to wear under their gowns that day, though Katherine was entirely moral support for that. She sat on Lydia's bed as she tried on several outfits that she liked for the first little bit, and while Malia gave off brutally honest opinions while she simply yelled up suggestions from downstairs while making coffee and digging through the cupboards for something to eat.

Eventually, she came back upstairs with a bowl of lucky charms and found Lydia standing in front of her mirror wearing a soft pink dress that ended mid-thigh. It's shoulders fell to her biceps while thin straps held it up properly, and the waist pulled in around the middle.

"That one," Katherine grinned, settling herself back down on the bed. "That's definitely the one, Lyds, you look incredible."

Lydia smiled happily and twisted to see her full reflection in the mirror, then nodded. "I agree; did you find anything?"

Wordlessly, Malia held up a green dress that immediately reminded Katherine of something out of tinker bell, with the way it just fell in effortless soft green fabric waves that, with the same golden coloured rope, wrapped around the waist of it before twisting up to be the straps on the shoulders. "Can I wear boots with it?" She asked hopefully, eyes widening the slightest bit.

Katherine bit her lip slightly to keep from laughing. "We'll figure something out, I can promise you that much," she chuckled.

She sat patiently on the floor of the closet and nibbled at her lucky charms while still in her pyjamas, just playing music on her phone as she waited for the two of them to get changed. Lydia came out within a few minutes, but then the two of them had to go into the bathroom to help Malia with the straps of her dress.

But they were all dressed in fifteen minutes, and as Malia had her makeup done, Katherine fed her singular pieces of cereal and marshmallows to keep her slightly less grumpy since, while she did like the way it looked, she really didn't like to process of getting to it.

"How're things going with Liam?" Lydia asked curiously, brows arching up as she maneuvered Malia's face the way she wanted to. "Has he been treating you well?"

Katherine rolled her eyes. "We're not dating, Lyds," she snickered, grimacing when she gasped.

"Still? Are you kidding me?"

"Boys are dumb," Malia shrugged, waving Lydia's hand away from her face. "He's not gonna ask you, do you have to ask him."

"I already did that, though," she grumbled, then dropped her face onto the mattress. "And since he made the conscious decision to do that last time, so I don't have the best track record with that. Lucky for his dumb ass, I'm an incredibly patient person—"

"—now that is the biggest lie I've been told all day," Lydia hummed, a cheeky smile toting at her lips. "But the only advice I can give you, babe, is he happy with yourself before you decide to be happy with someone else, you know?"

Katherine smiled ruefully at her, knowing perfectly what she meant. "Yeah," she murmured, "I do."

After the two of the had gotten themselves ready to go, Lydia wandered over to her closet and pulled out a dress Katherine would never have chosen; it was pink fabric splotted with tiny pink and green spots. There were very few frills, which she appreciated, but the pair of four inch heels she was holding in the other hand made her groan.

"None of that," Lydia warned her the way an older sibling did, and it made her smile. "We're going to make you look hot, okay? So stop complaining."

After another half hour, it was time to go to the school.

Katherine only wound up stumbling twice in her shoes on the way out to the car. Admittedly, Lydia had been right.

She looked hot.

They'd brushed and straightened her hair so it wasn't a tangled mess, Malia had returned the favour and fed her lucky charms during the makeup process, and before she knew it they were heading out the front door with Natalie, Lydia's mum, and sitting in the car.

At the school, Katherine was genuinely surprised to see how well decorated the gym was, and knew that it was more than likely all thanks to Coach Finstock. Even with how much he made it seem like he hated all his students, it was quite obvious that deep, deep down, he did like them.

He tolerated them, at least.

"Hey, sweetheart," her dad smiled softly, wearing his uniform and looking all professional.

Katherine grinned as she hugged him, then look around for Stiles. "Where's the idiot?" She asked curiously.

"If you mean the teenager that you're related to, then he's with Scott getting organized...how he'll managed that I have no idea," he sighed, rubbing his head. "Come on, kiddo; let's go get front row seats."

🐺🌑🥍

Through out the entire ceremony, Katherine had been sitting on the edge of her seat. She had her phone in hand and recorded each of the pack members as they crossed the stage and got their diploma, cheering and whistling as loudly as she was capable of.

She'd seen Liam step in at the back of the gym just a couple minutes before it started so she didn't have the chance to wave him over, but she did smile. He looked surprised, though she was guessing it was because of the way she looked and not because she was there.

As soon as everyone had gotten their diploma, Katherine booked it over to Scott and Stiles and threw herself at the two of them. She wasn't surprised to feel that Stiles nearly fell over while Scott held onto her easily, and continued hugging them anyway. "You guys are fucking graduated! Oh my god!" She shrieked as she was set on the floor. "How did that even happen?"

"I have no idea," Scott laughed, one of his hands settled on her head to prevent Stiles from smacking her because she'd sworn. "But we did, and now..."

"...now you have to adult," Katherine snickered, waving frantically to Malia and Lydia as they made their way over. "Oh my god! You guys are professional adults now!"

"We're still only 18, Kat," Lydia reminded her with a soft laugh as she fell into place beside Stiles.

Katherine opened her mouth to respond sarcastically, but she briefly paused; Stiles reached over to grab her hand, just discretely, and Lydia didn't push him away like she would've in the past. Instead, she just laced her fingers through his. "So you're telling me that dealing with this bullshit hasn't aged you a few years?" She retorted, eyeing the two of them with a slowly widening grin.

"No it definitely has," Malia hummed plainly.

"Hey Liam," she heard Scott say, and immediately felt her heart skip a beat the way it seemed to love doing.

She turned around and offered him a smile, internally happy that she was now a couple inches taller than him thanks to the heels.

He was staring at her wide-eyed, just wearing a nice pair of black pants and a collared white shirt. "Woah," he breathed out, bringing a hand up to scratch the back of his neck. "Kat, you..."

"It's Lydia's," she shrugged with a small smile, holding her arms out awkwardly. "I look pretty hot, I know, but that's all thanks to her."

"Still," he murmured. "You look..."

"Okay this is painful to watch," Malia cut in, clicking her tongue. "Can we go somewhere and get dinner? I'm hungry."

"I am too," Katherine hummed, slipping her shoes off so she was barefoot on the floor. "Existing in these bitches has me starving, dude."

They eventually made the decision to get take out and then go back to Scott's house to hang out, and as the grads were explaining everything to their families, Liam moved up to her with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Um, what I was trying to spit out earlier was that you look good, Katherine," he murmured softly, the expression on his face heartwarming. "Really good."

She stared at him for a moment, eyes twinkling the slightest bit. "You sure I don't look nice?"

His face flushed red, obviously thinking of the night him, Scott and Malia had almost been killed at the lacrosse party in freshman year, and he scratched at the back of his head again. "Yeah, you weirdo. You look nice."

Katherine smiled sweetly. "Why, thank you."