And they were about to graduate and go their separate ways.

Faith sucked in a breath and valiantly blinked back tears.

“Okay, everybody smile,” Bryan ordered, his voice a little huskier than usual. “It’s going to go off any second now. Any second.”

They all grinned engagingly and held their collective breaths.

The camera suddenly tilted downward on its tripod, pointing its lens at one of the white geese that wandered freely around Saint Mary’s Lake. The shutter clicked, and the motor advanced the film. The goose honked an outraged protest and waddled away.

“I hope that’s not an omen,” Jayne said, frowning as she nibbled at her thumbnail.

“It’s a loose screw,” Bryan announced, digging a dime out of his pants pocket to repair the tripod with.

“In Jayne or the camera?”

“Very funny, Alaina.”

“I think it’s a sign that Bryan needs a new tripod,” said Faith.

“That’s not what Jessica Porter says,” Alaina remarked slyly.

The girls giggled as Bryan ’s blush crept up to the roots of his hair. Faith knew while there had never been any romantic developments within their ranks, outside of his unusual friendship with them Bryan had an active… er… social life.

“If you want a sign, look behind you,” he said through gritted teeth as he fussed unnecessarily with the aperture setting on the camera.

Faith turned as her two friends did, and her dark eyes widened at the sight of the rainbow that arched gracefully across the morning sky above the golden dome of the administration building.

“Oh, how beautiful,” she said with a gasp, the hopeless romantic in her shining through. Lord, she wasn’t even gone yet and already she was feeling nostalgic about the place.

“Symbolic,” Jayne whispered.