The sight of her twists my gut. I haven’t seen her in almost five years. I knew she went to Sydney University but hadn’t expected her to be at Meg’s ceremony—I thought Evie was studying criminology. This is the day she used to dream about. She should look luminous, like Meg, but instead she’s fidgeting and anxious, and so am I, now. It’s all intertwined. Evie. Mum.The night of the formal. The aftermath with Mum’s health. And then my mind flashes to seeing Evie having the time of her life with Oliver on that dance floor, and to the decision I made in that moment not to let my unpredictable trajectory mess with hers, and I’m seventeen again.
I hope she’s happy.
I look at Meg, who smiles back. It’s such an uncomplicated, safe friendship. No arguments. No drama. No possessive boyfriend monitoring our every move.
I let my eyes travel two rows back to where Evie is sitting. She’s nervous. Probably hates the idea of being in the spotlight She’s straightened her curls and perfected her makeup. I check the photos again. Zoom in on one where she’s brushing the hair out of her eyes.
Is that …
I zoom in further. A ring? A giant one. On her left hand.What the fuck?
The lights in the auditorium dim and everyone stands as the official party parades in. Academics in bulky robes. The vice chancellor with the guest speaker. But my heart and brain have bolted, even though they have no right to, from any angle. I’m meant to be cheering on my friend’s graduation, and instead all I can obsess about is this one thing: Evie Hudson is gettingmarried?
The ceremony seems to take years. All the while, she’s just over there. Meters from me. On the precipice of what I can only presume is an enormous mistake, depending on who gave her that ring.
I’m having alarming visions of clambering across all these rows of people and extracting her from this auditorium and demanding to know what she isthinking. I hope we get out ofthis without bumping into each other, particularly if it’s Oliver who bought that piece of jewelry. Is he here? Even thinking about him raises my blood pressure.
We sit through an original composition from a student in the music school, which I’d be impressed by any other day. Instead, I’m just getting more and more agitated. I’ve imagined this moment—seeing her again. But I thought I’d be more composed. What does it say that she still sets me off like this?
I whistle as Meg crosses the stage. We met last year at a community festival gig; I was the official photographer for the event. She was working behind a pop-up bar and slipped me a free beer when her boss wasn’t looking. It was friendship at first sight, not just because of the free beer. She brings out a lighter side in me and never takes anything too seriously. It’s all justeasy.
“Evelyn Hudson,” the MC announces a few minutes later, and a few people burst into applause farther back in the auditorium. “Evelyn graduates with a Bachelor of Arts, with First Class Honors in Linguistics and the University Medal for Linguistics. She has received the Lilian Barnes scholarship for postgraduate research in the school of Linguistics, specializing in forensic linguistics.”
In other words, she is completely on track.
It’s the exact academic career she always imagined. Prizes. Scholarships. And her personal life also tied up in a bow. No scrambling for competitive arts grants. No doomed relationships. No clawing for glimmers of success in photographic journalism that still seems wildly out of reach, even if I’ve been shortlisted for a major award …
So why, when her eyes meet mine walking down the steps after she’s crossed the stage, does she look so comprehensively despondent?
51
Evie
Shit, shit, shit.
I didn’t mean to look in his direction on my way down the stairs. Drew Kennedy and I have never had secrets. Well, we have, but most of them were glaringly obvious to each other. I know, without exchanging a single word, that he’s just seen right through my blazing academic achievement and plowed straight into my heart. Where things arenotright.
I don’t know when the anxiety escalated so much. I had it as a kid, I guess, and it got worse on our gap year, but this full-blown worry about everything has crept up on me. And I didn’t realize how bad it was until now—trapped in Drew’s scrutiny. Seeing him again feels like a natural measure of how far I’ve fallen.
He, meanwhile, looks annoyingly good. Or did, when he was admiring his girlfriend. Glancing at me, he’s tense and grumpy. I try to smooth it away with a half smile, but he doesn’t smile back and that only heightens the strain between us.
I thread my way back to my seat, sit down, heart thumping, and contemplate the fact that I have everything I’ve ever wanted. The metal cylinder in my lap containing my degree, the scholarship, the place in the research program. I’m studying forensic linguistics—a fascination that has gripped mesince I first started watching crime shows as a teenager. I’m researching how a criminal’s speech patterns can expose them. It’s enthralling. And even though I’ve only just started my PhD, I’ve been nominated to speak at my first national conference later in the year, because, apparently, I’m the linguistics department’s “rising star.”
And I have Oliver. Still.
He couldn’t come to the ceremony because they gave us only two tickets each and my parents took those. We had a fight about that—“I’m yourfiancé, Evie, or will be once you see sense”—but we’re meeting outside for drinks in the garden afterward.
The law faculty held their graduation last week. His mum was sick, so I went to his ceremony with his dad and his mixed signals. Utterly proud in one way but also totally distracted—he kept looking at his watch and typing emails on his phone. It hit me again that Oliver has never really been loved. Not like I am. There’s a part of me that’s been increasingly worried this lack of example in his life is going to creep up on us—or that it already has. But that’s probably just my being paranoid again, as he loves to suggest.
I push through the crowds on the way out, looking for Oliver. Knowing I need to find him first, in case we run into Drew.
Carried by the wave of people down the stairs, I’m thrust out into the sunshine, where everyone’s milling about having photos taken, throwing mortarboards into the air, clinking glasses. All these years of hard work, and it’s over. Well, not in my case, as I’ve gone straight on, but this feels like a major milestone.
“Still a nerd, Hudson.” Drew’s voice is clear, behind me.
I turn around and he’s the only person standing still in the bustling crowd, sunlight refracted onto his face from the shiny terra-cotta tiles at our feet. He’s taller than I remember, and he looks into my face with a mix of teasing and pride and silent apology. He knows exactly how much these academic results mean to me. And for a moment we’re frozen in time.
I miss him.
