Pictures of You

Chapter 50

50

Drew

I sit back in my seat in the supporters section and flick through the photos on my camera while we wait for the official ceremony to start. Meg is radiant. Beaming smiles. Confidence. I’ve been tempted to make some kind of move but haven’t yet and won’t today. It’s all about her and her graduation. She’s got enough going on without a romantic overture from me detracting from her success.

The lighting is all wrong in here to get good photos, but I can fix the red eyes later, and I’ll get some good images of her outside in the garden party reception after the ceremony.

I’m about to switch the camera off when something catches my eye in the corner of the shot and makes me look over to that section of the auditorium. Is that … Evie Hudson ?

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 getting married ?

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 is thinking . I hope we get out of this 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 just easy .

“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?