35. Cole
Cole
"If you touch my cap one more time, I will end you."
Maya swats my hand away. The mortarboard is sliding again, the third time in ten minutes, and she pulls a bobby pin from behind her ear and stabs it into the fabric at an angle that suggests the cap offended her personally.
"The cap is crooked," I say.
"It's supposed to be crooked. It's a statement."
"It's a fire hazard."
"Cole."
"During the walk, it's going to fall off."
"Then I'll pick it up and put it back on and the photographs will have character." She attacks the pin like it betrayed her. "Stop hovering."
The quad blazes around us, June heat pressing down on four hundred graduates trapped in polyester gowns while chairs bake in neat rows across the lawn and parents fan themselves in the stands.
The podium waits under a tent the wind keeps trying to relocate, the canvas snapping hard enough to make the tassels around us twitch.
Maya sits one seat to my left, her knee bouncing under the gown every time she fights with that damn cap. Dante is rows behind us in the V section, and when I turn over my shoulder, I find him sitting straight, hands on his knees, his gown somehow obeying him the way his suits do.
He catches me looking and lifts one eyebrow.
I mouth: Her cap is crooked.
He mouths back: I know.
The rest of us are scattered through the alphabet.
Talia is somewhere near the front with the A’s.
A few rows behind her, Zoe sits with the B’s.
Adrian and Clara are in the H section, close enough that I can hear Clara whisper something that makes Adrian choke on a laugh he converts into a cough.
Genny has the L’s. Somewhere behind us, Declan and Gio are with the R’s.
"I can't believe Zoe altered her gown," Maya says, craning her neck toward the B section.
"You can't believe that? That's the most believable thing that's ever happened."
"Fair point. Is it—did she add darts?"
"She added darts."
"To a graduation gown."
"It has a waistline now. The woman gave a graduation gown a waistline."
Maya shakes her head, and the cap wobbles.
"Don't," she says before my hand can move.
The provost finishes. Applause rolls across the lawn. Names begin.
? ? ?
Talia Addison.
She is the first of us, and she crosses to the stage with careful, grounded steps. Each one lands clean. She shakes the dean's hand, turns toward the stands, and finds the one person she needs to find.
Coach Addison is in the third row of the family section, wearing a suit instead of the team jacket, his tie slightly crooked. His hands are clasped in his lap, his jaw set, his eyes bright enough that Maya goes still beside me.
Talia presses her hand to her chest. Addison nods once, and his hands tighten in his lap.
Maya's elbow presses into my arm. "I'm going to cry already," she mutters. "We're on the A’s. I'm going to be destroyed by the M’s."
"You'll be fine."
"I will be a puddle."
Zoe Barnes.
She crosses that stage like she's walking a runway at Milan Fashion Week.
Her gown is somehow tailored, all darts and waistline and something architectural happening at the shoulders.
She shakes the dean's hand, says something that makes his eyebrows rise, and turns to find Gio's section.
Her mouth curves, soft and unguarded in a way that feels almost indecent to witness from this far away.
"She just made the dean blush," Maya whispers.
"That's her superpower."
Adrian Hale.
The student section erupts, and Adrian walks across the stage with the same stride he uses coming through the tunnel, shoulders square and chin level.
He shakes the dean's hand and turns to the stands.
Suzanne is on her feet in the family section, clapping with her whole body.
My father is beside her with the Briarcliff scarf draped over his suit jacket.
Clara Harrington crosses seconds after, the H’s back-to-back. She shakes the dean's hand, laughs at something he says, full and loud enough to carry over the first few rows. Then she turns to find Adrian in the graduate section, winks at him, and walks off.
"God, I want to be her when I grow up," Maya says.
"You're the same age."
"She has an energy I aspire to."
Genny Laurent.
She crosses the stage with her posture perfect and her face calm. In the family section, two people rise for her with polite smiles and careful applause. They look expensive, composed, and completely untouched by the fact that their daughter is crossing a stage. No one calls her name.
She turns, and her eyes sweep the graduate section, counting us. Her gaze passes the family section. Passes Addison. Lingers for half a second, maybe less, and then she is walking off the stage and the half-second is over.
"Almost us," Maya says. She straightens in her chair and adjusts the cap. It slides again, so she stabs the pin deeper. "If this thing falls off on stage I'm holding you personally responsible."
"I haven't touched it."
"Your energy is making it slide."
"That's not how physics works."
"Your energy. My cap. Cause and effect."
An usher motions our row up. We stand and file toward the aisle, and Maya's hand brushes my arm as we walk.
The stage is smaller than I expected. Three steps up. The podium to the right. The dean waiting in academic regalia that makes him look like a wizard who teaches accounting.
Cole Maddox.
I walk, and the applause rolls over me warm enough that I have to swallow before I reach the dean.
My father is in the fifth row with the Briarcliff scarf draped over his suit, the edges frayed from four years of games, losses, bad nights, and overtime wins. Suzanne sits beside him with her hands clasped at her chin.
I shake the dean's hand.
"Congratulations, Mr. Maddox."
"Thank you, sir."
Turning toward the stands, I find my father's face. Wet. Smiling. Suzanne is beside him, crying openly, her hand reaching for his arm.
One wave, and I walk off, four steps down.
Maya Maddox.
She's right behind me. Her name comes through the speakers before I've cleared the stage exit, so I stop off to the side and turn to watch her climb the stairs.
Maya walks across that stage like she built it.
The cap stays at its stabbed angle. Somehow, the gown looks sharper on her than on anyone else. She shakes the dean's hand, and he holds the shake a beat longer than he did for the others. He says something. She says something back. He laughs.
A job is already waiting for her at the Chicago Tribune, junior metro desk, because Chicago is where Dante and I landed and she chose not to send the Globe application.
The offer arrived two weeks ago and made her close her laptop, sit on the counter, and cry for three minutes before she opened it again and typed her acceptance.
When she turns to the stands, she finds me first, still standing near the stairs, watching. Her eyes are bright. One small wave lifts her hand, the fingers curling and uncurling.
I press my hand to my chest, right over my heart. Her hand lifts to her chest.
She walks off the stage, and I'm already off to the side at the bottom of the stairs with my hand lifting before I can overthink it.
Open palm. Waiting. Her gaze drops to it, then cuts back to my face.
Every game comes back at once. The plexiglass.
Her palm on the other side. Mine pressed flat to meet it. My hand waits for hers now.
She presses her palm to mine. Skin to skin. Her fingers lace through mine, warm and real.
"The cap stayed on," she says.
"The cap stayed on."
"I told you."
"You were terrified."
"I was prepared. There's a difference." Her fingers slip free so she can loop her arm through mine. "How bad is my mascara?"
"You look beautiful."
"That bad?"
We sit down together, her knee pressing against mine.
Declan Reid.
He crosses the stage the way he moves in the crease, economical and precise, wasting nothing. The handshake is brief. He turns toward the stands, and his eyes find Talia in the graduate section. She presses her hand to her chest. Declan nods once.
Gio Rossi.
He walks to the stage slower than the others, more deliberate, and the chatter around me drops by inches.
The sealed record. The Whisperer. The cousin who tried to burn him down.
Maya's Chronicle investigation. The Vance donations.
The admissions scandal blown wide open in April.
Rylan's enrollment revoked. The athletics fund's biggest donor gone.
Gio walked through all of it to shake the dean's hand, and when he turns to the stands, his eyes find Zoe and his mouth forms her name.
She puts two fingers to her lips and holds them out.
More names follow. The S’s. The T’s. Maya's knee stays warm against mine.
Dante Voss.
I turn in my chair because I need to see this.
He stands from the back rows and crosses to the stage, smooth and unhurried. Heads turn before he reaches the first step. The crowd gives him room without moving an inch.
He shakes the dean's hand and turns. His eyes find me first. Then Maya. Then back to me.
In the family section, Serena is on her feet before his name finishes echoing through the speakers.
Navy dress. Hair swept back. Tears are already on her face, probably have been since before his name was called, the way she cried at Senior Night, the way Serena cries at everything involving her sons.
Her hands are pressed together at her mouth.
Leaning toward Suzanne, she says something I know without hearing—the twins wanting to be here, Gia sending a video message that made Dante pretend he didn't watch three times.
Beside her, Salvatore Voss stands in a dark suit, so still he makes everyone around him look restless.
Dante inherited that posture, the squared shoulders, the centered weight, the way a man can make silence feel like a locked door.
Salvatore watches his son cross a stage in a graduation gown at an American university, the son who chose hockey over Milan, who drew a line through the family. His face is unreadable, but he is here.