When she uncovers his plan to lead an entirely uneventful life, Mia Evian is determined to teach Preston Maddox how to stop living like a ghost, but Mia and Preston have history, tension, and a lot of complicated feelings.
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18 months later
Graduating from university, as it turns out, is as terrifying as it is exhilarating. Sure, the world is my oyster and all that shit, but I also have no idea in hell what I'm supposed to do next, and despite begging multiple people for an answer, everyone keeps insisting that's for me to decide. Frankly, it's way too much pressure for a twenty-two-year-old teenager like me.
If my dress would stop riding up for more than ten seconds, that would probably help.
I awkwardly yank it down as I wait in the neverending queue of UCL English department graduates, all the while feeling eternally grateful that I opted for a longer skirt. If this thing had a miniskirt, it'd probably be up to my belly button by now. I'm never taking Aiden's fashion advice again; the man is cursed. The line shuffles forward as graduate's names are called out one-by-one, and I take a deep breath as I eye up the stage ahead.
'It'll be over in seconds,' I whisper to the black laminate floor. 'Just jump up, grab the diploma, shake a hand, then get the fuck off the stage.'
Unsurprisingly, my pep talk is doing little to reassure me. Dad's in the crowd, hidden somewhere among the rows of seats facing the theatre's stage, as is Mum. Together. Not together together obviously, but the two free guest tickets I was provided with for my graduation are for adjacent seats. Whoever organised the seating plan has clearly failed to account for the UK's forty-two percent divorce rate. On the bright side, five years ago–hell, two years ago–I would've dropped dead at the thought of my parents being seated together, but things are okay now; better between them, even if it is solely for my benefit. Mum's very good at ignoring Dad's bullshit, and Dad's bullshit isn't as bad as it used to be.
Neither one of them has been any help whatsoever in my what the hell do I do with my life from here? conundrum, though. Mum's always insisted she doesn't care what I do so long as I'm happy, and Dad's mellowed at the worst possible time to wind up saying the exact same thing. I almost wish he was still a monumental prick. The only person who's so much as alluded to what they think my next move should be is Aiden, but I'm not sure dolphin trainer is a viable career for an English grad, despite his and Margot's claims otherwise.
The worst person by far, though, is Preston. Where my parents and friends–excluding Aiden's marine-centric advice–are diplomatic and gentle, Preston's approach to the whole thing is simply don't. Don't make a plan, don't worry, don't think. My response every time is a demand that he gets a new therapist because the man's clearly unhinged. He's here too, only not in the audience, but in a queue similar to mine as his master's graduation has coincidentally landed directly after mine.
I've scanned the backstage area several times over for his economics cohort, but have come up short every time. As the stage curtain grows closer and closer and my line shortens further and further, I swallow a stone. I hate this shit. I'm tugging at my red dress again, all the while thanking the graduation gods that my robe covers it well enough to distract from the whole mess. I'm so focused on my dress as I near my turn that it's not until I'm second in line that I notice Preston.
