Head Over Heels ✓

28 / move it

march, age twenty

The moment that Lucas handed in his dissertation, printed and bound and perfected to the limit of his capabilities, was up there with the best feelings in his life secondly only to the way his boyfriend made him feel. He couldn't describe the elation of turning in fifteen thousand words of literary theory and analysis, a solid year's hard work condensed into one document that would make up a full quarter of his degree. Mira had handed hers in on the same day, the two of them taking the obligatory photo with their work before they gave it away to be marked.

Ever since he had decided on his thesis question, he had chipped away at the work and the most immense relief rolled off his shoulders when it was out of his hands at last: there was no more he could do, the decision taken away from him. Twelve months of effort would be judged within a couple of read-throughs by his supervisor and an external examiner, a thought that terrified him too much to dwell on it. So he didn't.

The last day of the second semester of his final year. It was the home run now, a few weeks off before the last couple of university exams he would ever sit. That was hard to believe, a truth that he struggled to digest. After eight years of misery at primary school and seven questionable years at high school, he had toiled his way through two third of his three-year university course and aside from the occasional blip – namely Carey, from whom he had distanced himself one they had left the flat they had shared – he had loved it. The work challenged him at last; the people cared about the subject and they had earned their place.

He had earned his place. He had proved himself time and time again, churning out top marks over and over as though he had been bred to do so. The first time he had failed to reach the threshold for a first in an assignment, he had been so distraught that Mira had thought something terrible had happened. She had laughed when she had realised his distress was the result of a two-one, and she had welcomed him to the real world with a hug and a cup of tea. She was firmly lodged in two-one territory, with only the occasional first under her belt, but she didn't care. Most people didn't: any classification of degree from one of the world's top universities would have them set for life.

But Lucas wanted only the best. He wouldn't settle for anything less and with the brain he possessed, it was likely that he would never have to. He had the capacity to do whatever he wanted, excelling whether he turned his mind to numbers or novels and a first-class honours from Cambridge would give him that extra impetus, the extra something to push him up above his peers. Now he was so close he could taste it, desperate for that last proof that he could do it.

The Easter holidays marked the last time that he would have to sacrifice his free time in order to push his knowledge above and beyond, cramming his brain full of facts that he would have to spew onto a page in an exam. It would all be over in six weeks. The thought simultaneously excited and terrified him: he would be done; he would have done it, but it would be over. No longer would he have the safety net of his degree, the excuse to be unemployed. As soon as he graduated in July, he would become yet another statistic. Jobless graduates, their prospects even lower than the generation before them.

That was a problem for another day. Right now, rather than let himself sink into the depression of realising that life may not be as rosy as he wished it could be, he packed a suitcase with a week's worth of clothes and supplies to head down to Brighton. No longer was home his first priority when he had time off university. Asher had taken over that spot, the first person he wanted to see when he had a break.

The past year had been the most stressful, tying up the loose ends of his education. Visits to his boyfriend had been the first to go when he had needed every ounce of free time to work on his assignments and polish up his dissertation and since starting the semester almost three months ago, he had only seen Asher a handful of times. It killed him to be apart for so long; it killed him even more that the ways for them to stay in touch at university were in constant decline.