"Four years."
Charlotte Davies let the words sit for a second with her hands resting lightly on the podium.
This was Whitmore University's main hall and it was packed with every seat taken, family members standing along the walls with phones raised, and several hundred graduating students in their gowns waiting for someone to say what this all meant.
She was the one saying it.
"That's how long we've been here. Four years of early mornings, late nights, bad cafeteria food..." Laughter rolled through the hall like a wave "… and group projects that should have ended friendships but somehow didn't, as well as professors who I'm convinced graded on vibes alone."
There was more laughter and she smiled as she waited for it to settle like she had all the time in the world.
"But here we are. Every single one of us made it to this side of it and I don't think we say that enough... we made it. Not because it was easy but because we kept going when it wasn't."
She glanced down briefly then back up.
"I've been trying to write this speech for three weeks and every version I came up with sounded like something you'd find on a motivational poster and throw away so I scrapped all of it and decided to just be honest."
The hall had gone quiet.
"We're scared... Most of us anyway... We're walking out of here today into something we can't fully prepare for and anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or selling something." A few people laughed. "But scared doesn't mean unprepared. We have been built for this... slowly, and sometimes painfully but we're built nonetheless."
She straightened slightly.
"The world isn't going to pause and make room for us. It never does but that's fine because we were never the type to wait for an invitation anyway."
She looked out across the hall one last time.
"Congratulations. All of us. We earned every single bit of this."
The applause started before she even stepped back from the podium. People were on their feet in sections and Charlotte gave a small bow and waved once before stepping aside with an easy smile on her face.
A certain blond-haired young man near the middle of the hall was still clapping long after the people around him had stopped.
'She's so cool.'
And then an elbow caught him in the ribs making him wince… the owner of the elbow was Brett, one of his friends.
"Dude." Brett was already pouring wine into a plastic cup, somehow having acquired a bottle from somewhere without Wren noticing. "You've been staring at that woman for four years… at some point it stops being a crush and starts being a condition."
"I wasn't staring." Wren fixed his glasses and looked away.
"You were absolutely staring." Brett drank, let out a small burp that earned him side-eyes from two girls nearby, and didn't acknowledge either of them. "And before you bring up the other guy... yes, she shut him down and yes, it was brutal but that man had the personality of a damp towel, so."
Brett set his cup down and turned to face him fully, stroking the stub of beard on his chin with the gravity of a man about to say something he'd been saving.
"A man who never throws the dice cannot complain that fate never favored him." He spoke with mock wisdom. "Who knows. Maybe she's been waiting for you to grow a spine this whole time and once you do both of you move in together and live happily ever after."
Wren caught the sarcasm easily enough.
"Besides..." Brett pointed at him "...have you seen your face? You're the one nerfing yourself. What are those glasses even doing on your face right now? You can see perfectly without them."
Wren said nothing.
He could see perfectly without them but he'd also worn them because Charlotte had once mentioned offhand to Leah, who had mentioned it to Joel, who had told Brett that she found men who looked sharp and put-together attractive.
Glasses made one look smart but he wasn't going to explain it to Brett.
The chair beside them scraped back and Joel dropped into it, reaching across and taking Brett's cup without asking, pouring himself a measure and draining it in one go.
"Yo." Brett grabbed his cup back. "Nice of you to finally show up."
"I had to do the rounds with Leah." Joel refilled his own.
His hair was black with a streak of red spray through the side that somehow worked on him. "Greet the faculty, greet her parents, take pictures... You know how it is."
"No, we don't know how it is. Some of us are normal."
"Complain louder, I can still hear my own thoughts." Joel drank. "Damn. This is actually decent."
Out of the three of them Joel had always been the one with the clearest trajectory — his father ran a mid-sized logistics company in Bostara and Joel had grown up knowing exactly what kind of life waited for him.
Leah had approached him two years ago at a mutual friend's party and they had clicked immediately and stayed clicked. It was the kind of relationship that looked easy from the outside but it was slightly annoying.
"So." Brett looked between them. "What's the plan?"
Joel set his cup down and the corner of his mouth pulled up. "Already handled. Leah's setting it up now... she's going to invite Charlotte and her girl to dinner tonight... It's a rooftop spot so we'll have the whole evening."
They shook hands across the table and Wren looked at both of them. "What did you two do?"
"We're helping you." Brett clapped him on the shoulder. "You can thank us at the wedding."
..
An hour and a half later... after awards and after photographs. The three of them were standing outside on the front steps when Leah appeared with two girls beside her.
Next to Joel and Brett, Wren wasn't average by any reasonable measure.
He was decent looking with blond hair and blue eyes as well as the kind of face that registered as good-looking without announcing it but standing outside Whitmore University after four years you understood quickly that good-looking was a wide category with a lot of people in it, and the men that girls actually stopped for were usually the ones built like they lived in a gym and walked like they owned every room they entered.
Wren was not that... neither was Brett and Joel came closest but only because of the confidence.
It didn't usually bother him but it bothered him right now.
Leah had pink hair... she'd dyed it a few weeks ago for reasons connected to an anime character. Wren hadn't watched anime so he didn't remember but she was called Saku… something?
"Charlotte, this is Joel... my boyfriend and these are his friends, Brett and Wren." She said it naturally, then looked at Wren for half a second with a look that said you owe me.
"Hey." Charlotte smiled at all three of them.
It was a genuine smile with the same warmth from the podium but smaller and more personal.
Up close she was... as beautiful as she had always been.
"Where are we going?" Charlotte asked.
"Summit Bar and Grill." Joel said. "It's the rooftop bar... Leah and I already made the reservations, so we're good for 8PM."
Charlotte looked at her friend, who nodded. "Sure. We just need to go change first."
They exchanged numbers for the group chat and split off toward their apartments… Brett waited until they were out of earshot then turned to Wren with both eyebrows raised.
"Alright boys… let's get this show on the road."
The sky had gone dark by the time Wren stepped out onto the rooftop of Summit Bar and Grill and the city stretched out around them...
Bostara City at night was all lit windows and moving cars, it was very busy and as someone from the country-side, he could never really get used to how busy a place could be.
Leah had the tongs before anyone else even sat down.
"Don't touch it." She pointed at Brett without looking at him. "I've seen what you did to chicken before."
"That was one time..."
"It was grey, Brett... The chicken was grey."
Wren stood at the railing for a moment and looked out at the city while the others sorted themselves. They had decided to each man a station… with two per grill and he was grouped with Leah..
The night felt large somehow. He was aware of Charlotte two stations over, laughing at something her friend said and her hair catching the light from the grill.
'Grown man acting like this,' he thought. 'Get it together.'
"Want one?"
He turned... Leah was holding a toothpick with a piece of grilled meat on the end, offering it to him without ceremony.
He took it and put it in his mouth. The flavor hit immediately… it was very sweet and smoky.
"That's actually good."
"Obviously." She flipped the next row without looking up. "I've been doing this since I was twelve. My grandfather had a grill spot after all."
At the station behind them, Joel and Brett had already managed to burn their first batch. The smoke rising from their grill was the wrong color and Brett was fanning it aggressively with a paper menu while Joel watched with the expression of a man reconsidering his life choices.
"Do you want me to come over there?" Leah called.
"We're fine." Brett said... the smoke got worse really fast.
"You're not looking fine."
"We're handling it Leah..."
Leah looked at Wren and Wren looked at Leah. Neither of them said anything as they left the two to their fate..
"So." She lowered her voice, turning the meat. "Are you actually going to do it tonight or are you going to spend the whole evening staring at her again and then go home and be sad about it for another year?"
"I'm going to do it."
"Mm." She didn't sound convinced.
"I am."
"Okay." She stabbed another piece and handed it to him. "When you're done I'll have my shoulder ready... free of charge."
"You're very supportive."
"I'm extremely supportive." She grinned and pulled him sideways by the shoulder with one arm, knocking him off balance slightly. "I genuinely want good things for you... I just also want to be accurate about probability."
"Whatever, focus on your meat." Wren said.
Leah giggled and let go of his shoulder, turning back to the grill. He couldn't help it… she was an amazing and nice person.
From the next station Joel was watching them with his jaw set just slightly tighter than usual and he looked away when Wren caught it.
Ten minutes later they were all seated at the long table, the city spread out behind them and platters of meat stacked in the middle.
Everyone else's attempts sat off to the side... Brett's own was slightly grey, Joel's was borderline charcoal and Charlotte's friend's somewhere in between.
Charlotte picked up a toothpick, stabbed a piece from Leah's platter and put it in her mouth. She chewed once and then twice.
"Okay." She pointed the toothpick at Leah. "This is actually amazing."
"Obviously." Leah poured herself a drink. "Praise me more."
"No seriously how is it this good—"
"My grandfather had a grill spot when I was young." Leah said simply. "I was basically raised next to a flame."
"Can you teach me?"
"No."
Charlotte laughed. "Why not?"
"Because then you'd be better than me and I'd have nothing." Leah smiled sweetly and Charlotte shook her head still laughing.
"Good job babe." Joel reached over and squeezed Leah's hand and she leaned into him briefly before straightening up.
"You know what this reminds me of." Joel stabbed a piece of meat. "The camping trip."
Brett closed his eyes. "..Joel."
"Come on, I have to tell them about the time you got chased by a bear." Joel said and Brett gave him a side-eye. That was a really embarrassing story…
"So it started like…"
Wren tuned it out… He was thinking about it, how would he confess…
'It's just five words, besides it's not like a rejection will kill me or something?' He thought and then his phone buzzed in his pocket.
He looked at the screen under the table.
The contact name read Dad and he stared at it for a second before excusing himself and walking to the far end of the rooftop.
"Yo." He picked up, leaning against the railing.
"Hoho, my boy." His father's voice had that particular energy which was really bright but somehow distracted at the same time. "Sorry I couldn't make the ceremony. You know how it gets."
"It's fine."
"Good, good. Listen... now that you're done with college, I need you to go to Harlow."
Wren straightened. "Harlow? Our hometown?"
"I'm heading out of the country and the place needs someone... It's been sitting for a while, I won't lie to you but you're capable." There was a brief pause. "Your stepmother is there and your stepsister as well, you'll be living with them."
"My... when did you get married?"
"Take the first bus in the morning. We'll talk more when you're settled." His father's voice shifted slightly. "I expect you to handle things well."
"Dad..."
The line went dead.
Wren called back.
[The number you have dialed is currently unavailable]
He stood there for a moment with the phone in his hand and the city below him and tried to decide how he felt about it then he put the phone away and went back to the table.
"Everything okay?" Leah asked.
"Yeah." He sat down. "Just a family thing."
The conversations continued and the wine kept coming and eventually it got late enough that the decision to leave made itself.
The girls were warm-faced and very unsteady and somehow Charlotte was most of all, which surprised Wren because she had seemed the most composed at the start.
"Ugh… my head."
Charlotte was now leaning into his side more than she was walking with one hand looped through his arm and her steps landing at slightly the wrong angles since she was drunk.
Wren kept them both moving straight and tried not to think about how close she was.
Leah had grabbed his wrist before they split off from the others telling him to call her later with a look that meant she wanted a full report.
"You shouldn't have played so many rounds." Wren said.
"I lost every single one." She said it like she was still processing it. "Every... Single... One..."
"Bad luck."
"It wasn't bad luck it was… Hic… targeted. The universe was specifically targeting me."
He didn't argue with that but he did chuckle.
"Stop laughing..."
They walked in silence for a bit and the city at this hour had gone quieter… right now alongside the other cars, there was a cab rolling past with music coming from somewhere above.
"That's my apartment." Charlotte lifted her head and pointed at a tall building set back from the road. "I live on the third floor..."
They went through the lobby, used the lift and got to the third floor, standing directly outside her room.
Charlotte found her keys after a longer search than necessary and got the right one into the lock on the second try.
She turned to him with the door half open.
"Thank you... hic… Wren." She meant it. He could tell she meant it, which somehow made it harder.
She turned back to the door and he cleared his throat.
"Wai—"
"You're going to confess." She said it to the door first, then turned around to face him. "Right?"
He nodded.
"Okay." She leaned against the door frame with her arms crossed loosely. "Go ahead. Hurry up so I can reject you... my favorite show is on."