Episode 14: Graduation
505 Words
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The day was cold and bright.
December light through old glass. The auditorium filled with parents and siblings and professors, all of them watching the stage where two hundred graduates waited to become something other than students.
Emily sat in the faculty section, third row from the back.
She told herself she was here for all her students. That it was professional courtesy to attend commencement. That her presence in this auditorium had nothing to do with one particular graduate in the third row of the English cohort.
She told herself a lot of things.
But when they called his name—Malachi Cory Miller, summa c*m laude, dual degrees in Business Administration and English—and he crossed the stage to accept his diploma, her hands found each other in her lap and held on tight.
He didn't look for her in the crowd.
She didn't expect him to. This was his moment, his achievement, his victory over every expectation his father had placed on him. He deserved to savor it without the complication of her gaze.
But at the reception afterward, as champagne flutes clinked and parents took photographs and William Miller shook hands with every dean in sight, Malachi found her.
He didn't speak. He didn't touch her. He simply stood beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched, and watched the celebration unfold.
"You did it," Emily said quietly.
"We did it." His voice was low. "You taught me half of what I know."
"I taught you how to write. The rest was already there."
He was quiet for a moment.
"My father wants me to start at the company next week. He's already cleared an office. Hired an executive assistant. Printed business cards with my name on them." A pause. "I told him I needed a month."
Emily looked at him.
"A month for what?"
He turned to face her.
"To figure out what I want. Not what he wants. Not what's expected. What I actually, genuinely want." His gaze held hers. "And to see if you want to be part of that."
Emily's heart was very loud in her ears.
"Malachi—"
"I'm not asking for an answer today. I'm not asking for a decision or a commitment or a plan." He paused. "I'm asking if you'll spend this month with me. Not as my professor. Not as someone I'm supposed to learn from. Just—you. Emily."
His hand found hers in the crowd.
"I'm asking if you'll let me court you," he said. "Properly. Slowly. The way you deserve to be courted." Another pause. "The way I should have done from the beginning."
Emily looked at their interlaced fingers.
"Yes," she said. "Yes."
His breath released slowly.
"Okay," he said. "Okay."
Neither of them spoke.
Around them, the reception continued—champagne and handshakes and the careful performance of success. But in the small space between their joined hands, something else was happening.
Something that felt, for the first time, like a beginning.
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- Writer
