Blah. Fuck it.
I threw down my pen. Watched it roll off the desk and click onto the floor.
Well, I wasn’t going to need it again. I was done. So very, very done.
The ornate hands of the equally ornate clock at the far end of the room seemed to be hovering in the vicinity of 12:17.
Thirteen minutes until freedom. I should probably have been trying to make the conclusion of my third essay more, well, concludy. Or, at the very least, be reading over what I’d written in order to polish it up as best I could. But the idea of having to re-experience my own tawdry drivel was enough to make me want to strangle myself with my badly tied bow tie.
12:18.
I wondered if Caspian Hart would call me. He’d said he wouldn’t, but he’d said that before.
I could too easily imagine it. His cold voice warming, deepening as he told me, I just wanted to offer my congratulations.
I could also imagine lots and lots of ways he could congratulate me.
Although it really wasn’t such a brilliant idea to dwell on them in a room containing approximately nine hundred of my peers and a collection of individuals specifically hired to keep an eye on us. In case we were cheating, admittedly, but given that the proctors—Oxford’s equivalent of Scotland Yard—were willing to fine you for wearing the wrong socks, sporting a massive (well, moderately proportioned) erection was probably against regulations too.
12:23.
My stomach was legit fluttery. I couldn’t tell if it was the anticipation of being done with Oxford or thinking of Caspian.
“Pens down, please.”
Oh!
God.
Joy. Relief. Accomplishment. However ill-deserved that last one.
Great waves of raw feeling rolling through the room, connecting us for a few brief moments in this one immense, shared experience.
Like the world’s quietest, most stationary rave.
What with being an S, it took me forever to get out of there. Watching the rest of the room proceed in an orderly fashion to freedom.
I was itching—aching—to check my phone. Nik was keeping hold of it since I couldn’t bring it with me, but what if Caspian rang while I was still stuck here?
And when had I become so certain that he would?
Finally, I was released, and I made my way through marble corridors, full of yellowing sunlight, and out into the world again. Merton Street was awash with berobed celebrants, the air full of shrieks and laughter, the pop of champagne corks. Glitter glinted riotously amidst the cobbles, such an odd juxtaposition in that ancient, golden place.
I blinked against the glare, feeling disorientated and suddenly less happy than I surely should have been.
And then Nik was pushing his way through the crowd.
“Well done, Arden!” He pulled me into a big, squeezy hug.
I wheezed my thanks into his manly man chest. Mmmm-hmmm.
I’d actually accrued a gratifying crowd: Nik; Weird Owen; Nik’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, Sophie; various folks from LGBTQ-Soc; a scattering of other people from various corners of the university. And I was patted and congratulated and cheered and hugged and hugged again and gently glitterified (even though it was against the rules) and someone—Nik, probably—shoved a bottle of cava into my hand and when I tilted my head back to drink, the bubbles poured down my chin and the sky reeled blue and bright forever.
“By the way,” I asked, super caj, “did you bring my phone?”
“Of course I did.”
It was all I could do not to snatch it. No missed calls. Various texts. None from him.
