SLACK MESSAGE FROM ROGER LUDERMORE TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 7:41 PM: tell Peter to remove ALL REFERENCES to “structural inequality” from the commencement address
Nina interrupted her pity party with a gasp. Startled, Charlotte spilled wine on her jeans. “What is it?” she asked as she patted at the wet spot with a paper napkin.
Nina’s face had tightened in a mask of horror. “Shit.”
She followed Nina’s stare to the front of the room.
The final panelist had arrived.
Her stomach seized. Charlotte clenched the damp napkin in her fist, wine leaking between her fingers.
No. Not you.
Ben Mead eased into the empty chair at the panelists’ table. He gave the room a winning smirk as he shrugged off a black bomber jacket. His watch caught the light as he folded his hands together on the table—vintage, Cartier, a birthday present from his father. Charlotte had helped him get it resized downtown when it slipped off his wrist one too many times.
Her vision went dark at the edges.
Logically she knew that her ex-boyfriend couldn’t see her all the way in the back row. She knew that Ben posed no threat to her onstage with dozens of eyes watching his every move. She knew that she had broken up with Ben half a decade ago, and he had no power over her.
She still felt pinned to her chair by his presence. She couldn’t breathe.
“Are you okay?”
Nina’s words reached Charlotte through a fog. Her nails dug into her palm as she forced herself to look away, look anywhere else but at his blond hair and his boyishly charming slouch. Her muddy memory of his face, intentionally dulled with time, sharpened into high-definition present tense. Ice blue eyes like mirrors reflecting everything she wanted to see back when she was trusting and young.
“I’m fine.” The lie came easily, if not convincingly. “It’s fine.”
Nina hesitated, then placed a comforting hand on her knee. “We don’t have to stay.”
The professor moderating the panel tapped her microphone again. Charlotte’s window of polite escape closed. She crossed her legs, slipping out of Nina’s grasp.
My name is Charlotte Thorne, she told herself, a grounding exercise Jackie taught her years ago. I am twenty-seven years old. I am safe here.
When that didn’t work, she counted seconds as she breathed, four beats in and five beats out.
“Okay, we’re ready to get started! My name is Ade Ajibola and I’m a professor here in the English department.” A smattering of polite applause, and a whoop from an undergraduate. Charlotte bit her thumbnail. “Thank you for coming to tonight’s discussion with our distinguished alumni about how they have taken their Hein education out into the world.”
Professor Ajibola smiled serenely at her audience, either unaware of—or politely ignoring—the tension on the panel beside her. Amy had gone brittle, her lips pursed in disapproval. Ben made himself comfortable at the table, his arm sprawled across its surface and into her personal space. Charlotte couldn’t tell if he was messing with Amy deliberately or just being his usual dick self. He had a knack for asserting control over every room he entered. She swallowed, her throat tightening.
“I’m delighted to introduce our panelists,” the moderator continued. “Amy Rosen is a member of the Class of 2013 and a publicity manager at Bloomsmith Publishing in New York.”
Amy gave a stiff nod. She discreetly edged her chair away from Ben’s. Charlotte felt a pang of gratitude for her loyalty—Amy didn’t know the ugly details about their relationship, but she had enough good sense to dislike Ben on his own merit. He had a bad habit of talking over other students during class discussions, especially women.
“Ben is the host of the politics podcast Left of the Dial. He is also a member of the Class of 2013. What a talented year!” Ben nodded graciously. The moderator continued, “He’s now studying for his master’s in practical ethics at Oxford.”
Nina snorted. “Ethics? Are you kidding me?”
Charlotte said nothing, too shaken to appreciate the irony. Ben preened under the attention, shrugging like his graduate work was no big deal. His false modesty only underscored the program’s prestige.
They love me, she imagined him bragging to his friends tonight. They ate that shit up.
As Professor Ajibola introduced the rest of the panel, Ben retrieved a fountain pen from the pocket of his jacket. He spun it between his fingers as his eyes slid over the audience. Charlotte trained her attention on the moderator, refusing to get caught in the hot tar of his gaze. Pilsner and cheddar cheese threatened to make a second appearance as her throat tightened.
“Nope.” Charlotte shook her head. She didn’t have to do this. She was twenty-seven years old and she had left him, goddamn it. She shoved her iPhone in her pocket and knocked back the rest of her wine. “Nope, nope, nope.”
Nina wordlessly took her plate. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, stay.” Charlotte willed her voice not to break. She hunched over as she stood up, trying not to draw attention to herself. Fight-or-flight adrenaline throbbed through her fingers. “I’m fine. Tell Amy I’m sorry.”
“She’ll understand.” Nina swung her knees aside to let her pass. “I’ll text you as soon as it’s over.”
Charlotte crab-walked down the row. She could feel Ben’s eyes following her up the aisle and out of the lecture hall, his attention a dagger at her back. But she’d choose embarrassment over listening to his achievements.
She didn’t want to hear his voice. She’d only just forgotten how it sounded.
The courtyard outside the career center was deserted. She sank onto a stone bench and closed her eyes. The center of campus still smelled like fresh mulch and wet concrete. In her panic, time thinned as if junior year could reach out and grab her.
Not safe here not safe not—
Inarticulate black pain throbbed in her gut, her skin crawling.
I can’t do this.
She’d been kidding herself, thinking she could fake-smile her way through this weekend without an issue. She should bail while she still had a chance. She could go back to her room, throw everything in her bag, and reschedule her Amtrak ticket. A taxi could be here in twenty minutes, thirty tops. Roger would be livid, but she could handle everything remotely, couldn’t she?
Then again, how would she live-tweet his commencement address from New York? There was no live stream.
She could get a hotel room off campus and pop back here on Sunday when he arrived, skipping the reunion entirely. But she couldn’t expense that, so she’d have to eat the cost, and rooms nearby had to be booked by alumni and parents of graduates. Finding a place to stay would cost a fortune.
