He crosses the stage the way he moves in the crease, economical and precise, wasting nothing. The handshake is brief. He turns toward the stands, and his eyes find Talia in the graduate section. She presses her hand to her chest. Declan nods once.
Gio Rossi.
He walks to the stage slower than the others, more deliberate, and the chatter around me drops by inches. The sealed record. The Whisperer. The cousin who tried to burn him down. Maya's Chronicle investigation. The Vance donations. The admissions scandal blown wide open in April. Rylan's enrollment revoked. The athletics fund's biggest donor gone. Gio walked through allof it to shake the dean's hand, and when he turns to the stands, his eyes find Zoë and his mouth forms her name.
She puts two fingers to her lips and holds them out.
More names follow. The S’s. The T’s. Maya's knee stays warm against mine.
Dante Voss.
I turn in my chair because I need to see this.
He stands from the back rows and crosses to the stage, smooth and unhurried. Heads turn before he reaches the first step. The crowd gives him room without moving an inch.
He shakes the dean's hand and turns. His eyes find me first. Then Maya. Then back to me.
In the family section, Serena is on her feet before his name finishes echoing through the speakers. Navy dress. Hair swept back. Tears are already on her face, probably have been since before his name was called, the way she cried at Senior Night, the way Serena cries at everything involving her sons. Her hands are pressed together at her mouth. Leaning toward Suzanne, she says something I know without hearing—the twins wanting to be here, Gia sending a video message that made Dante pretend he didn't watch three times.
Beside her, Salvatore Voss stands in a dark suit, so still he makes everyone around him look restless. Dante inherited that posture, the squared shoulders, the centered weight, the way a man can make silence feel like a locked door. Salvatore watches his son cross a stage in a graduation gown at an American university, the son who chose hockey over Milan, who drew a line through the family. His face is unreadable, but he is here.
He came.
Marco is absent. The seat beside Salvatore is empty. The brother who said until the next time stayed away. Or was kept away. I don't know which one it is.
Suzanne is on her feet again. She claps harder now, and my father stands beside her. Two families in the same section, the Maddoxes and the Vosses, separated by empty seats and six years of dinners, holidays, birthdays, and games.
Serena reaches across the gap and finds Suzanne's hand. Holds it. Two mothers clapping with their free hands while their joined hands bridge the seats between them.
Dante sees all of it. His jaw shifts. His chin lifts. His eyes are bright. Maya's hand tightens on mine between our chairs. Her eyes are full. She's facing forward, watching him walk off the stage.
The ceremony continues through the last of the alphabet. The provost says something about the future, and then caps fly. Four hundred polyester-clad bodies rise at once, arms up, the sky filling with navy squares.
Maya keeps her cap pinned to her head with one hand and grabs my arm with the other.
"That was a hundred-dollar deposit," she says.
"Romantic."
"Practical. Romance doesn't pay the deposit back."
? ? ?
The lawn after is chaos. Gowns come off. Champagne appears from bags and backseats, corks popping across the quad, one ricocheting off a tree. A mother screams her daughter's name across the lawn. The campus photographer tries to organize a group shot near the fountain and loses control of the chaos in real time.
We find each other the way we always find each other, without planning, our bodies drifting toward the same corner of the same lawn.
Dante reaches us first this time. His gown is already off, and when he stops in front of me and Maya, his mouth softens. His shoulders drop half an inch.
"He came," Dante says.
"He came," I say.
"All he did was sit there. Through the whole ceremony. In a suit."
"That's something."
"That's everything." Dante's voice comes out rough. "From him, that's everything."
