Private School Playboys novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Graduation
On the first Saturday in June, the lawn behind the chapel was white with folding chairs.
The headmaster had said the whole class would walk at ten.
By nine-thirty I was behind the stage curtain in a navy gown.
I had a speech in my fist and my stomach somewhere around my knees.
"You look like you're going to throw up," Roisin said, adjusting my cap.
"I'm going to throw up."
"You're going to be amazing and then throw up. In that order."
She had red curls pinned under her own cap, and a cellist on her arm who had somehow become a boyfriend.
Through the gap in the curtain, I could see the lawn filling.
My mother sat in the front row in a blue dress I had never seen before.
Her handbag was on her knees and her chin was up.
Nobody had told her she could sit near the front.
She'd taken the seat anyway.
Two rows behind her, alone on the aisle, sat a tall silver-haired man in a charcoal suit.
I felt my breath catch.
"Is that..." Roisin whispered.
"Yes."
"Does Jude know?"
"He's known since breakfast."
Jude stood on the other side of the curtain, with his tie crooked and his gown unzipped.
He had finished his two hundred hours of grounds work nine days early, and he had a blister on each palm to show for it.
He caught my eye across the curtain.
He didn't smile.
He touched two fingers to his chest, and nodded.
The ceremony went the way they do.
The headmaster spoke, and a trustee spoke, and a girl played the cello.
In the third row from the back sat Brooks Arrott in a plain black gown.
Three empty chairs sat on either side of him.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Private School Playboys are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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