“Not through these doors, you don’t. You look like a drowned rat,” he snarled, glancing nervously at an elderly couple in tailored cashmere passing by. “You’re tracking muddy water onto the marble. You’re going to ruin Haley’s photos before she even steps into the lobby. Go around to the public nosebleed line at the north arena.”
“Dad, I’m *graduating* today!”
“Stop making everything about you!” Evelyn snapped from behind him. “You always do this. You manufacture drama because you can’t stand to see Haley thrive!”
Richard shoved me backward. Hard.
My heel caught on the slick, rounded edge of the granite step. My foot went out from under me, and I slammed hard onto the wet stones, water splashing up into my face, soaking the hem of my garment bag.
Richard didn’t even look down. He offered his arm to Evelyn, nodded to Haley, and the three of them glided through the bronze-framed doors, the gold ticket flashing in Haley’s hand like a stolen crown.
I sat there on the freezing ground, water pooling around my knees, my breath coming in jagged, burning gasps. The rain stung my eyes. I looked down at the dark asphalt. *Maybe I should just leave,* the small, broken voice inside me whispered. *Maybe I should just walk to the subway, go to my empty studio, and sleep.*
Then, the rain stopped hitting my head.
A vast, black canopy of heavy waterproof silk appeared above me, casting a deep shadow over the puddles.
“Dr. Hensley?”
A voice—deep, resonant, vibrating with unmistakable authority—cut through the roar of the downpour.
I blinked through wet eyelashes.
Standing over me in heavy black academic robes draped with four velvet bars of crimson and gold stood Dean Jonathan Bradley. Behind him, two university security officers in dress uniforms held radios to their ears, their faces pale with shock.
The Dean looked from my bruised, water-smeared knuckles to my face, his eyes wide behind gold-rimmed spectacles.
“Clara?” he gasped, his voice cracking with disbelief. “Why on earth are you sitting in the rain? The entire Board of Trustees and the National Science Foundation delegates are waiting in the Chancellor’s Suite! You are scheduled to deliver the valedictorian address in twelve minutes!”
His gaze dropped to the red, fingerprint-shaped contusions rising on the pale skin of my left forearm.
“Dr. Hensley,” Dean Bradley said, his voice dropping into a deadly, razor-sharp quiet. “Did someone lay hands on you?”
Through the rain-streaked glass doors of the lobby, I saw my father laughing, holding a glass of complimentary champagne, pointing out the marble statues to his stepdaughter.
I slowly wiped the rain from my cheeks, looked up into the Dean’s furious eyes, and stood up.
