Chapter Text
The commencement ceremony for his sister’s class at the Greenwich Academy features raindrops on roses and girls in white dresses (without blue satin sashes) and a Pulitzer-winning journalist as the commencement speaker, and of course, their whole family was there for Una’s big day. Kent’s mother, Isabelle, had also attended the school in her own teenage years, and had been sloppy with sentimentality all morning at the thought of her only daughter following in her footsteps. His dad, of course, was a bit more prosaic, though he did approve of this year’s choice of commencement speaker as opposed to last year’s staid and rather boring senator.
Una isn’t Valedictorian– that particular honour falls to her good friend Molly O’Shea, the heiress of a chain of jewelry stores. Molly’s family is a bit new-money, and her mother is undeniably a little crass by their standards, but she’s a sweet girl, undoubtedly with a bright future ahead of her, and certainly, Una could associate with worse people.
The graduating class of an elite, private all-girl’s school is typically less than 100 students, and this year’s is no exception. Kent had heard tell of the local public school holding their ceremony at an actual sporting stadium due to the plethora of students, family, friends and staff involved, and it’s almost comical. Who would even be able to get a good picture of their kid’s face as he or she got their diploma from some spot in the stands fifty feet up? It would make sense for a college graduation, of course, but seems to lack the sort of sentimentality and ceremony that kids always enjoyed.
“Hey.”
The voice is familiar, and while his best friend’s presence isn’t a complete shock– Matt has been promoted to almost-an-honourary-Crawford-Tate since the events of a year ago, it does strike Kent as a bit odd that his friend would be standing there in full-on black tie and carrying a bouquet of red roses like it’s a wedding or something.
“Hi there, Miss America. Lose your tiara or something?” Kent jostles his friend’s arm good-naturedly, but rather to his surprise, Matt doesn’t say anything smart-alecky back in response and watches the proceedings without a word.
They sit through the speeches, the music and ceremony, and of course, everyone applauds when Una receives her diploma and a yellow rose as her name is announced. She beams and waves at them as she follows the rest of the procession down the line, and Kent is struck with the fact that his baby sister is now all grown up, wearing a long white dress that isn’t all princess ballerina ruffles, her hair down her back rather than in pigtails. Una is petite and bubbly and probably would love sappy nonsense like fuzzy little kittens and Disney movies for the rest of her life, but she is no longer a kid, and it makes Kent, at the advanced age of twenty-two, feel ancient.
The ceremony ends shortly, and Una breaks away from her friends to join them, and that is when all Hell breaks loose.
That she smiles and runs towards them, not quite graceful in her kitten heels, is not super surprising. She’s a soft-hearted little thing, after all, and unlike Kent, who’d grown up on a steady weekly diet of private tennis lessons and captained his rowing team at Yale, generally hated sports and athletic activity. But that she only spares her parents and Kent the most perfunctory greetings before making a beeline for Matt on the other hand stops Kent in his tracks, and when Matt hands her the roses, then opens his arms, and she jumps in, arms looping around his neck and blonde hair mingling with Matt’s black, Kent is almost certain his jaw made an audible thump as it hit the floor.
It isn’t the type of hug a girl would give a friend, or a brother, and the kiss Matt has the audacity to plant on her isn’t exactly fraternal in nature, either. Kent doesn’t even register his own parents’ reactions– whether they were as shocked and appalled as he was, or whether, worse, they somehow knew about this. Matt picks up a giggling, blushing Una and swings her around, then sets her down and, even more horrifyingly, pulls out a small black velvet box out of a pocket. It’s like the climax scene of every fluffy chick flick ever except in Kent’s head, some 80s era Wes Craven horror movie soundtrack is playing over it.
Matt pulls a ring– an actual RING!– out of the box, classic antique platinum band with a flawless white pearl flanked by two small diamonds, and offers it to Una. “It’s not– well, it’s my mother’s. I know we’re young, and you have college and I have med school. But I want you to wait for me. Someday, I want to do this again, with something just for you.” It’s an old-fashioned notion– a promise ring– but even more shocking is the fact that his normally quiet friend is doing this in front of everyfuckingbody like it’s not some huge spectacle, let alone the fact that apparently Matt and Una had been carrying on for goodness only knew how long before then, because she seems thrilled and misty-eyed rather than horrified and shrieking. She kisses Matt again, accepts the ring and the roses, and then, FINALLY, Matt manages to meet Kent’s eye, and Kent has no choice but to move his brain and body out of the fog and react.
He hauls Una none-too-gently out of Matt’s arms, and then punches Matt in the face, his friend’s head snapping back at the contact of Kent’s fist against his jaw. Matt almost falls down, but then Una is screeching and yanking Kent off like a baby kitten attempting to move a mastiff, and her ire is apparently at Kent for punching Matt rather than Matt for laying hands on her in every single violation to the Bro code in the history of ever.
“DON’T HIT MY BOYFRIEND!!! WE ARE IN LOVE AND YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!” Undoubtedly, this is the liveliest graduation scene the hallowed grounds of Greenwich Academy has seen in at least a decade, and perhaps later, Kent would be reading about some pearl-clutching old biddy having a stroke because of this almost-brawl that would certainly be more in character at a dive bar that served cheap beer and twangy country music or whatever than here. But for now, Kent turns, open-mouthed, to stare at his sister. The petulant words and tone are definitely hers– classic riled-up Una– but since when was Matthew Darien Clark anything but his friend?
“Matt is NOT your boyfriend! Since when is Matt your boyfriend?! YOU JUST TURNED EIGHTEEN LAST JUNE SINCE WHEN DID YOU START HAVING BOYFRIENDS?!”
“Kent, you’re making a scene and embarrassing your sister.” His mother’s voice cuts through the haze and whatever undoubtedly furious retort Una has for his remark. “It is extremely unseemly to engage in this boisterous contretemps in public like an uncultured ruffian. Una, dear, do stop screaming. Do you think we might be able to find a place with some privacy to resolve this situation?”
“Why the need for privacy? HE’S the one who wanted to freaking damn near propose in front of all these people! He should suffer the consequences of his actions that HE chose to do publically!”
“I have nothing to say to you about Matt and myself, and until you get off your high horse and leave whichever awful Victorian planet where women sit cross-legged at home and bat their eyelashes while patiently waiting for the men to find something to do with their lives that you seem to be living on, I have nothing to say to you, period. Matt’s your FRIEND and you just punched him because, what, we’re in love?” Una clenched her jaw, then raised her chin in stubborn defiance. “If you’ll excuse me. I need to find some ice for my boyfriend’s face.”
“Kent, kindly don’t conduct yourself like a hooligan.” Even his father, apparently, was in on this horrifying scenario. Kent Crawford-Tate, Jr. looked his usual unruffled self, slightly bored and slightly disapproving with the scenario playing out. “Matthew is not a stranger or an unsuitable fellow, and he even asked my permission to do this beforehand. Your sister is happy.” He waves a hand at the crowd starting to gather around them, bequeaths a jovial smile. “Everything is perfectly fine, folks. Isn’t it a beautiful day? Are you all right there, son?” This last bit is directed at Matt himself, who is rubbing his jaw gingerly, but meets his eye with a wan smile.
“I’m fine, sir.” Matt then turns his dark-blue gaze towards Kent, and though his eyes are somber, they’re unapologetic and meet Kent’s without any fear. “I’m okay with you punching me. I guess we should have told you, but everything was happening so fast. I’m sorry you’re upset over it, but I’m not going to stop seeing Una just to appease you.” An awful, sappy smile crosses Matt’s face. “She’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
“Okay, that’s my sister, and that’s disgusting, and never do that again.” Kent shudders. It’s incredibly demoralizing to learn that not only is he the last one to know about this outrageous new development, but Matt’s focus is completely on Una’s happiness. “Do I even want to know how long this has been going on?”
“Since the time my grandmother got sick. Una caught me on a bad day, and just… she understood. We must have talked for hours.” Matt, the noble idiot, brushes lint off his stark black lapels and makes that lovesick face again despite Kent’s stern injunctions just a moment prior. “Your whole family has been incredibly supportive, and I can’t thank them enough, of course. But Una– she’s like light shining through the darkness. I don’t know what I would have done this last year without her.”
“Ugh.” It’s an uncouth nothing of a word, but Kent finds that he doesn’t have anything else to say. The idea of being friends with a boyfriend of Una’s has literally never occurred to him before, nor the idea of his own best friend eyeing his little sister, nor even the idea of his best friend being in love, period. Certainly Matt was not the sort to tomcat around the Yale campus like some of the other rich, privileged douchebags of their acquaintance, but they were too damn young to settle down for 2.4 kids and a white picket fence. Or, more likely in their case, 2.4 kids, a live-in housekeeper, and a six-bedroom mansion with a three-car garage.
His asshole disgrace of a best friend has the nerve to smile. “You’ll know what I mean someday, bro.”
“Why, you have any long-lost sisters?” It’s a snotty remark at best, but Matt is too nice of a guy to care, and Kent privately finds the idea of continuing to pick a fight with someone who, goddammit, is just not willing to engage, about equal to the idea of arguing with a six-year-old about the existence of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Sure, it may be an easy battle to win, but the victory would feel dickish at best, unjust at worst.
“No, but you’ll fall in love yourself someday. And when you find the right woman, nothing will be as important to you as bringing a smile to her face, and all you’ll want from your friends and others around you is the support and goodwill to share in your happiness.”
“Sounds like a hocus pocus curse, so you should probably stop that shit. I didn’t punch you that hard, you ass.” Kent doesn’t want to shake on it and call it good, not in front of all these people, especially since they’ve already given everyone at that year’s graduation more than enough of a shit show, so he hunches his shoulders, well aware that a multitude of young, white-gowned debutantes are eyeing him like something beneath a microscope slide, and hightails it out to the parking lot.
His car is… noticeable, even in this sea of luxurious, flashy Range Rovers and Mercedes Benzes and Bentleys. The sleek black Maserati with the custom gold trim had been a present for his own graduation a month earlier from his parents. Sure, he rarely ever drove it into the questionable parts of town, and certainly it is a vehicle that screams ‘PLEASE HIT ME WITH A SPEEDING TICKET AGAIN, OFFICER, AND MAKE IT A GOOD ONE!’ the way a BDSM fetishist might scream at some leather-clad dominatrix plying a cat-o’-nine-tails on his backside, but it is a Thing of Beauty and a Joy Forever. Kent makes a beeline towards it, then stops in his tracks about two feet away.
Una had certainly NOT been fetching ice for Matt’s jaw in the interim. Keyed into the exorbitantly-expensive custom paint job, in loopy, girlish handwriting, are the words “SCREW YOU, I DO WHAT I WANT!”, followed by a bright pink lipstick heart on the side mirror.
God fucking dammit! He was too damn young to have two heart attacks in one day.