Annabel Lee ─ emily prentiss

epilogue

three years later

THE time of day couldn't be better. The football field was bathed in the glow of golden hour as the principal called names one by one and each student climbed onto the stage to accept their degree. In combination with the ideal June evening weather—warm but not hot—conditions were perfect for a high school graduation.

"Alexander Tracy!" the principal called. A boy Emily didn't recognize strolled up to him and shook his hand, taking the diploma. The crowd erupted in claps and cheers. Emily sighed, glancing at her watch. This ceremony really was dragging on. She hated the principal and vice principal, making listening to them talk like pulling teeth. She hadn't recognized the valedictorian or the salutatorian, hampering her ability to care about their unnecessarily long, cheesy speeches. Bel came so close to being salutatorian and would have given a much better speech, quite frankly. Most of the kids graduating were total strangers to Emily too. Bel wasn't one of those people who knew everyone. She stuck to her tight-knit friend group that stayed mostly the same all through high school.

"I'm so glad I went to a private high school with less than a hundred kids in my year," Evelyn muttered in the seat next to Emily's. Bel's class had close to three hundred.

"Me too," Emily agreed, growing impatient. She just wanted to watch her kid get her degree and get the hell out of here. Between their mishandling of Bel's transfer and their lack of action when Bel was repeatedly the victim of homophobic harassment over the years, Emily's grudge against the school was very much alive. Kids wrote slurs on both Bel's regular and gym lockers and people, even teachers, said things to her face sometimes, but no matter how much pressure Emily put on administration, they did basically nothing but give empty warnings and the occasional lunch detention. Not even threats of a lawsuit made them care. The principal himself just told Bel it was her fault for being openly gay and if she were quiet about it, this wouldn't have happened. He said he had bigger things to deal with.

"I don't know why you didn't put her into a private school, since you do nothing but complain about this school. Besides, private school would have given her a better education," Elizabeth, who sat on her other side, remarked. Emily rolled her eyes, sincerely regretting giving in when her mother basically invited herself to the graduation. They had grown somewhat closer over the last few years (occasional phone conversation and major holidays), once Elizabeth accepted the fact that Bel was a permanent fixture and realized that Bel was actually a decent facilitator of her interactions with Emily—and more well-behaved than Emily was as a teenager. Bel put no pressure on Emily to spend time with Elizabeth, but knowing what it was like to run out of time with parents, she supported Emily and Elizabeth reconnecting. Elizabeth had gotten better at biting her tongue over time, but sometimes she just couldn't help herself. Or, rather, she didn't try to filter herself.

"Mother..." Bel had friends at this school and a girlfriend there up until Freyja graduated last year, and she was far too stubborn to "let them win by leaving." And Emily, while certainly well-off, did not have an unlimited bank account and was more focused on being able to help Bel with college. She really did not need her mother, who had inherited quite a bit of generational wealth, commenting on her financial affairs. She didn't need Evelyn thinking about that either. Evelyn had more money than Emily or her mother could even comprehend and could write a check for all four years of Bel's private college tuition without batting an eyelash. She kept offering to at least contribute, if Emily didn't want her to cover the whole thing. But it was Emily's responsibility to handle that.

The man sitting in front of them on the bleachers turned his head and looked up at them, glaring. "Some of us are trying to watch the ceremony."

"Would you like us to congratulate you?" Evelyn asked him in a sickly sweet voice. The man rolled his eyes and turned back around. Emily covered her mouth to stop herself from laughing.