and outreach. Priya leaned against the conference room wall and started laughing. I laughed with her until we were both crying, and Professor Malik sat quietly at the table, smiling into her coffee.
I wanted to tell my parents. I actually dialed my mother's number and watched it ring twice before I ended the call. All my life I had offered them bits of good news and waited for approval that never came, and I could not bear to watch them turn this into another conversation about what I had failed to achieve. The contract was also not yet public, and we had been asked to respect the announcement date. Instead I called Aunt June. She listened without interrupting and asked one question: "Are you proud of how you did it?" I told her about the testing, the mistakes, and the people who would be hired to keep the system running. "Then I am proud of you," she said. It was the first time I had allowed myself to believe that the two sentences could exist without one canceling the other.
On the Monday before commencement, the university informed me that Lantern had been selected for its Community Innovation Award. The dean hoped to announce it at graduation because the project had grown out of an undergraduate research partnership and had just entered a publicly approved expansion phase. I asked whether the recognition would place too much attention on me when Priya and so many others deserved credit. The dean assured me that our full team would be acknowledged and that the public announcement would describe the contract accurately. I agreed, but I refused to tell my family in advance. For once I wanted to sit through an important day without preparing a defense against their disappointment. I had no idea how difficult that simple wish would become.
Graduation morning smelled of rain-wet pavement and freshly cut grass. Celia helped pin my hair beneath my cap and insisted that I eat breakfast, although my stomach felt knotted. Priya arrived carrying a spare safety pin, two cups of coffee, and a printed copy of the ceremony schedule with our names underlined in pen. We took photographs outside the engineering building where we had spent so many late nights. In one picture we were grinning like children. In another, we were too tired to keep our eyes open. I sent both to Aunt June and put my phone away when my mother texted that the family had arrived and expected me to come find them immediately.
They were waiting near the auditorium doors. Dad wore his favorite dark-blue suit and a burgundy tie. Mom had chosen a cream jacket, and Ryan kept checking his phone while my cousin Vanessa praised the expensive watch he had bought on credit. My mother looked me over, adjusted the edge of my graduation hood, and said I should have chosen shoes that made me look taller. Dad asked whether I had any interviews lined up. I told him my work situation was settled, which was as much truth as I could share. "Of course it is," he said, in the