June 2002

Her eyes scanned the crowd, passed her friends, passed her family. They weren’t who she was searching for (she knew they would be there) No she was looking for the face that made a promise to her four years ago. 

She knew there was a great possibility that he wouldn’t be there. Last time she checked he was in--where was he again? And so what if she hadn’t seen him in four years, and they had only talked the previous year. He would turn up. He promised. 

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“Dude, can’t you drive any faster?” 

“No Shawn, not until you tell me where we’re going.” 

“Gus.” Shawn whined. “It doesn’t matter right now, we don’t have time to talk, turn left.” 

“No.” 

“Gus we’re going to be late…In fact we are already late.”

 “….” 

Shawn looked at his best friend, maybe he shouldn’t have taken him on that road trip to Mexico. Ever since then, Gus had been even warier when traveling with him to an unknown destination. He paused for a moment and thought. Nope. It was worth every penny. 

“ Gu—“ 

“I’m not moving anywhere, until you tell me.” 

“You know you’d think that after twenty one years of friendship, there’d be a little trust.” Gus didn’t budge. It was a losing battle. “If you must know Gussie-dear, a friend of mine is graduating and I promised her I would be there.” Shawn said the latter much softer than he started out with.

 “Her?” Gus raised his eyebrows 

“Gus aren’t you going to start driving now?” 

____________________________ 

She smiled and clapped as another person went to collect their certificate, then scanned the crowd yet again. He still hadn’t arrived. Maybe it was because she had hung up on him when he called. Well it wasn’t her fault though. It had been three years, and he didn’t even say anything to her. Okay fine, she had gotten some occasional post cards, but that wasn’t the point. The point was he hadn’t showed up and he promised her that he would. 

She shook her head. She was just being irrational. The ceremony hadn’t finished yet. Hestill had time. In any case, she needed to stop thinking about that, because it was really beginning to dampen her spirits. She let out a sigh and hoped he would make it.                                        

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 “Gus are you sure you can’t drive any faster?”

 “Shawn in case you haven’t noticed this is a company car, a car that was given to me by the company I only recently joined. If anything happens to this car, which, by the way I need in tact because I need to make my rounds to the doctors…” 

Shawn rolled his eyes and didn’t bother to listen to the rest. 

_______________________ 

“Juliet O’Hara.” She got up and made her way over to the Dean. She could hear her parents clapping, (they had a very distinct sound from the others) but she didn’t look.

 “Go Jules!”  

She whipped her head around. Only one person called her that. He gave her a wink and she smiled in return. There was never a doubt that he would be here.  

Juliet realised that there was someone else beside him and figured that must’ve been Gus. Another promise he kept. She also realised the look on her father and brothers’ face. Oh crap he was going to get it. As soon as the ceremony was over she would have to get him to leave, but for the time being he was good where he was.