One

Graduation.

I guess, as many people phrase it, I have been waiting for this for the vast majority of my life. It had been expected from me to graduate from university. Well, it had been expected from both my brother and me, but Jack had gone down a different route completely.

Both Jack and I had grown up in a good area, went to a good school, and we were just expected to go to university, get a good job, and have loads of children in a happy marriage, assume the normal roles of hard-working father and good house-mother, and that was it. It didn't matter that we were Savant's, because genetics mean nothing when it came to hard work. However, when I was thirteen and Jack fifteen, we wanted our own fate. My school work went off track when I wanted to be an anti-bullying mentor after I watched my older brother get beaten within school because of his sexuality. I focused so hard on changing the way the school was that I never studied any more. My grades slipped, my attainment in classes fell tenfold but I saw my brother get help in school. He no longer was getting bullied because of the work I did. My parents, well, our parents, weren't happy. Sure, I did a brilliant thing but how could I get into university if I didn't get my good A-levels, which I couldn't do if I didn't have good GCSE results and i couldn't get my GCSE results to a good standard because I spent three years trying to protect my older brother. He would do the same for me if it was the other way around. I walked out of my GCSE year with seven passes to my parent's disappointment. Seven wasn't enough. Seven wasn't good enough. Seventeen, perhaps, but not seven. Not for my strict parents. I never wanted to be a disappointment to my parents, so I studied so hard for two years, alongside volunteer work and months of fundraising, I had got a condition offer for Cambridge University. I had passed every single exam, interview, assessment and essay they threw at me and nailed it. I just had to get my exam results to the top grade possible – edging to impossible – and I would be going to Cambridge!

The day of my last exam, I came out proud and happy. I had done it. I got home, helped myself to some leftover chicken in the fridge and watched some Disney films. Jack had moved out two years ago, when he decided university wasn't for him and got a job as a nurse in a paediatric outpatient's centre. It got to five, when my parents were due home. And then six. Seven. Eight. I called them and no answer, they didn't answer telepathically. It was at half nine the police arrived at my home address and told me there had been a car accident which left them both dead. I had become an orphan in a matter of minutes.

I was devastated. Broken. We sold the family home, and I moved in with my brother with us alternating who slept on the sofa. We had both been grief-strucken and unable to do much at all. Our grandparents organised their joint funeral and we just stood there at the ceremony in shock. Who could do this? A drunk driver smashed into their car, knocking them off the bridge they were on. The drunk driver was fine and escaped harm.

Results day came around and I had got into university and my student dorms were sorted. I had to go to make my parents proud. I don't believe in Heaven or any concepts of religion but I would like to think they'd be watching me and being proud of me. The lecturers there realised that, as a way to deal with my grief, I had finished the entire first years syllabus before we had even started. My gift made that easy; I could remember ever single second I had ever witnessed. Useful but so disruptive when at night you can remember the police officers telling you your parents were dead.

The lecturers made a decision to hold an exam paper for me and if I got marked at 80%, double the normal threshold for first year university students to pass onto second year, as first year is unaccounted, they would move me straight to second year. I got marked at 92% and immediately started the school year in October as a Year two at Cambridge University.

Two years later, I am graduating with a first degree in Psychology, and a minor in Forensic sciences.

"Your parents would be proud," I heard, and I turned around in my bedroom. My two flatmates, Mycelia and Sara were watching me.

"You've done the impossible, Grace, but you still came out on top" Mycelia said to me and I smiled softly. It meant a lot.

"Thanks," I whispered looking in the mirror. I had a small black dress on with a pair of kitten heels – and even the half an inch heels were risky for me. The black dress stopped just above my knee, gathered at my waist and had the top half like pinafore dress. Not that it would matter – our graduation robes would cover most of us.

"Is your yummy brother coming today?" Sara asked me as Mycelia left the room to get ready.

"Can you please stop hitting on my brother?" I asked her, sighing, pulling the dress down lightly. "He couldn't get the day off work,"

"That's a shame," Sara said. I shrugged – I wanted him so much to be here for me but I understood that he had a tight schedule.

"You're just saying that because you can't flirt with him," I muttered.

"It would be nice for someone to show some support for you, Grace, not because you and your brother are just beautiful. We're all proud of you, kiddo," Sara said to me softly, touching my shoulder. I was a year younger than everyone where, being only twenty. In my class, I had the nickname of Kiddo.

"I guess, but I understand," I told her and she nodded.

"We are leaving in ten, yes?"

"Yeah, okay," I muttered, knowing I was the only one who had a car here so of course I would be the only one driving to and from our graduation ceremony in my twelve year old Vauxhall Corsa.

"Brilliant." Sara said. "God, I wish I had your legs, Grace, they're so nice and you even shaved for this special occasion," she joked, before walking out of the door into the corridor.

I sighed, my inner gut scared to go to my own graduation ceremony but it was too late to back out. I just hoped my parents would be proud of me and my brother too. The next few months of job hunting would be tricky. Well, this next year won't go smoothly for me. I just didn't want to be a disappointment.