His Mistress Tried to Kill Me at Graduation

Synopsis

I spread the last of the artisanal cheese across my bedroom floor, arranging it in a perfect semicircle around the bottle of rosé I'd been saving for months. The pale pink liquid caught the morning light streaming through my window, casting rosy shadows across my meticulously color-coded Hamptons itinerary. Today was the day—graduation morning, the official beginning of our summer together before Yale in the fall. My phone buzzed with a text from my mother downstairs: "Honey, did you pack sunscreen?" I smiled, typing back quickly: "SPF 50 for me, 30 for Nathan. He thinks anything higher makes him look 'pasty.'" I picked up the itinerary one more time, running my finger down the carefully planned schedule. Sunset beach picnic tonight. Horseback riding tomorrow morning. Wine tasting at the new vineyard Nathan had been talking about for months. Everything was perfect—just like us. With a flutter of excitement, I grabbed my phone and pulled up Nathan's contact. His smiling face filled my screen as I typed: "T-minus 3 hours until Hamptons bliss! Can't wait to see you. Everything's packed and ready! ❤️" The message showed as delivered, but no immediate response came. I tried not to overthink