to me, and with Axle not around, she’s lost the sweet voice. “You will then turn to the podium. The speech is already there. Read it, I’ll select the reporters, you answer the questions and when you’re done speaking, look at me. I’ll signal to you when it’s time for you to walk offstage, and then you will go backstage and wait in the back room until I tell you it’s time to go.”
It’s the last part that catches my attention. “Why do I have to go in the back?”
“In case a stray reporter would want to talk to you. You only talk to people I approve. If anyone ever approaches you without my consent, you tell them that they are to talk to me. Then you contact me immediately. Got it?”
One more chain locks itself around my neck. “Got it.”
Applause breaks out in the crowd, and a man in a suit shakes hands with people as he slowly makes his way to the stage. It’s our state’s governor, Robert Monroe. I’ve never met him before. Feels weird since it’s his program that saved me from hard time.
He passes me, his wife at his side, neither making eye contact as someone like me isn’t worth their time. They then climb the stairs to the stage to join the other people in suits.
“The media loves her,” Cynthia says.
“Who?” The intern rises on her toes to try to see around the crowd that’s now focused on the next person coming up the aisle.
“The governor’s daughter.”
The governor’s daughter. I’ve heard about her. Most everyone has heard about her. Holiday used to talk about her all the time. Something about her being beautiful and poised and up on fashion. Gotta admit, I didn’t listen. I could care less about someone else’s life.
The governor passes by me again, braves his way into the thick of people and when he reemerges, my heart stops. On the governor’s arm is blond hair and intimidating blue eyes. It’s Elle.
The world zones out.
I’m going to strangle my sister if she knew Elle was the governor’s daughter and didn’t say a word. Damn. I flirted with the governor’s daughter. I scrub a hand over my face.
The man I have to impress in order to stay out of jail, the man who can tell my probation officer to flip the switch and send me back behind bars, I flirted with his daughter. I helped his daughter, but then I rejected her. Screw me. I can’t catch a break.
“Ellison,” a reporter calls. She turns her head, and flashes a smile. The reporters and the crowd see what I see—pure beauty in motion.
Elle scans the area, and her smile falters as surprise flickers over her face. But as quick as it’s there, it’s gone, and she returns to perfection. The upturn of her lips is sweet, it’s gorgeous, but it’s not the smile that caused me to feel like a moth to a flame. Earlier, I made her laugh, and she owned the type of smile that becomes seared into a man’s memory.
Elle’s bold. Bold enough to cock an eyebrow at me as she passes. A question as to what I’m doing here. I’ve been asking myself the same question for over a year. She walks up the stairs for the stage, and my stomach sinks.
To one person, for a few moments, I was the hero. Did I step in to help Elle? Yeah. But I also stepped in to help me. Because I’m selfish like that. I needed to know, before I made an announcement to the world I’m a thug, that one person saw me as good.
Now I got nothing.
Elle’s father walks her to the center of the stage, and the cameras remain on them, remain on her. Her smile stays steady, stoic. Her hand curls into the crook of her father’s arm. The governor leans in, whispers something to her and there it is...that smile. The one where those intimidating blue eyes spark.
He covers her hand on his arm, and she raises up on her toes to kiss his cheek. Cameras snap, a sea of cell phones record every second. Then with one last glance at the audience, Elle slips to the back of the stage, next to her mother. Instead of watching the governor as he begins to speak, I watch her, willing her to look in my direction one more time.
Cynthia steps in front of me, blocking my view of Elle. “You ready?”
Adrenaline pumps into my veins, and I scour the area, searching for an exit. Dominic is the one who is claustrophobic, but since being home, I get it. I understand the overwhelming urge to bust out, the need to rip off the chains so I can breathe. But while Dominic’s issues are with walls, my issue is my life. It’s closing in on me, and there’s no escape.
The governor’s voice drones over the audio system, and he talks statistics. Numbers that prove that messed-up boys like me can be helped by people like him. He talks about destroying the school-to-prison pipeline, he talks about juvenile delinquents being given another shot, he talks about second chances and blank slates. My heart pounds in my ears.
“I said, are you ready?” Cynthia prods.
No, I’m not, but I walk for the stage stairs regardless.
My name is said, Hendrix Page Pierce, and the crowd claps. For what I don’t know. The part of me that’s a glutton for punishment wants to gauge Elle’s reaction, but knowing I’ll see disappointment, I keep myself from looking. Some things I don’t need to experience.
I reach the podium, and in a motion so perfect it could have been practiced a million times instead of never, the governor and I shake. He places his other hand on top of our combined hands as if he has to prove he’s in control. As if I don’t know the score.
He leans forward to say, “I appreciate how much courage this takes.”
I appreciate not going to adult prison.
“I’ve heard great things about you. I heard you’re a leader. It’s why we chose you to speak on behalf of the other teens like you, whom we’re going to help.”
A leader. Is he talking about the guy who carried other people’s packs when they were too exhausted emotionally or physically to go forward? The guy who gave up his food when others were complaining they were still hungry? The guy who sat up at night with the two younger teens on the trip who were still scared of the dark?
That doesn’t make me a leader. That makes me a good older brother.
The governor lets me go, inclines his head to the podium, and Dominic’s loud two-finger patented whistle pierces past the polite applause. He’s in the back, Kellen by his side, and when Dominic catches me looking at him, he flips me the bird while giving me a crazy-ass grin.
The familiar reminder of my family causes some of the knots in my stomach to unravel, and it gives me the courage to read the words. That’s all they are, just words. Words that are unrelated. Words that don’t mean anything to me. Words that hopefully won’t mean anything to anyone else.
“One year ago, I made a mistake. One that put my life and the lives of others at risk.”
The speech talks in circles about the crime, but it skips key phrases like convenience store, gun and stolen cash. “I was on a bad road that was going to lead to more mistakes. Mistakes that could never be forgiven.”
I did make mistakes, and I was on a bad road. Living with Mom, I became her. Getting drunk, getting high. Thinking too much of myself, thinking I was as close to a god as a man could get when my mind was in a haze. That’s what happens when someone flies too high: they get burned.
“Once arrested, I confessed to what I did wrong, and I was given a second chance.”
I lift my head to look at Axle, who is now in the back. He has his arm around Holiday, and she has this beaming light about her like she’s proud. I’m not someone she should be proud of, but I want to become that man. I want to be the brother she deserves.
“I’d like to thank Governor Monroe for picking me for his program. In it, I learned how to believe in myself. I learned who I am, and who I am is not the person I was before. I learned I’m capable of more than I could have imagined.”