“Elle.” Dad wants me to look at him, but I can’t. The table is the only thing I can focus on without feeling like the entire world is shattering. If I glance at Dad, what’s left of my pride will be destroyed, and that’s a loss in confidence that will take forever to repair.
“Elle,” Dad says again with a more direct and demanding voice. “I have a press conference. If you want to sit this one out, I understand, but I would like to finish this conversation before I leave. You’re my daughter, I love you and nothing makes me more proud than when you stand by my side onstage.”
My eyes flash to his then, because I want to make my father proud. I want him to want me by his side.
“We believe in you,” Dad says. “But you don’t understand commitment. Your mom and I do. We know what it takes to succeed.”
Dad grew up dirt-poor and on government assistance. Mom, on the other hand, grew up in the lap of luxury, but her father was emotionally and physically abusive. Life for them was brutal, and they had to scratch, claw and bleed to make it out of their childhoods alive.
“We’ve had to learn tough lessons with nobody there to help. Your mother and I are trying to give you the benefit of our experiences. We’re trying to keep you on an easier path and to give you everything we never had. Trust the decisions we’re making for you.
“Plus, I don’t know how I would feel if you were to win, and then you decline the internship. This is a large corporation in our state. A lot of eyes will be on you if you win. It would look bad on you and on me if you quit this like how you’ve bailed on most things.”
He believes in me, but he doesn’t. Somehow, through this conversation, I’m starting to no longer believe in myself.
“I’ll tell you what.” His face brightens like I haven’t been smashed to pieces. “Let’s pass on the internship, get through the summer and if you’re still excited about programming, and if we see a change in your understanding of commitment, we’ll allow you to take a coding class in the fall. But you have to give us a hundred percent this summer. Agreed?”
This is how Dad negotiates. He gives, I give, then we each win. But my mind is a swimming mess as, for the first time, this feels more like a dictatorship than a democracy.
Because I can’t stand the twisting in my stomach at disappointing Mom and Dad, because I want to take a coding class, I say, “Agreed.”
Dad smiles, a beaming one reserved for me when he’s proud. He checks his watch, stands and kisses my forehead before going on about how he’ll give me a few more minutes to collect myself before meeting him outside to walk together to the press conference.
The door opens, then closes. I’m staring at the table again. It’s white, has a couple of coffee mug stains and the table isn’t interested in crushing my dreams.
“We’re not doing this to hurt you.” Mom’s voice is soft and sweet. If we were home, we’d be lying on my bed, and she’d stroke her fingers through my hair. I’d be a millionaire if I had a penny for every time this scene has played out between us. “We’re doing this to help you.”
I suck in a breath and slowly release it. The good news is that my chest aches less, so I guess I will survive the stab wound that conversation created.
“Most people your age have a focus by now,” Mom continues, and I wish she’d stop. Do other people’s parents know when to stop? Do they understand that less is sometimes more?
“Whether it be sports or academics or a hobby. We have tried so many different things with you—dance, theater arts, numerous instruments, what feels like a hundred different sports. We have given you a million opportunities for you to find your focus, but you never focus.”
“The coding is different,” I say. “When I’m programming there’s this rush in my blood, and it just feels right.”
Mom gathers papers in front of her and places them in a folder in such a slow motion that it’s obvious she’s thinking her next words through. “We’ve heard this before, and if your father and I weren’t persistent with you helping him with the campaign, you would be graduating next year with a college application that says you have the inability to be focused and responsible. Do you really not see it? One of the reasons you were given a position in the campaign is because we need you to appear focused and driven. By having a steady position with the campaign over the past few years, you look exactly like a determined young lady ready to conquer the world instead of a teen who has no idea what she wants to do with her life. Yes, who your father is could open doors for you, but that’s not what we want for you. Don’t you want to be the woman who opens doors for herself?”
I nod, because I have never wanted things to happen because of my father.
“Life is cruel,” Mom says. “It’s hard. Don’t be sad because your father and I are trying to help you avoid the roads that cause pain. Do you have any idea how much I wanted a parent who was involved and supportive when I was younger? Do you know how badly your father wished he had the opportunities you do? We’re not trying to hurt you. We’re trying to help.”
Pain. It’s something both of my parents understand. My mother had every possession she could think of, but her father was a monster, and Dad’s father died when he was young. While my father had a great mom, he understood hunger pains far more than anyone should. Yes, my grandmother had the land, but sometimes farming the land didn’t pay out like they needed, and she stubbornly refused to sell.
Guilt pounds me like a hammer. “I should have told you about the internship.”
Mom stands, places her fingers under my chin and forces me to meet her gaze. Her blue eyes are soft, the stroke of her finger against my hot cheek softer. “I love you, and I hate being harsh with you, but the next few months are crucial for your father and me. We need you. I can’t help but think that if your father and I were more direct with Henry, like we’re being with you today, that he’d still be a part of our family. Henry made terrible mistakes, and I don’t want to see you make terrible mistakes, as well. I understand what real pain is, and everything I’m saying to you, everything I do for you, it’s to keep you from that pain.”
“Henry’s happy,” I whisper.
Mom grows incredibly sad. “He regrets his choices, and he’s too proud to admit he needs our help. I’m starting to wonder if he’s trying to turn you against us so he can make himself feel better—to justify his own bad choices. I know you love him, and I would never tell you to stay away from him, but I am asking you to be careful. Don’t let him influence you away from us.”
A tug-of-war. Mom and Dad pulling on one side. Henry on the other. Problem is, I remember how distant Henry was the summer before he left. Never home. Angry all the time. Moody. It was as if an alien had taken control of his body. “What did Henry do?”
“He doesn’t want you to know, and we promised we wouldn’t tell. Someday, he’ll come home, and we want to keep our promises. Just think of this as a lesson to listen to us. Henry didn’t and he made a mess. You think you know what you want, but trust me, you don’t. Seventeen is too young. Just let us make the decisions for you. You’ll have the rest of your adult life to make all the decisions you want. But these choices now, they’re too big for you to make and the consequences are too dire if you choose wrongly.”
After all my parents have done for me, all the sacrifices they made, both of them coming from painful childhoods, I have to listen. Bruises for Mom, and a farm that barely broke even for Dad, yet they both climbed from misery to success.
I nod, Mom kisses my cheek and she leaves. I have three minutes until I have to pretend in public that the last few minutes didn’t come close to breaking me.
Focus. Mom says I have none, but I do and I’m going to prove it to them. I have to be perfect over the next few months. Dot every i. Cross every t. Show them how passionate I am about coding and prove to them I have focus. I’ll show them responsible. I’ll wow them at every turn. I’ll d
o everything they need me to do and more.
In the meantime, I have to lie one more time.
The world is eerily hazy as I cross the room, dig the letter out of my bag and unfold it. This letter doesn’t go to the school, but to the company. My counselor won’t know anything until the fall which means Dad has lost his mole.
I’ll have to tell Mom and Dad, when classes resume, but until then I have three months to write as much as I can on this code. By then, hopefully, I’ll be so far into the project, they’ll be amazed that I balanced a schedule full of being on the campaign trail, fund-raisers and this coding that they’ll have no other option but to permit me the opportunity for the internship.
By the end of this, my parents will see me as a success.
Hendrix
“You stay here.” Cynthia, as it turns out, has an intern. She’s in college, and she points at the spot I’m standing in as if I’m a six-year-old with ADD. “Right here. Until the governor calls you onstage.”
In the convention center, at the front of the stage, there are cameras. Row after row of them, and there are people next to them and people behind them. Also in the crowd are the people who have planned to come and see the governor talk, people who are tired of being in the blazing heat and are taking a break inside, and people who are curious to watch the circus.
Come one, come all. Watch the politician smile and lie. Then watch the poor boy say he’s sorry for a crime he didn’t commit, and while I’m at it, watch me pull an elephant out of my ass.
“Once you are onstage, the governor will shake your hand.” Cynthia doesn’t bother looking up from her cell as she talks 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.”
Light applause and Cynthia steps forward. “We’re allowing a few questions.”
More than two hands raise, and Cynthia points at a man. He introduces himself as a reporter from some newspaper in Louisville. “Can you tell us something you learned during your time in the wilderness?”
I learned I can be alone when I never liked being alone before. I learned the voices in my head that used to taunt me when I was high or alone aren’t as bad as I used to think. I learned, sometimes, those voices have something worth listening to. Like stepping in with Elle. That was worth doing. “I learned how to survive. I learned how to make a fire with nothing but sticks and flint. If anyone needs a fire or help after the apocalypse, let me know.”
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