Ellison
It’s a train wreck, and everyone is watching. Someone needs to do something, and no one is moving. Cynthia wants him to answer the question. It’s also clear, Drix doesn’t want to answer, and I understand why.
“What difference does it make what he did?” I whisper in hopes Dad will hear, but he’s three people away.
My mother shushes me, and Sean, my father’s chief of staff, sends me a glare via certified mail. He and I live in mutual distrust purgatory. To Sean, I’m supposed to be mute and look pretty, but Drix helped me, and staying silent is wrong.
“Mom?” I say, and her head jerks at the sound of my voice. Me speaking onstage without a teleprompter or typed speech is the equivalent of me biting a newborn. “He shouldn’t have to answer.”
“We’ll talk about this later,” she snaps in a hushed tone.
Lydia, my father’s press secretary, walks to the podium with that air of confidence that only she possesses. She’s an intelligent and beautiful black woman who has told me several times that how you walk into a room defines who you are before you open your mouth.
Whenever I see her, I believe this. She demands respect from the moment she comes into view, and I envy her how people so readily give it. “Mr. O’Bryan, I am kindly asking you to wait your turn and wait to be called on before asking questions.”
I’ve seen Lydia at work enough to know that the smile she just flashed Mr. O’Bryan, a loser reporter who has hated my dad for years, is telling him to shut up. There is a hum of uncomfortable chuckles from the families, and Lydia goes on to explain that Drix is still seventeen and that his records are sealed.
She’s saying all the right things, she’s saying all I want to say, but I see it on the faces of the crowd. They want to know what he did so they can judge. Drix’s past defines him, and that’s not fair, especially when it’s his future my father is trying to create. Especially when I know that my father’s program worked.
As Lydia wraps up, Mr. O’Bryan calls out again, speaking over her, “I saw Mr. Pierce and the governor’s daughter on the midway together.”
Lydia freezes her expression, and the entire convention center goes silent.
“The point I’m trying to make,” Mr. O’Bryan says, “is that this program has been the governor’s main priority for over two years. Lots of taxpayers’ money is going into a program we have no idea will work, and the first contact we’ve had from this program was seen, by me, on the midway with the governor’s daughter. This could be a friend of hers the governor has asked to read a speech to make us happy. If Mr. Pierce isn’t willing to tell us about his real past and let us, the press, verify who he is, what he’s done and let us judge how far he’s come, then how do we really know if this program has worked?”
Cynthia whispers to Drix, and he shakes his head slightly. She’s asking him to confess. He doesn’t want to, and he shouldn’t have to. I begin to run hot with the idea that I’m letting him down after what he did for me.
“Is this true, Elle? Were you on the midway with him?” my mother whispers under her breath, and her glare makes me wish I could disappear. Sean superglues himself to my side, and the way my father is eyeing me makes me feel as if I have somehow betrayed him.
“He saved me.” I shake that off because it sounds overly dramatic. “Drix helped me. Some guys were harassing me, and he stepped in to help.”
“What happened to Andrew?” Mom demands.
I shift from one foot to another. “I ditched Andrew.”
Mom’s eyes shut like I announced I kidnapped someone, and Sean pinches the bridge of his nose. “Did Hendrix Pierce get violent with these guys?”
“No. He offered to hang out with me until the guys got the hint that they should leave. Drix never said a word to them.”
“He saved you.”
“Helped me,” I correct Sean.
Sean stares straight into my eyes, and he’s making a silent promise to yell loudly at me later. “No, Elle, he saved you.”
My eyebrows draw together, and before I can ask what he means, Sean takes my hand and pulls me toward the podium. Drix’s head jerks up as I pass, and for the first time since I saw him earlier, he looks at me.
“Excuse me,” Sean says into the microphone. “I’m Sean Johnson, the governor’s chief of staff and Ellison’s godfather.”
People watch him, each of them curious, and I know what Sean has done—humanized himself and me. With a few words, he told everyone he’s in a position of authority, and that he should be respected. Me? I’m still the pretty girl standing beside him.
“We typically don’t allow people like Mr. O’Bryan to shout off like he has, but we’re trying to be respectful. In return we’re hoping he’ll be respectful to the governor and his daughter in the future.”
Lots of mothers shoot death stares in Mr. O’Bryan’s direction, and I’m okay with this. Mr. O’Bryan needs to be digested whole by a T. Rex.
“Secondly, Mr. Pierce confessed to his crime, has served time for it and he has gone through the governor’s program. He has paid his debt to society, and he has learned from his mistakes. To prove it, the governor’s daughter is going to explain the events that happened today on the midway.”
Sean tilts his head to let me know if I screw up I will never be let out in public again.
The lights are brighter than I thought they would be. Hotter, too. Makes it more difficult to see individual faces, makes it more difficult to figure out how many people are staring at me and if they are happy, annoyed or on the verge of rioting.
My mouth dries out, I swallow, then wrap my fingers around the edge of the podium. “Hendrix Pierce helped me today.”
Sean clears his throat.
“Saved me today. I was on the midway, and two college-aged guys began to harass me, and Drix...that’s what Hendrix introduced himself as...he intervened.”
Multiple flashes of light as pictures are snapped, multiple voices as people talk, even louder voices as people ask questions.
Sean talks into the microphone again. “We will take questions, but I want you to remember you are talking to the governor’s seventeen-year-old daughter. I will not allow anyone to disrespect her.”
Sean points, and a woman in the back asks, “You never met Mr. Pierce before?”
I shake my head, and Sean gestures to microphone. “No. I was playing a midway game earlier, and he ended up playing beside me, but then we went our separate ways. I left the game, and these guys started to harass me and then Hendrix asked if I needed help. I agreed, and he suggested we talk. He said that if the guys thought we were friends they would eventually lose interest, and they did. Hendrix played a game, and we talked until Andrew showed.”
“Andrew?” someone asks.
“Andrew Morton.” That causes enough of a stir that nervousness leaks into my bloodstream and makes my hands cold and clammy. Why is it that I feel that I said something terribly wrong?
“Are you and Andrew Morton friends?” someone else asks, and the question hits me in a sickening way. I name-dropped the grandson of the most powerful US Senator...the position my father is campaigning for. Sean is going to roast me alive.
“Yes. We’ve been friends for as long as I remember.” Friends, enemies, it’s all semantics at this point.
“Did you and Andrew Morton plan to attend the festival together?” Another reporter.
“Yes.”
“Were you on a date?” a woman asks.
My entire body recoils. “What?”
“Are you and Andrew Morton romantically involved?”
I become one of those bunnies who go still at the slightest sound. “I thought we were talking about Hendrix.”
“Did Mr. Pierce confront the men?”
Finally back on track. “No, he was adamant that there should be no violence.”
More questions and I put my hand in the air as I feel like I’m the one on trial. “Isn’t that the point? Hendrix went through my dad’s program, and one of the first chances he had to make a good decision, he made one. We’re strangers, and he helped me without violence. That, to me, is success.” A few people nod their heads, and because I don’t want to be done yet... “Mr. O’Bryan—grown men shouldn’t be following seventeen-year-old girls. I’m curious why you didn’t step in when I was being harassed. If you saw Hendrix and me together, then you know what happened, and it’s horrifying you didn’t help. Hendrix made the right choice. You did not.”
A rumble of conversation, Sean places a hand on my arm and gently, but firmly pushes me to the side. The raging fire in his eyes says he’s mentally measuring out the room in the basement he’s going to let me rot in for the next ten years.
My father approaches the microphone with an ease I envy. “Any more questions for Ellison can be sent to my press secretary. As you can tell, it’s been a trying day for my daughter, but we are most grateful for Mr. Pierce’s actions. We promised a program that was going to help our state’s youth turn their lives around, and, thanks to Mr. Pierce’s admirable actions, we are proud of our first program’s success.”
He offers Drix his hand again, and Drix accepts. Lots of pictures and applause, and Dad leans in and whispers something to him. I can’t tell what it is, but I do see the shadow that crosses over Drix’s face, his throat move as he swallows and then the slight nod of his head.
I don’t know what happened, but I don’t like it. The urge is to rush Drix, but Sean has a firm hold on my elbow, keeping me in place, silently berating me for causing problems.
Drix stands behind the podium and drops a bomb so huge the ground shakes beneath my feet. “Because Ellison had enough courage to explain what happened today, I’m going to tell you what I was convicted of...”
As Drix continues, it’s no longer just the ground that’s shaking—it’s the entire world. Because the guy who paid to let a five-year-old win at Whack-A-Mole, a guy who stepped in when no one else did, a guy who told me that not all members of the male gender were jerks...he committed a very violent crime, and my world is indeed rocked.