CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - FINN
I am Team Issy.
That’s all I know. That’s all I think about as I stand off to the side of the stage and watch her as she takes a room full of sad and desperate women and turns that into hope.
She starts with her story. And even though I wish I was hearing it in private, and even though I know this is probably only a fraction of what’s happened to her because no one shares everything in public, it satisfies me. It cements my feet firmly in front of her. It makes me want to fight her battles, keep her safe, and love her hard.
“I was lost once,” is how she starts the story. “Unrecognizable when I looked in the mirror. I was eighteen, and who isn’t lost at eighteen, right?”
I watch the crowd of women, many of whom nod their heads, thinking back on their own misspent youth.
“And I got involved with a man. A very bad one, at that.”
Which I can only assume is Caleb Kelly. Newly released prisoner. Everything that’s happening points to the mob.
But I know. I already know. Not the specifics. I don’t need the specifics. When a woman runs from a man, it’s usually for one of two reasons. She runs for her life or the lives of her children.
Issy doesn’t have children, so it’s the former.
Whatever he did to scare her so bad, well… it doesn’t need to be said.
She doesn’t say it now, but we all know.
As I glance around the filled-up room I see some of them are crying. Some of them look angry. Some of them look lost.
All of them look at Issy.
She looks very small up on that stage. But then again, she looks very big too. Her voice is loud, and strong, and confident. Even though something very bad is happening to her today.
She puts on the brave face. The face of a warrior. The face of a winner. The face of a woman. And she takes their pain and remolds it into hope.
I’ve seen other self-help speakers. Not a lot, but there was a time in my life a few years back where I was all gung-ho about remaking myself. Becoming a better man and shit like that. So I read books, and I went to seminars—much like this one, but then again, nothing like this one at all. And I took a few classes and yeah. It helped.
But I never, ever experienced this.
Issy Grey is a phenomenon.
She is world-class.
And soon, woman are shouting out to her as she talks. Things like, “Yes.” Things like, “Holy shit.” Things like, “You’re my hero.”
Because her story goes from bad, to worse, to evil. And she goes from pitied, to sympathetic, to admired.
And she tells them almost no details. No names. No specifics. Nothing like that. It’s just… this time, and this guy, and this gun.
Gun.
Gun.
It echoes in my head. And I need to know more. I need to know all of it. Not so I can understand her. I already understand her. But so I can join her. So I can walk by her side. So I can take up her banner and proclaim myself loyal.
Eventually I find myself sitting in a chair near the front row. The woman next to me is crying and I have a sudden urge to take her in my arms and tell her it’s all gonna be OK. That she is strong. That she is valued. That she’s capable.
But I don’t need to, because the woman sitting next to her does it first. I don’t think they’re together, either. I think… I think two hours ago they were total strangers and now they’re hugging like sisters.
Issy has a plan. She doesn’t talk about what it will cost them, at least not in dollars. She talks about the parts of themselves they need to leave behind to move forward. She talks about guilt, because failure and guilt go together. She talks about forgiveness. Not for the people who hurt them—although that’s encouraged too because, to quote Issy herself, “Forgiveness is freedom”—but for themselves. Because everyone makes mistakes and mistakes don’t define you unless you let them. Mistakes are just tools to make better decisions in the future.
And by the time the seminar is over, we’re a family. Just me, Issy Grey, her assistant, Suzanne, and three hundred sad, but hopeful, women.
She says thank you, directs them to her website where a free online course is waiting for them, and then exits the stage.
I can hear them all whisper. “Free? Did she say free?”
Yes, that’s what she said. Which means there will not be another masterclass.
The woman in front of me already has the website pulled up on her phone. Her excitement about the course is hard to contain, so in a matter of thirty seconds, all the women around me are gathered in front of her phone. Filled with hope. Filled with relief. Filled with thoughts of salvation.
I stand up, because I know I should make my way back to that little staging room. I know I have to stop whatever escape plan Issy’s about to enact. I know all this, but I find myself transfixed. Stilled. By this woman. By her performance? No, by her honesty. Her sense of responsibility to these three hundred strangers.
So I take just another minute, just sixty more seconds. And I see them. Like really see them.
And I realize…
We are all Team Issy.