ridiculous fact that nothing scared me—except, apparently, stages at banquets.
I stared straight at the podium as they started calling up the honorees—fully dreading the moment when I’d hear my name.
I was wearing pumps, of all things, with my dress uniform, and I was having a few issues with balance. I was not exactly a person who loved the spotlight. Plus, I’d have to speak. We’d been given two minutes each to say our thanks at the microphone, and two minutes seemed impossibly short and impossibly long at the same time.
I had conscientiously typed out a paragraph I figured I could read out loud. How hard was reading, after all? Though as I watched the other honorees come up and read their prepared remarks, I started to think it must be harder than I remembered. They stumbled, mumbled, lost their place, and tripped on simple words over and over. I found myself wishing I’d practiced in advance.
Because I was the youngest-ever honoree for my award, and a female, of all things, and because this was the most prestigious award the department gave, and because the School Bus Angel was all over the news, they’d saved my award for last. I was the grand finale of the night. The mayor himself was going to come out, hand me the award, and bask with me in the glory.
I counted down as all the others walked up and then back to their places, my chest feeling tighter and tighter with nervousness.
Finally, it was my turn. Almost done. I just had to get through the next five minutes, and I could go home to my plants and my smooth sheets and my quiet, locked apartment.
“Folks, we’ve saved the best for last,” the emcee said, as the guys from my shift all started whooping and drumming on the table. “Our final honoree is the top of the top, and to present this last award, we’ve got a very special treat. A VIP is joining us tonight. We had hoped to have the mayor with us, but even though he got called away at the last minute on city business, never fear! We’ve got the next best thing! It’s now my pleasure to cede the podium to Austin’s very own homegrown city councilman—”
The emcee turned to gesture toward the side of the stage, and in that second’s pause, I heard myself say, “Oh, shit.”
Not the mayor.
This was bad.
Because I just knew—somehow—the name he was about to say next. I felt it coming.
And I was right.
“Heath Thompson!” the emcee called then, in a loud Price Is Right announcer’s voice as if some lucky audience member had just won a new washer-dryer.
And then it was like everything downshifted into slo-mo. The sounds of the words got deep and syrupy, and the clapping started to sound like five hundred people beating on snare drums, and I watched in disbelief as the guy himself, Heath fucking Thompson, walked out from stage left to join the emcee there.
Actually, strutted was more like it.
I’d know that strut anywhere: The utterly infuriating gait of a man who fully believed the world would always let him have anything and everything he ever wanted—and had never once been told any different.
Should I have seen it coming? Should I have known better than to dare to want something for myself? Should I have assumed from the start that life would find a way to ruin this moment?
Because I didn’t. I hadn’t. I was so gobsmacked to see Heath Thompson step onto that stage that I forgot to breathe. Entirely. Until Hernandez saw me frozen there and slapped me on the back.
Then, everything I knew blurred into one tiny pinprick of comprehension: At the proudest moment of my entire life, one that was supposed to honor everything I had worked so hard to achieve and become, I was going to have to receive my award from Heath Thompson.
Heath. Thompson.
The only person in the world who could ruin it.
Two
AS HE TOOK the stage—commanded it, really—the roar of the crowd mutated in my head into a howly, wind-on-the-moors sound that drowned everything else out.
The change in sound was so real, I wondered at first if something had gone wonky with the sound system. I looked around, but nobody else looked disturbed. Nobody else looked like something crazy—something impossibly insane—was happening before their eyes.
Everybody else was fine.
That’s when I decided it had to be a nightmare. There was no way this moment was actually happening. As I embraced that idea, the