One of the coaches tapped the microphone and asked, “Is this thing on?” It was definitely on.
Sasha, who must’ve been a tennis player or a swimmer or on some sort of spring team, walked across the stage to the coach holding the microphone. She said something too quiet for all of us to hear.
“Nobody told me about that,” the coach responded back, loud and clear in the mic.
She said something else.
“A poetry contest?”
She leaned into the mic so that she could be heard, too. “This school isn’t entirely about sports, right? We were supposed to announce the winner of the poetry contest.”
“What is she talking about?” Isabel asked.
I shrugged. “No idea. Maybe she’s the president of a poetry club.” Though I couldn’t quite see that.
“That’s not on the agenda,” the coach said. “Please take a seat, Sasha.”
“Coach Davis,” Sasha replied, her voice louder now. “I wouldn’t want a social media blowup about how Morris High only cares about their sports teams.”
The coach looked around as if expecting someone to jump to his rescue. When nobody did, he handed the microphone to Sasha. “Make it quick.”
She put on a wide smile and faced the gym. “Hello, Morris High!”
This brought a loud cheer.
“As many of you know, if you read the school paper, we held a poetry contest this first semester. I’m here to read the winning entry to you. You are all going to love this.” That’s when she took off her backpack that I hadn’t noticed before and pulled out my notebook. I recognized it from across the gym—the two-tone purple and green with my black doodles penned all over it.
My stomach fell in horror.
Noooo.
Isabel gasped. She obviously recognized my notebook, too.
“This poem was written by junior Lily Abbott, dedicated to Cade Jennings.”
It seemed like the whole room let out a collective “Aww.”
“What are you going to do?” Isabel asked.
I was frozen, half ready to jump up and tackle Sasha, half ready to run out of the gym. My eyes darted to Cade. He had a confused smile on.
“I know,” Sasha continued, “Cute, right? Well, what many of you don’t know is that Cade’s dad left him and his family several years back. A tragedy really. And Lily wrote an amazing poem about it.”
This was a nightmare.
I hadn’t written Cade’s name on any of the pages but the one she’d already read in detention. She was assuming this song was about Cade. Assuming because of the other lyrics. Assuming because of all the notes I’d written in the margins. She was assuming because she wanted to hurt me … and probably him.
I shook my head at Cade and mouthed the words stop her. He was much closer to Sasha than I was. He was on the stage with her. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Sasha in horror. He seemed to be as frozen as I was. I couldn’t let this happen.
I stood and began working my way down the bleachers—through students and over backpacks. But Sasha was already reading my lyrics to “Left Behind” out loud. Cade’s very private life was now echoing through the suddenly completely silent gym.
By the time I was on the floor and heading toward the stage, she was reading the last two lines. My words were echoing through a gym full of people. People, I noticed, who seemed captivated by them. I stopped as Sasha finished. Now I stood in the middle of the basketball court alone, on the eye of our school mascot painted there—a bull.
“And there she is,” Sasha said, in the sweetest voice. “Everyone give her a hand. Come on up and accept your award, Lily.”
I did go up, because I wanted my notebook back, and I wanted to pull Cade out of there and explain everything. But it didn’t happen that way. When I’d climbed the five steps to the stage to the loud applause, Cade was gone.
“You are cruel,” I said to Sasha under my breath. I yanked my notebook out of her hands. “He didn’t deserve that.”
She smiled, pulled me into a hug and whispered. “You both did.”
She wanted me to react. Wanted me to punch her or shove her and have the whole school witness that I was a jerk who treated her poorly after she’d just showered me with praise. Plus, if I acted like this was a big deal, it would turn into a big deal. People would think she’d just exposed something about Cade that she shouldn’t have. I wouldn’t do that to him. So I smiled, said a wobbly “thank you” into the microphone, then walked as quickly as possible off the stage and outside where I searched in vain for Cade.
Over the next thirty minutes I sent him what felt like a hundred texts that all went something like: