Prologue
Three Months Ago
Early rounds at speech tournaments are my favorite, because there’s still so much promise in the air. No one has settled in yet, we’re all live wires hoping all our practice—the hours spent talking to walls—will pay off.
It’s also a time where nerves for my competitors are the highest. Time to step off the ledge, people. And that sort of bravery I have in spades.
I walk back to the random lunchroom at whatever high school Coach has carted us off to this weekend. The thrill of performing well only increases when I see Jack, as if he were that extra shot in my coffee. A few students huddle together, but most have gone off in search of their rooms, leaving behind piles of stuff—pillows, boxes of research, comfy clothes to wear between rounds.
Picking my way to our table, I find Jack bent over a comic. His suit jacket’s been laid across a backpack, tie lolling out of a pocket. He had the first extemp draw time, so of course he’s already been there and back.
“Hi,” I say, resting my chin on his head and my hands on his shoulders. It’s a comfort to come back to this. Jack, Brooke, and I have been on the speech team since our freshman year, and now as juniors we’re at the top of our game.
He reaches up for my left hand, grabs it, and pulls me down to sit next to him.
“How’d it go?” he asks as I slip into the seat. He gives my hand a squeeze, a simple sign to let me know he’s there and will look up after just one more page.
“Killed it,” I say with a smile. We were friends first long before we dated. I was so lost in our friendship that I missed the fact he’d asked me out, only to have Brooke sit me down and explain that no, Jack did not ask if I was going to the dance with the group of us, but with him.
He shuts the comic and turns to face me. His focus is what hits me first. Maybe it’s what makes him a great extemp speaker. How he can zero in on you and make you feel like the only person in the world. He doesn’t push but lures you in until you’re so drawn to him that it doesn’t matter what he says.
“Pity the others who will perform for a dead judge.”
I laugh. “They should learn to start earlier,” I say with a wicked grin. “How’d you do?”
Extemp speaking is an art unto itself: you draw a subject and get thirty minutes to prep a seven-minute speech. Jack loves the thrill of it, the never knowing what you’ll get and how you can speak to it.
And he always figures it out, even if he has no idea about the topic. It’s the reason he’s state champion two years running and has gone to nationals since he was a freshman. There is no question that Jack cannot find an answer to and speak like an expert on for seven minutes.
“They couldn’t have given me something easier.” He talks me through his speech, the pieces that he pulled, and I just relax. I pull on a hoodie over my dress top and put in some earbuds to listen to music as Jack goes back to his comic. He’s there holding my hand, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
My phone pings and my stomach drops as I see a notification about Mom’s blog. She’s written a new post. I close out of the screen as fast as possible, afraid Jack might have seen it. The last thing I need is for any of my friends to put their research skills to the test and find out just how much of my life is on the internet.
Policy debaters start trickling in, carting tubs and cases of research. Jack gives me a poke and I look up. He holds out the comic.
“You should read this,” he says.
I look at it dubiously. “Have you even tried watching BSG yet?” It’s one point of contention, that I will enjoy my boyfriend’s preferred media but he doesn’t always reciprocate.
Brooke sets a tub full of perfectly filed research on the table. She pulls out a yellow legal pad from under her arm and chucks it on the table. The flow of her debate round is all over it. Circles where someone dropped a counterplan, stars where she knows the information to pull, and notes from her partner.
Gwen
Copyright © 2024 by Gretchen Schreiber
