Chapter 19
The blood of your work is the blood of your future
*(Sarah Jennings, sophomore)*
Sarah leaned over to the girl next to her, eyes cutting toward the entrance doors, her voice dropping to a stage whisper.
"Oh. ahh Here comes his fat ass." She was already sliding sideways out of her row before she finished the sentence. "I'm a head out."
*(Layton Humbled, sophomore)*
Layton had been mid-cheer clocked the same arrival, and immediately lost all the energy in his face.
"Bro showed up just to kill all the hype." He muttered it to no one in particular "Bro, get me the fuck out of here."
The auditorium smelled like old wood polish, body heat, and someone's too-strong cologne fighting a losing battle against the collective sweat of 7000 students crammed into a dark room only being lit by the front stage
Principal Boneyard stepped back up to the podium.
He was tall, but he had a different way of filling space shoulders squared, one hand resting flat on the podium like he owned the surface beneath it. His other hand held the microphone loosely, the way someone holds a thing they've held a thousand times before. He let the noise in the room settle on its own, not rushing it, not shushing anyone. Just waiting. His eyes moved across the crowd with the patience of someone who had seen every version of this room and wasn't impressed by any of them up until now.
When the murmur dropped low enough, he spoke.
"Hey. Hey, everyone."
His voice came out warm and unhurried through the PA system, crackling slightly at the edges.
"This year's valedictorian was something else am I right?"
"Instead of the normal inspirational speech that y'all wouldn't have paid attention to and most likely would've forgotten by tomorrow morning she gave us something special.
Something meaningful.
Something close to home." Boneyard paused, the corner of his mouth pulling up. "I have to say I loved that creative liberty she took. That amazing song."
*(Rihanna Rowe, freshman)*
"didn't That chick just had a breakdown?."
"Anywho—"
Before Boneyard could continue, a sharp sound cut through the auditorium the slap of sneakers against the gymnasium floor.
Quinley was already halfway back up the stage steps.
The crowd turned. Chairs . Heads craned. Somebody near the front said *"again?"* under their breath, but not unkindly.
Quinley reached the podium in four strides and held her hand out toward Boneyard. Boneyard, without missing a beat, he smirked and passed her the mic.
Quinley's chest was still moving slightly faster than normal. Her eyes were red at the corners and slightly swollen, but her jaw was set.
She looked out at the crowd for one full second before she spoke.
*"Sorry one last thing. I got to say this to all of you."*
The auditorium went quiet in the particular way it does when a room full of people collectively decides to pay attention.
*"Thank you. Everyone. For your time and your patience and your support. I'm sorry if I inconvenienced any of you, or made you uncomfortable with my little breakdown up here."* Her voice caught once on the word *breakdown*, just barely, then steadied.
*"I was going through hell at that moment but that doesn't change the fact that none of you deserved me to throw myself onto you like that, and I apologize profusely."*
She swallowed. Her free hand found the edge of the podium and held it.
*"There's a reason for that."*
*"I have a friend named Zelina. She got kidnapped yesterday."*
*"If you've seen her, or if you have any information no matter how small please contact me. I'll be setting up posters with what she looks like and my contact information. Once again thank you all. For everything I will try to be the best valedictorian for all of you so if you need anything you can come to me."*
She held a graceful bow longer
Then handed the mic back to Boneyard and walked off, her footsteps quieter on the way down than they were on the way up.
Boneyard watched her go. A beat passed before he brought the mic back to his mouth,
"Haha. There she goes again." He shook his head slowly, something between amusement and genuine affection "I swear, What are we going to do with her that girl is just unresting. I hope every single one of you inherits a little bit of that. That unresting spirit. To do what needs to be done, even when your voice is shaking while you do it."
He stepped out from behind the podium. Not pacing just shifting his weight, closing the distance between himself and the edge of the stage
"Now. As she was saying there has been a kidnapping."
"Those of you who were raised in this area I'm probably not surprising you. This place has never been a safe one. Gangs. Poverty. Gunshots in the middle of the night so routine that some of You probably have a hard time sleeping without it." "An unfortunate regular occurrence."
His eyes moved across the rows without flinching away from anyone.
"Some of you standing before us may have partaken in those violent actions."
Nobody moved.
"I'm not here to judge you no no. I don't have that right." His voice didn't soften exactly, but it opened up. "You were doing what you were taught. What you learned. Your parents were probably taught the same thing taught by their parents by there with family on how to survive in a place exactly like this one. Y'all did what you had to do.
The problem is once you learn how to survive in these streets, it keeps you here. It leaves you stagnant."
He tapped two fingers against the side of his temple.
"School starts to feel pointless. Education starts to feel like it wasn't made for you.
only leads you to look around and think there is no future for me here. That the only future waiting for me is laying face down bleeding out on the cold concrete streets or standing watching the people I grew up with get put in the ground one by one."
the middle of the room. Nobody laughed commented or gave a snarky remark not even a gas escape these students lips.
"This environment" he exhaled slowly through his nose, " has a way of pulling the worst out of you. Of convincing you the worst is all there is."
He paused. Let it breathe.
But....
"Eleanor Academy wants to pull out the best."
His posture didn't change, but something in the room did like a pressure adjusting.
"We want to pick up the pieces where other institutions drop them. We want to give people like you people who struggled, who never been handed the opportunities given to someone who grew up somewhere safer, somewhere more prosperous, somewhere where the biggest thing to worry about was which AP class to take we want to give *you* the chance to show what you're actually made of. Not Yale. Not Princeton.
Those places weren't built for you.
They were built for the already-gifted,
the already-comfortable.
Not for the people who had to fight just to make it to a room like this one."
He looked out across the rows the tired faces, the skeptical ones, the ones trying hard not to seem like they were listening.
"We at Eleanor Academy believe everyone has greatness in them. Not as a slogan. Not as something to put on a banner." His jaw tightened slightly. "We believe it because we've seen it. In every person who walked through those doors not knowing what they were capable of and walked out knowing exactly that. No matter who they are. No matter where they came from. As long as they're willing to work hard to strive for it."
He turned his head slightly toward the wing of the stage where Quinley had disappeared.
"Like your valedictorian. Back when she was confused and scared she didn't give up. She didn't know what to do, but she still had that *force* in her. That unresting, relentless refusal to just buckle and yield to things she couldn't control."
He turned back.
"I hope you feel that. In your chest right now, behind whatever armor that you forged within yourself from the pain of telling yourself you can't be what you truly want to be.
I hope you feel it within your heart. In your mind. In your soul damn it That force that says I am not going to become a statistic.
I am not going to let myself be held up as an example of what not to be by people who never had to survive a single day of what I live."
His voice dropped lower, but the mic caught it clearly.
"To never let yourself fully believe, when you're standing at the bottom of the abyss looking up at all that light above you that you can't climb out of it. That you can't claw your way back into the light. and be reborn the light of the sweat and tears of the work you put in to claw yourself out."
He gripped the mic a little tighter.
"You are our future. You are this town's future. And you can make it great right here, or you can take your greatness elsewhere entirely the freedom is yours. That's new for a lot of you. That freedom. Don't waste it."
He stood there a moment longer than necessary, covering the mic and whispering to himself, "Gosh damn, I didn't think I had it in me to make a speech like that.
I feel like I'm young again… but this passion, this unrest this thing, this feeling pumping through my veins and I only have Quinley, girl, to thank for that, for reminding me that I still love my job. Now then let me in this off."
"Thank you all for coming. I hope you have an amazing, eventful time at Eleanor Academy."
He set the mic down on the podium rather than handing it off. The sound of it settling into place came through the speakers as a soft, final thud.
The auditorium exhaled.