The Inside of Out (24 page)

Hannah.

I cleared my throat before I answered, glancing behind me. “Hey, what's up?”

“Were you just at the shop?”

“What?” I laughed. “No! I would have come in, if I'd . . . um.”

There was silence. I closed my eyes, cheeks flaming.

“Nat thought she saw you peeking through the window,” she said, her voice flat. “Must have been somebody else.”

“I
am
downtown, just not on your block.” That made
absolutely no sense as an explanation, but I still dashed across the street and around a corner to make the lie true. “I'm working on this . . . speech. Thing.”

“For the rally?”

I stopped walking. “You know about that?”

“Yeah! We're coming.”

“Oh wow.” I backed into a doorway to avoid a sudden onslaught of lost tourists. “
Hannah
. That means a lot to—”

“Ah, I've got a customer, but we'll see you later.”

“Yeah! See—”

She hung up.

They're coming to the rally,
I thought.
She
and
Natalie.
That had to mean something. If not forgiveness, at least a nod to it, right?

My heart started to race.
Rally. Focus. Everything is whatever.

With the time I had left, I settled onto a bench outside a gated cemetery, swatting bugs, watching horse-drawn carriages clip-clop by, rereading my speech so frantically that basic words no longer made sense.

Am I pronouncing it right? Stoo-dent? That's really how you say it?

A text came in from Adam:
“Ready to rally? Need a pre-rally rally?”

“No and YES,”
I texted back.
“HELP ME!!!!!!”

Mom must have sensed that I was on the precipice of a breakdown, because she refrained from making any knowing comments about the young reporter she'd caught me
with when she'd come to pick me up, our heads bowed over Adam's notepad as he reworked Cal's speech into something I could say without putting on a fake British accent.

Such was her self-control, in fact, that she did no more than wave from the driver's seat as I stood shakily from the bench.

“What do you think?” I asked Adam.

“It reads well,” he offered.

“But the last part.” I scratched it with my thumbnail, uneasy.

“Yeah.” He kicked a twig. Looked up. “I can't answer that for you. On the one hand, it's what you agreed to do. On the other . . .”

He shrugged. I groaned, nodded. He was right. It was my impossible decision to make.

“Okay,” I said. “See you there.”

Four hours later, on the way to the rally, I was still trying to memorize my speech. The beginning was easy. The middle got murky. And the end . . . I still hadn't decided about the end.

“Will
Adam
be there tonight?” Mom asked.

“Yes. He's a reporter. He's reporting on it.”

“Okay!”

I pretended not to see her wink.

The car radio started playing Kudzu Giants, and I turned it up. Adam didn't like this band. What kind of music did he listen to, if not Kudzu Giants? Classical? Polka? Oh God . . . jazz?

We rounded the corner to the town square and thoughts of
music fled my head. There was a roadblock ahead, police officers waving cars away. I knew we were expecting big crowds, but this seemed like overkill.

Mom turned the car around, muttering to herself about where she was going to park. I set my speech aside and tried to relax.

The radio went to a commercial break, so I changed the channel to an oldies station, Diana Ross singing:

“I'm coming out! I want the world to know. Got to let it show.”

Mom parked the car. And looked at me. And we both burst out laughing.

“Come on,” she said, grabbing a homemade placard from the backseat. “Time to rally.”

The square was a crush of color, rainbow flags everywhere, on banners, shirts, crazy hats, beaded necklaces, a large piñata that I was guessing was supposed to be a pirate. The huge, cheering crowd was as brightly dressed as the signs they carried. But it wasn't their clothes that caught my attention. It was their hair.

All through the crowd, I caught glimpses of ponytails, bobs, braids, wigs—with the bottom few inches painted pink, green, purple, neon yellow, and more than any of those, my exact shade of cornflower blue. There were probably three hundred people here, and a third of them had dyed their hair to look like mine.

Entranced by the sight, and me being me, I almost walked smack into the drabbest person in the square—a large man in a black suit, with one giant hand pressed to his ear. For some reason, he was trying to block my way to the roped-off area beside the stage.

“Only authorized speakers past this point,” he told me, his voice so authoritative that I nearly squeaked “okay” and scampered home. But then I felt Mom's hand on my back.

“This is Daisy Beaumont-Smith,” she said, her chin craned imperiously. “And I'm her mother.”

After a tense moment, the big man gave a nod. “You're cleared. You too, ma'am. Enjoy the rally.”

It wasn't until we were a few feet out of earshot that I dared whisper to Mom, “
What
in the what?”

“Secret. Service,” she whispered back, and before I could figure out why in the world the White House would send us a security team as a gift, Kyle hopped into our path, tugging an older girl after him.

“Daisy! Before you go up, I wanted you to meet Lily?”

Kyle's sister shook my hand, then pulled me in for a stealth hug.

“Oh!” I said. “Hi!”

“Kyle's told me so much about you. Thank you . . . for everything.” I could tell from Lily's eyes that she'd heard about the attack. And somehow, she didn't seem to blame me. She leaned in to murmur, “I was a little worried about him starting high school without me there. It's nice to know he's got a friend like you looking out for him.”

The word “friend” hit me like sunshine. I was still basking in it when a blond boy walked up behind Lily with such a familiar face that I suddenly suspected none of this was happening.

“I think I'm on,” the boy said, glancing behind him. “Daisy Beaumont-Smith, right? Can't wait to hear your speech. See you up there!”

He waved and jogged away, stopping on the stage's steps to kiss a tiny brunette I assumed was his girlfriend. But who cared about her?

“Is that
Andy Lawrence
?” I asked. “The president's kid?”

“I think he prefers ‘First Son,'” Kyle said.

“Oh.” I frowned. “Wow.”

“He prefers ‘Andy,' actually.” Lily laughed and grabbed her brother's hand, pulling him away to watch from the square. “Break a leg, Daisy!”

“I will!” I shouted back. “I mean, I won't, hopefully, but thanks!”

“Smooth,”
someone said in my ear.

Grinning, I whirled around to punch Adam in the arm.

“Ow!” He cradled his elbow.

“Sorry. Sometimes I underestimate my own strength.”

“This is what I keep trying to tell you.”

I could make out a corner of the crowd over his shoulder. No familiar faces yet. Where were the Palmetto students?

Where was Hannah?

“So what did you decide?” Adam was peering at me with a strange expression.

“Um . . .”
Is that her?
I could have sworn I saw a black cropped hairdo next to a flash of bright red hair moving deeper into the crowd, but then in the next blink, I saw that they were both six feet tall and male.

Adam's hand grazed my back, startling me into blinking up at him.

“Either way, you've got this. Nobody's gonna judge you. Well—I won't.” He winced. “This is not the pep talk I'd planned in my head.”

I nodded, my eyes returning to the crowd. In my prep, I'd learned that the best way to give a speech was to imagine that you were speaking to one person in the audience. That
would be easy, if I could just find Hannah. She had to be here. And if I saw her, I'd know what to do.

The crowd was igniting as the president's son—sorry,
Andy
—took the stage.

“I'm so happy to be here to fight for . . .” Andy had started to yell into the microphone, only to be drowned out by a surprising amount of screaming hetero girls. He chuckled and started again, but his voice warped and faded as I stared down at my speech, the shouts, laughter, applause of the rally hitting me in relentless waves, the ocean crashing against a boat's hull.

As a matter of fact, I felt like I was bobbing. Up and down, up and down.

“Interview after the rally?” Adam grinned. I couldn't focus on his face.

These people—they were thrilled to see celebrities up there, but they were really here to see me, weren't they? They thought I was just like them.

But I wasn't. I wasn't like anybody.

Andy Lawrence was blasting from the loudspeakers again.

“. . . And so it's my pleasure to introduce the girl who stood on a chair to make sure that her voice was heard and that her rights—
your
rights—were not ignored. Daisy Beaumont-Smith!”

The noise rushed in with a crack. My imaginary boat hull had just smashed into splinters, and here I was, climbing to the stage, dimly noting Adam shooting me a thumbs-up and the First Son patting my shoulder to lead me to the microphone. And now I was standing staring at a mob of
upturned faces that all seemed to expect something from me.

The banners in the crowd started to sink. The cheers became mutters.

And then, there she was—my best friend, rustling her hair, peering up at me, twirling one of the little rainbow flags that the Alliance was distributing throughout the crowd. Natalie was next to her, wearing a Braves cap so low I could hardly see her face.

Don't do it,
I thought.
That's the answer.
Then,
Shut up, I have to. It's way too late for edits!

“I have a confession to make.” My voice erupted from the speakers and I almost didn't recognize it. It was so loud. So confident. The banners bobbed happily back into rally position.

I could say it. The truth. Right now.

And everyone would hate me.

I grinned. “It's a lot harder to give a speech when you're not standing on a chair!”

The crowd laughed so loud that it sent me staggering back from the microphone. I grabbed it closer.

“But since you all made the effort to turn up here and rally for America's Homecoming, I'll give it my best shot.”

I stared down at my speech, drew a breath, and prepared to lie.

“As a gay teenager, it's not always easy to live in a conservative community.”

“Hell no,” somebody shouted.

“You grow up going along. Playing nice. Upholding ‘traditional' values. You hold hands for grace at dinner. Say ‘ma'am'
and ‘sir' when talking to adults. And you hold on to your secret with every ounce of energy you have. Until one day, there's no denying it. You can't lie anymore. You can't live a life that's been designed for someone who is not you. And in that moment, you're free.”

I spoke right to Hannah, whose brow was furrowed, her expression otherwise opaque. Was she moved? Angry?

“Except you're
not
free,” I went on. “Because in a place like this, everyone will fight to keep you traditional. To keep you quiet. Or alienate you to the point that you just give up and leave. Even after the Supreme Court guarantees your right to marry whomever you choose.
Especially
after that. They've doubled down, wherever they can. At the local level. The small-business level. The
school board
level.”

The crowd grumbled in agreement.

“But look around. We're not leaving. We exist. This is our home, this is
our
school. And we deserve to be heard!”

The wall of faces seemed to pulse with one heartbeat as they cheered.

“And you know what? We're not alone. I've been blown away by the support this community has shown to our cause in the past few weeks. They've stood up alongside us and said, ‘No. Hate does not represent us. Intolerance does not represent us. We are Charleston in the twenty-first century, and we are proud that you are proud.'”

The crowd roared their approval once again. So this was why Cal had written “applause break” under every paragraph.

Here went nothing.

“And so I stand up here today, just as I stood in front of the
Palmetto School Board, to say that I am proud to be a gay American and I am ready to live in a world of acceptance and love. I'm ready to dance with my girlfriend at homecoming. And next weekend, I will!”

Huge applause line. It was a good thing I hadn't changed it. I glanced at Hannah, desperate to see her reaction to that last, biggest, baldest lie—but it wasn't her face that froze my next breath.

Natalie Beck had started to cry.

“The . . .” My voice faltered. She was staring right up at me, one hand splayed against her mouth as if shoving a shout back in. I cleared my throat, dragged my eyes away. “The actions we take next weekend will pave the way for future generations of gay students, who won't have to fight, won't have to rally. All they'll have to worry about is whether their tux should be the same color as their date's or if that's too matchy.”

Cal had written “pause for laughter.” He was right.

“They will have the traditional high school experience—minus the hate. That's what we're here to fight for, and that's what we're going to get. So thank you for joining us and we'll see you at homecoming!”

I managed to get off the stage, knees wobbling, barely registering Adam's hand guiding me down the steps.

“Steady there,” he said. “Got sea legs, Dread Pirate Daisy?”

I stared past him into the crowd.

Adam coughed. “Dumb joke. You were great, really.”

“Thank . . . you.” I nudged him to the side. “Sorry, I just need a sec.”

I saw hurt flash across his face as I pushed out of the barricade and into the audience, but I couldn't double back, not without checking on Hannah first.

Sean walked backward into my path, whispering, “I
told
you you could do it!”

Jack ran up, iPhone outstretched. “I shot it for Cal. He already texted back.”

The phone said,
“Nice tweaks! Impressive speech—talk more Monday.”

“It was Adam,” I muttered. “Adam wrote the speech.”

“What?” he shouted.

“I didn't do anything.”

The crowd was pressing in, people patting me on the back, congratulating me, saying they'd be at homecoming. I couldn't focus, I couldn't see . . . there she was.

Hannah. Standing on the edge of the square under a flagpole that someone had draped with their own beaded banner.

“Hang on,” I said to Sean and Jack, continuing deeper into the rally.

“You sure you wanna . . . ?” Jack's voice was drowned out behind me.

“Daisy? Daisy!”

Somebody else was calling. For a confused second, I thought it was Adam, but the accent was wrong. Another reporter, then. This was a bad time for an interview. Hannah was slumped, blinking into her rainbow flag, her face crumpling, her whole body shrinking. Something had happened. Something worse than my speech.

I needed to get to her.

“Daisy!” came that voice again, and this time, I recognized it.

QB ran out ahead of me. “I'm here! I came to support!”

“That's awesome, Chris, thank you!”

I tried to see past him, but the football friends he'd brought along were forming a wall of shoulders. When they shifted their weight, the spot where I'd seen Hannah was now filled with two girls in their twenties with long braids dipped green. It took me a few seconds to find her again, in front of a line of boys hoisting a long banner that said “LOVE IS LOVE” in Pirates colors.

Hannah grabbed for someone's hand but missed. A red ponytail whipped around. Natalie. They were arguing.

QB rocked onto his heels. “I thought maybe . . .” His voice died out, his eyes trailing mine over his shoulder. “She's here.
Natalie's
here.”

“Daisy!” This time it was definitely reporters. “Can we get a shot?”

“Just a sec, if you don't mind!” I tried to smile apologetically, and they took that opportunity to snap a picture. Encouraged, more photographers gathered.

“Do you think she's seen me?” QB was muttering, swiping sweat from his top lip. “Oh man.”

And then Natalie was backing away from Hannah, shaking her head, shuddering upright, heading straight for us. The crowd parted for her like it always did, total strangers sensing instinctively that this redhead was not someone you got in the way of.

Now Hannah was crying too.

I stepped forward, prepared to stop Natalie. She could mock me, betray me, but if she thought she could publicly humiliate my best friend and walk away, she was dead wrong.

“Nat,” QB muttered, and just as I was reeling from the longing in his voice, the loss, I felt him grab my wrist so quickly that my ankle turned and sent me tumbling into his open arms.

I blinked. He was leaning over me. Why was he leaning over me?

He winced. Glanced at Natalie. Mouthed “Sorry.” And pressed his lips to mine.

QB Saunders was kissing me.

And approximately one million cameras started to flash.