Chapter Thirty-Five. Reid
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
REID
@haikuforyou
They have never seen
the other side of the moon
But I have in you
I RETURN TO THE Lodge banquet room with a hollow feeling in my chest. Sure, now when anyone looks at me, all they see is a failure. A liar.
I can’t catch my breath.
Clara beelines to the AV area, where she and Logan quickly hook her laptop up to the projector.
Principal West is giving his annual “For the pride of Woodhurst High” speech, and I barely hear it. Not until he says, “Without further ado, it’s time to watch the new video celebrating the Legacy Program’s twentieth year and all our special alumni.”
This whole thing feels like a warped mirror of what happened last year. Everyone—the Legacy committee, half the town, our families—all here to see her work. But the difference is Clara hovers beside the AV table, guarding it with her life. No surprises tonight.
Well, except our own.
She’s leaning against the wall, emerald eyes already fixed on me. I can see the nerves in the way her fingers twist.
The lights in the Lodge dim, and the conversation quiets to murmurs before stopping entirely as the doc begins.
The scene opens the same way it did last year.
With Delaney twirling and stopping, twirling and stopping.
With close-ups of her pinching her body, holding her head in her palms in frustration.
Then it cuts to Delaney a few days ago, looking drawn in comparison, sitting in what looks like her bedroom.
Delaney’s smile is timid. “I’m Delaney Whitlock, and I’m a dance Legacy.”
It’s a similar opener for everyone. All of us who are supposed to be remarkable but have done nothing but lie and betray each other for this program.
Amaya’s voice cracking through pneumonia last year, and her sitting down on the stage for her interview this year, her under-eye circles darker. Josh (his complexion ruddier), Nicole (unsmiling). After their introductions and explanations of what it is to be a Legacy, it cuts to me.
“Hi, I’m Reid Rousseau, cross-country Legacy.”
Off-camera Clara’s voice: “And state champion.”
“Oh, yeah, that,” on-screen me says with a shrug. The crowd around us laughs.
But I can’t tell if they’re laughing with me or at me. Sweat forms on my hairline, and I can’t get comfortable in this chair.
Only after my opening scene from last year where I’m repeating drills and say “It’s about what you do when you’re tired,” instead of cutting to rock music like it did, it fades to a shot of me right after the Fun Run yesterday.
My voice filters as a voice-over. “The whole town is rooting for you when you’re a Legacy. To have that kind of support at your back means something.” It plays over a slow-motion shot of the cheering crowds and kids wearing Future Legacy shirts.
“I don’t want to let anyone down.”
Then a focused shot of my bleached knuckles gripping my knee.
Anxiety funnels through me faster, and I dart my eyes around. Anyone who’s seen the post would know what this means. That Clara chose to show the very thing I’ve tried to hide all weekend.
It transitions into a montage of me talking to people all weekend—smiling, laughing, nodding, and listening.
Kids, parents, my teammates. Before intercutting it with another shot of me leaning against a pillar in a stolen moment before the Shakespeare show where my head is leaned back, my eyes closed, trying to calm my racing pulse.
It’s totally exposing.
The entire doc is like this. Not just of me, but everyone. The way Josh mocked and messed with me last year, then spliced with a distant shot of Principal West lecturing him this year. The way his face fell after as West walked off. Only then to turn to a sneer during his interviews.
Questioning the value of the program the entire time. The impact it’s had. The narrower her attention on each of us gets, the clearer it becomes that the program has infused the school and town culture with something darker than anyone wants to admit.
Punctuated by my interview: “It just seems like it rewards peaking in high school.”
My heart is beating out of my chest at the shot of my face, the barely hidden pain there as I grimace and limp when I think no one else is looking.
“To expect us to have everything already figured out by the time we graduate high school seems…”
“Unfair,” she finishes off camera.
I nod. “Yeah. Really unfair.”
Then it shifts to covering Clara’s disqualification, summarizing it from interviews. Making the point of just how desperate this program makes people. My hands ball into fists when I look over at Logan, whose face is totally impassive as he watches.
I’m pretty disgusted when Nicole says, “Legacy is competitive. You have to be willing to endure whatever comes at you. No one is entitled to it.”
Josh’s response follows. “When everyone started talking about you, it took the heat off me, okay? I was under a lot of pressure last year with Legacy and running and securing valedictorian—I just needed one thing to go right.”
That selfish asshole. I glare at the back of his head and even with the lights low, I can see his ears are bright red.
Clara asks if he knows how she could have been sabotaged. When he says he doesn’t know, off camera she asks, “Your dad never got any leads?”
Josh scoffs. “You’re smarter than that, Clare-bear. He never even looked into it.”
A collective gasp travels around the crowd.
The story expands to include interviews with older alumni, and former Legacies, some who used the program to launch their lives and others who felt held back by it and the expectations of the town.
But it doesn’t stay on that point too long, either.
It includes moments of camaraderie and bonding that Legacies experience.
The way it motivates some of us and brings the town together every year.
She includes Principal West’s perspective, and as he sticks to the same motivating messages he’s always used, it seems more unhinged as it contrasts with all of our actual experiences.
It’s a more complete picture than the one I saw last year. But it’s just as revealing. Highlighting how grueling and competitive the program is, while also not taking away how positive it can be, too.
The doc comes to a close with a song playing over a series of silent shots of each of us from the weekend. Clara asks off camera, “Was it worth it?”
There’s a quick flash to each interviewee’s answer. Josh rears back a little, surprised by the question. “Of course.”
Delaney goes still and thoughtful. “I don’t think so.”
Amaya laughs. “I have no idea.”
Nicole nods once. “Absolutely.”
Finally, it ends with a shot of me looking out over the horizon at the overlook. The exhaustion and stress on my face this year compared to last is stark. Haunting. My voice filters over it with the last line from my interview, “Too soon to tell.”
It fades, and I can hardly breathe. Because now I know what I have to do.