Chapter 5
JAHNVI
F or the four years that I’d been on the speech team, it had been everything to me. Sure, maybe it didn’t start that way when I was a freshman and I got consistent last places. But thankfully, I was persistent, because one day I did get very good, and it was rewarding to say the least.
It became my life.
It took me a while to figure out why. But one day, in the middle of a performance, it hit me.
I was performing in my first ever final round, so the room was packed with people watching.
Just when I had taken a dramatic gasp before the big finish, I took a look around and noticed something.
People were actually looking at me. Instead of the way people usually zone out during presentations and speeches, people were actually paying attention to me during my performance.
And when I finished, people erupted in applause.
That’s when I knew: This was exactly what I wanted to do.
I wanted to make people feel the emotions I was feeling. The happiness, the sorrow, the grief, the pain, whatever it was. I wanted them to forget their life for a second and escape to wherever I wanted to bring them.
Speech was my life because acting was what I was meant to do.
And unfortunately, speech was the only place I could do it.
Now, you could ask, “Well, Jahnvi, what do you mean? Major in acting, or maybe minor in it at college. Hell, join a little fun acting group that performs weekends at a little musty theater. Why are you limiting yourself like this?”
And I’d respond with a “You want me to go waltzing around a stage with my immigrant parents slaving away at the restaurant, busting their asses to get by? Are you insane?”
I didn’t have time to fool around. Everett and people may have thought I was stuck up and no fun, but it didn’t matter.
Plus, wasn’t as gifted as Everett. I wasn’t as naturally smart as that boy was.
He could pull an A in AP Calc without studying, but I’m not like that.
If I didn’t study, I wouldn’t pass that class.
So, there you have it .
I woke up, studied, went to school, worked at the restaurant, studied, and slept. I had a close group of friends that I didn’t particularly like, but it was too late to get new ones. I didn’t have a particular interest in any of the classes I was doing, or anything else, really.
So, speech was my escape. My chance to do something fun. Something for me . Plus, it looked good on college applications.
It was a shame that it would be over this year, and I would have to succumb to four years of college in a field that no one likes: Business.
I was going to get pruned for a life in a cubicle—how exciting!
Making the fat cats of some multi-billion-dollar industry even richer? The most riveting thing on the planet!
Certainly beats performing on a stage and creating actual art .
And that’s why it pissed me off slightly when people didn’t take speech seriously.
“Oh please, you’re talking about it like I’m an NFL player who just called an audible and dropped the ball! Do you even have a life?” The little blond freshman rolled his eyes at me.
I blinked, confused. Why is he talking about balls?
“Listen, Mason,” I looked around the grimy high school cafeteria to make sure no one important was watching before I stepped closer and got in the freshman’s face, “I don’t care if you’re only on the team because your rich mommy forced you here, but you can’t be skipping rounds to go vape in the bathroom. It makes all of us look bad.”
“You’re not the fucking boss of me—”
I grabbed his shoulder, shutting him up.
“Mason... I’m going to kill you with a plastic cafeteria knife and bury you in the playground.
If I’m banned from going to these tournaments, my friends will force me to go shopping on Saturdays, and I despise the mall, so you’re gonna either muster up some courage and tell your mom that this isn’t for you or go to your assigned damn rounds , okay?
” I let him go and cheerfully smiled as our speech coach rounded the corner and came into view.
“Great that we resolved the conflict! Now, you head on to wherever you’re supposed to be. ”
The kid, Mason, was silent. Probably scared of the look in my eye, but it seemed to work, and he hastily walked away from me.
“He looks like he’s gonna pee his pants before he gets to his room.” Rose was sitting next to me and smiling as she filed her nails.
“I sure hope not,” I muttered. “Or else I’ll have to give him a talk about looking presentable too.”
“Right, talk . Would you threaten to rip out his larynx this time?”
I frowned. “What the fuck is a larynx?”
“Your throat.” She paused her filing. “I think.”
Rose wanted to be a doctor, so she pulled up all sorts of fun little body parts no one had heard of before in conversation.
She was also one of the only people that I could stand, so she was my constant companion on Saturdays.
But she went to the private school down the street, so I didn’t see her much during the week.
Rose didn’t expect too much, was laid back, and was low maintenance. She was one of those people that you could have an easy conversation with, or comfortable silence if that’s what the day called for.
“No, yeah, the larynx is like the throat,” Rose confirmed after googling it.
“I don’t think I can pull out a throat. Where would you even grip to...” I reached my hand out, miming holding a throat. But before Rose could google it again, we heard a voice.
“I would never do that, and frankly, I’m upset you would even accuse me like that!”
Now, there’s only one person I know who would use “frankly” in a normal sentence. Before I could act, Rose had gotten up and smoothed down her magenta skirt suit.
“Everett?” she mouthed, pointing toward the noise.
“Yup, how much time do you have?” I whispered back. And when she frowned confusedly, I sighed and pointed at the clock behind her.
“Oh! I have like thirty minutes before the next round. You?”
“Fifteen.”
But she had already started walking toward Everett’s voice. Knowing her, my availability to come eavesdrop with her wouldn’t have changed a thing. She hates Everett just as much as I do, if not more. Granted, it’s for a different reason.
They used to date a few years ago.
I’d noticed her staring at him when he walked down the hallways and immediately warned her against it. But who was I to talk about Everett and his character? It wasn’t like I had pretty much known him since I was born or anything—oh wait, I had!
He’d flaked the second she wanted him to meet her parents.
She never told me the whole story, but it went something along the lines of him letting her know that she was moving too far, too fast.
They’d been dating for about a year and a half.
And Rose was...sensitive about this stuff.
When she was younger, there had been rumors about her going through guys too quickly.
Slut-shaming was harsh, and the fact that he had made it seem like she was crazy for thinking they could ever move to the next level was what had done it for her.
I was there; she had cried for days , and we went through many a milkshake at the ice cream shop that sits in between her school and mine. Vanilla for me and strawberry for her.
Everett was still working the restaurant like always; nothing had seemed to change for him.
But something had changed for me, that’s for sure.
A fun little rivalry had turned into something so much more like actual hatred and disgust. He was never the nicest; I’d always known that.
But I was under the assumption that he would never intentionally hurt a girl like that. And a girl as sweet as Rose?
How dare he?
So at that moment, neither Rose nor I had any moral quandaries about tiptoeing to go eavesdrop on Everett’s conversation.