I didn’t fail. Not sure I triumphed, but it was close enough. The finals room was packed to the gills, and I even recognized a few other members of the team in the audience—they were coming to see me. I got up there, I did my thing, and I nailed it.
You don’t find out the results right away. They hold those announcements until the final moment of the meet, where they hand out trophies the size of small European countries. But following my performance I felt lighter, like I was being filled up with helium. All the pressure and stress of the day evaporated—I needed a shower.
Sparks caught me in the hallway afterward.
“I saw something in you today,” he said. It felt like a ray of sunshine.
Don’t fall for it, Sydney. You know what this guy is. I pictured him cornering Elijah in the hallway.
“You’re gonna need to work on your transitions—your intro needs rewriting, and I want you to explore a more emphatic ending, but otherwise… impressive.” His face cracked into a smile. “You’re not gonna win this one, but you might win another one. Are you ready to join the big time?”
“I was born ready,” I said, not able to stop my mouth from making the stupid comment.
“All right, then.” His eyes bored into me. “I don’t this do for just anyone, and you’re the first person in a long time to get this on their first meet, so…” He stuck out a hand. “Welcome to varsity.”
I was still floating when Lakshmi found me moments later. “We have just enough time to catch the original oratory final.”
“Why are we doing that?” I hissed.
“Recon. Andrew Chen made it to finals.”
“Right.”
By this time of the day, I had basically memorized the layout of Brooklyn Park High School, so we barely needed to race to find the band hall. The place was already packed, mostly with Eaganville students, some of whom had painted their faces purple and gold like they were at a basketball game. Three bare-chested Eaganville boys were completely purple and sat in the front row, quivering with anticipation.
Lakshmi and I found a spot in the back of the hall and settled in. A few of the Eaganville students turned around to look—a girl waved. A boy caught my eye and smiled at me. A tall Asian girl swooped over to shake my hand.
“You were so awesome,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“Yes, she was,” said Lakshmi.
“It was so inspiring the way you overcame your heroin addiction.”
“Yes, it was,” said Lakshmi.
“If I ever do heroin, I’m gonna do it like that.” She nervously pulled her black hair behind her ears. “I mean I know—you didn’t actually do heroin—but I believed it, you know? It was so real.” She leaned in close. “I would totally believe you were like a junkie.”
“Thanks.”
She rushed back to her spot, and I turned to Lakshmi. “What the hell.”
“You’re famous, boo. Enjoy it.” She pulled out her phone to text Thomas. About to see your boy Andrew perform.
Original oratory is a mixed bag. Whereas dramatic interp is basically who-can-make-the-audience-cry-about-your-terrible-terrible-pain, the OO finalists were all over the map. One girl did a piece about feminist language, another boy did a piece about robots. The girl right before Andrew did an amazing, tearful piece about being homeless when she was in elementary school. The Eaganville fans shifted uncomfortably. If there was anything that would win OO, it was deep personal pain attached to a pressing social issue. It was like a highway to victory.
“It wasn’t love at first sight,” he said. “And it wasn’t like how they show it in the movies, the swooning, the gazing into each other’s eyes, the little text messages in the middle of the night. Thomas was not what I was expecting when I fell in love.”
A shiver ran through me. He was using Thomas’s real name?
“Oh fuck this,” muttered Lakshmi under her breath.
Andrew kept going, smooth as silk. “And I certainly wasn’t expecting to star in a play that he wrote about us. And I certainly didn’t plan on that play being the worst thing ever written in the English language.”
The audience exploded in laughter. I gritted my teeth. Lakshmi squeezed my hand so hard it nearly crushed my bones. From there, Andrew launched into a hilarious and heartbreaking dismantling of Thomas, his playwriting ability, his grooming habits, his awkward texts, and his terrible family. It ended with a devastating scene where Andrew came out to his parents, who were furious with him for being gay and thought about sending him to conversion therapy. Everybody in the audience was crying.
I’m not going to lie—it was pretty great. Andrew was so slick and so smooth; when he turned into different characters, you believed it immediately. He slowed down in all the right spots so his bullshit lies about Thomas were devastatingly effective. I was impressed.
Thomas texted us later after Lakshmi recapped Andrew’s performance.
Are you fucking KIDDING ME?!
Okay, number 1: HE IS STRAIGHT.
Number 2: I’VE MET HIS PARENTS. They’re super chill.
They would have ZERO PROBLEM if he was gay.
Number 3: He quoted my play WRONG. I didn’t even write half that. I mean part of it was not good I admit but STILL.
Then came the series of gifs about dog explosions, nuclear war, and skeletons being incinerated.
Me
We’ll bring him down.
Thomas
We need to bring him down NOW.
Lakshmi
Fuck yeah we will. I got ideas.
The auditorium was nearly full for the awards ceremony. People sat with their teams all over the audience. Most of the Eaganville fans had stuck around, so we took up a huge swath of rows in the center of the auditorium, like we were expecting to take all the trophies. Sparks was shaking hands with a few excited parents who had come to watch the action. He was so different with them, not the ball-busting tyrant we’d seen in practice; he was all smiles, joking and slapping backs. The rest of the team bubbled with excitement. I sat surrounded by the squad, which had turned into a well-dressed spasm of joy. Everyone seemed to have done well. People leaned across chairs, joking and laughing, taking photos of each other.
Blaize was taking it hard, though. She had her hair around the side of her face, hiding behind it like a curtain. I caught her eye for a second and she gave me a weak smile—her eyes were bloodshot. “You did so good,” she said.
“Thanks.”
I wasn’t sure whether to go to her or not. Is that something a varsity member did for another varsity member? Consoled them? I didn’t see a lot of consoling happening. I hesitated, then noticed Rani and Sarah sitting a few rows back, an empty seat between them.
They might need me more.
They had been entered in the novice debate side of things, where newcomers were sent to battle and bloody themselves before graduating to the death arena that was policy debate. I left Blaize and moved to a row right in front of them. They were both on their phones.
“How’d it go?” I asked, twisting around to look at them.
“Out in quarterfinals,” said Sarah. “Pretty good.”
“Cool.”
Rani didn’t say anything.
“That’s good, right,” I said, trying to be encouraging. “It’s your first tournament.”
“I, um… I finaled, but—”
The crowd hushed suddenly as the stage curtain parted to reveal tables sagging under the weight of enormous trophies. It looked like the entire budget of the Brooklyn Park School District had been spent on speech trophies.
“All right,” said the MC. “ARE YOU READY FOR THE RESULTS?!”
The crowd roared like a sporting event. People lost their minds. Holy shit, were we ready.
As expected, Eaganville dominated. Anesh and Logan took second place for policy debate; Taryn and Milo took first in duo; Hanson won, Andrew won. And as for me…
“THIRD PLACE, THE HEROIN DIARIES, SYDNEY WILLIAMS.”
My heart leaped into my throat. Chills ricocheted over my body as I scrambled to get out of the aisle and make my way to the stage. Third place. For me. Out of all the people who competed in DI.
Behind me, the speech team was whooping and applauding. Anesh blew me a kiss, the bastard. Even Blaize was on her feet, clapping as hard as she could. I felt like a part of the team. I felt like a winner. But most of all I noticed Sparks, standing up, pointing at me, and giving me a thumbs-up. Joy coursed through me like a drug.
I could get used to this.
But also I need to crush everyone’s dreams, so let’s put that on hold for the moment.
As we were heading to the bus, I saw Sparks pull Blaize aside into a classroom. The rest of the team kept going, but I circled back. Even though the door was closed, I could hear him.
“What was that?” He waited just a second. “No, don’t say anything. You didn’t say anything on the stage, why should you say something now? You think you can do this with being nice to people—you think a winning personality and a smile is going to get you to the top? You sit there, you spend all your time coaching Sydney, and she beat you. She. Beat. You. What does that say about you? A girl in her first meet took you down. And that’s fine with you, isn’t it? You don’t care, do you? You don’t have a killer instinct, so why am I wasting my time with you? Why am I wasting my time talking to you when I could be coaching someone who gives a shit? Are you going to Nationals this year? Do you think you’re going to Nationals this year?”
Blaize said nothing.
“I asked you a question. Do you think you’re going? There are a dozen Sydneys in a dozen schools—and that’s in Minnesota. And you think you’re going back to Nationals with an effort like that? No. Absolutely not. Do you know why?”
Blaize didn’t answer that either.
“I asked you a question. Do you know why? Answer the question.”
“Because you think this is supposed to be fun. You want people to like you. PEOPLE LIKE WINNERS.” I could hear him pacing around the room. “You were an embarrassment today. You ruined today for me. This could have been a great meet. But you, personally you, ruined it. How does that make you feel? That you ruined things for me? You don’t care, do you? You’re the type of person who doesn’t care about people. You don’t care about your teammates, you don’t care about me—after all the time I spent coaching you, bringing you along, teaching you, you come in and you do this to me?”
I couldn’t listen anymore. I slunk away, holding the third-place trophy in my arms like a child.