The sun rose fitfully over our apartment the next morning. Mom, cheerfully oblivious, was doing her usual morning routine: making coffee and stretching on flat surfaces. Luke had thankfully gone for his morning run.
“How did it go yesterday?” called Mom as I trudged into the living room to pat Charlie on the head.
I didn’t answer. My stomach felt like it had been hollowed out.
“How did it go?” she repeated. “I was hoping you would text an update or something.”
“I did well.”
“Really?! That’s great!”
“I won,” I said quietly, dropping on the couch.
“You won?!”
I nodded, trying not to look at her.
“That’s so great!” She took a moment as the implications of that rattled through her. “But you didn’t… Why didn’t you text me last night? Why didn’t you tell me you were doing that well?”
“I knew you were working, so—”
“What? You could’ve texted. It’s not like I can’t check a text at work. Hell, I would’ve caught a bus to come up there and see you.”
“You can’t really get out of a shift—”
“I’m not like an ER doctor, sweetie, I run a roller coaster. I could’ve gotten someone to cover for me. I could’ve made it up there. You acted like it wasn’t important—”
“It wasn’t important.”
“You won the State Championship!”
“But that was largely a surprise.”
She was dumbfounded. “How much time did you have before you knew you were going to the finals?”
“Like an hour.”
“And you didn’t let me know?”
“Well, you haven’t been to any of my other tournaments—”
She took a step into the living room. “But I would’ve… honey… I mean I can’t take off every Saturday, but… I want to be there for you.” She paused. “Do you want me to be there for you?”
“Of course.”
“So why wouldn’t you… Are you ashamed of me, is that what this is about?”
I gritted my teeth, fighting back tears. “No!”
Instead of answering I just fled to my room.
I beat myself up the next day at school. I should’ve told her. I should’ve let her know what I was doing. But the thought of her, sitting in the audience, hearing me talk about my pain, pain that she had a part in creating, it was too much. And maybe there was a part of me that thought if my dad couldn’t be there to see it, then she shouldn’t be there, either.
Ugh.
It didn’t help that the school was treating us like conquering heroes returning from an overseas war. We had voyaged to the land of Chanhassen, slain the vile Chanhassenites, and returned with their heads on pikes. They had decorated the school for us on Sunday; there were purple and gold streamers everywhere (I recognized them from Party City), and banners were strung over the subterranean hallways. CONGRATULATIONS SPEECH TEAM! everywhere I looked.
A lot of kids had seen my final performance. More had heard about it. I felt their eyes on me in the hallway; I heard them whispering about me as I passed. Was it pity?
I kept my eyes on the floor; I couldn’t even lift my head to look at anyone. I felt naked.
Even our first strategy meeting felt wrong. Lakshmi had lifted a bottle of champagne from her parents’ fridge, and we struggled to get it open for a good ten minutes before giving up and watching an instructional video on YouTube.
“Woo!” she whooped, passing out red plastic cups to the members of the conspiracy and pouring the champagne. Thomas unrolled our mission statement/evil plan onto the pool table and crossed off another step.
Elijah hugged me and planted a kiss on my lips. “That was so amazing,” he said. “I am just so in awe of you.”
“Did you see it?” I asked.
“Lakshmi told me about it. But I imagine it will be up on the YouTube channel soon. I can’t wait to see it.”
That thought filled me with poison. The champagne tasted like a swarm of bees.
“You all right?” asked Blaize.
“Um…”
Elijah wrapped his skinny arm around my shoulder. “You’re fine. You’re great.”
“It’s just that, like, this was Sparks’s best year as a coach. I’m making him look good.” I set my cup down and stared at the green felt of the pool table.
“Right,” said Lakshmi, “but now we get to destroy him. We get to destroy all of them in the most public manner possible.”
“… yeah.”
“That was the plan we decided on. We get to the livestream. End it there.”
“It’s important,” said Thomas. “The boss battle has to be the final moment.”
“Right.” I still felt ashen and drained.
“All right,” said Lakshmi, “I’ve already rented a hotel room in Kansas City—the four of us will road-trip down there while Sydney goes on the charter bus.”
“Road trip!” called Blaize, high-fiving Lakshmi with a slap.
Thomas passed out crayons. “I have some devious thoughts on how to disrupt everyone’s chemistry and concentration in the finals. And I’ve been working with Taryn’s notebook, and I have some seriously diabolical ideas.”
“Question,” asked Blaize. “Do we wait until they make the final round to strike? What if no one makes it to finals?”
“Hmm…” said Elijah. “I think the goal is to get a complete nervous breakdown on camera, possibly with police rushing to the scene and handcuffing them.” Thomas looked at him. “I mean, granted, that’s probably a difficult ask at this point. But I say we definitely wait for the livestream, which is only the final round.”
“Yeah,” said Lakshmi. “If they fail before that, they fail, but I have a feeling they’ll get there. If everyone goes to Nats and craps out before the final round, that will be a disappointment but not a catastrophe.”
“Regardless,” said Elijah, “they’ll put the Third Diamond ceremony on the livestream. No matter what happens, Sparks will be on camera. That will be the final moment.”
It was like I was watching them from inside a cave. I could see my friends moving and talking, writing things down, arguing about stupid shit, but I couldn’t rouse myself to take part in it. It all seemed hopeless.
“I’m out,” I said finally.
Thomas turned to look at me. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m out. I’m not doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“The Plan. The whole thing. I can’t do this anymore. Look, I’m going to—I’m gonna try to win.” I took a breath and shook my head. “I want to win. I don’t want to be a secret agent anymore.”