Chapter 14: Before She Asked

Ellis's POV

I had told Marlo I would speak after she did.

I had a plan for it.

I would wait for her eleven o'clock slot, walk up when the dean asked for questions, and say it in order, so nobody could cut me off.

Then Keeley put a notebook on the table and said, "These are the notes I kept all last year."

I had never seen that cloth cover.

I had only ever seen the pages, one at a time, on my phone, in the stairwell at 12:40.

She had copied them out by hand, every star, and bound them in something old.

"Keeley," the dean said, turning a page. "These are remarkable."

"I'm just glad they're useful," Keeley said, and her voice cracked a little, perfectly.

"I'll be honest with the panel. Someone has been telling people these ideas are hers. I've decided not to take it personally."

Somebody behind me hissed, "Wow, that's so mean."

I looked at the second row.

Marlo sat very straight, with her hands in her lap and her mouth shut.

She wasn't looking at the table.

She was looking at her own knees, and I knew that if I waited eighty more minutes, she would have to sit through all of it.

My terms were that I tell it myself.

Nobody had said when.

I took my hands out of my pockets and walked down the aisle.

It is a long aisle.

In two years I had only ever walked out of that hall, never up the middle of it.

"Young man," the dean said. "This is not the time."

"Ellis Forbes," I said.

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