The Graduation Trap novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Backstage

Sullivan's POV

When the lock turned on the speakers, I was already standing.

Seven years I had waited to hear somebody else say what that room was.

Now four hundred people were hearing it at once, and nobody in the auditorium made a sound.

On the stage Daphne Lowell stood with the microphone hanging from her hand.

She did not look at the crowd.

She looked at the booth where Joanna sat behind the glass.

Then she dropped the microphone, and it hit the boards with a bang that rang through every speaker.

She walked off the side of the stage.

She did not run.

I knew that walk.

I had watched it go out of a dean's office once, and the dean had held the door for it.

"Mother," I said. "Stay here."

"Sullivan."

"Stay."

I went down the aisle.

Parents were on their feet, talking over each other.

The principal was standing at the lip of the stage with his mouth open.

A man near the front shouted, "Play it again!"

I pushed through the side door, and the corridor behind the stage closed around me, cinderblock and cold light.

She was at the far end, by the loading door.

She had stopped with her hand on the push bar, and she had her back to me.

Her shoulders were shaking.

For one second, God help me, I felt sorry for her.

Then she turned.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Graduation Trap from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.