He Switched Partners. I Switched Countries. novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: The Panel
The regional board met in a hotel conference room in Tukwila, with a long table, a pitcher of water, and a projector screen on the wall.
My mother sat beside me in her good black coat.
She had not said a word in the car.
Three people sat on the board's side of the table, and a fourth chair stood a little apart from them.
Wyatt's father sat in it.
He had Wyatt's jaw and Wyatt's easy smile, with thirty years of board meetings on top.
"I'm only an observer today," he said to the room, and nobody believed him.
Wyatt sat across from me with Paige beside him.
He had put on the grey suit he wore for sponsors.
He did not look at me until the chair of the board cleared her throat.
"We're here on a request for release," she said. "In an Olympic year, the board expects consent from the former partner. Mr. Kessler?"
"I want what's best for Lena," Wyatt said.
His voice was warm, and it carried well.
"She's been under a lot of stress. She drove out of the country in the middle of the night, and she wasn't thinking. I'd hate for her to sign something she'd regret."
"So would we all," his father said.
"So I'd ask the board to give her a week," Wyatt said. "I'll sign the day she's back with us."
The woman on the left nodded slowly.
I felt my mother go still beside me.
"May I say something?" I said.
"Briefly," said the chair.
I took my phone out of my bag and plugged it into the cable the hotel had left on the table.
"Miss Hargrove," the chair said, "we don't usually take recordings."
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