He Took Jude's Money, Ken Won His Heart novel · Chapter 34 of 40
Chapter 34: Five Minutes
The last slow song ended, and the lights came up a little.
Jude walked out of the wings into the glare with one folded page in his hand.
Four hundred seniors turned toward the stage.
Somewhere in the middle of them, a few people started to whisper.
They knew who he was.
He had been Parker's Pet, and then the whale on the forum, and then the boy who read a cruelty thread aloud on a cafeteria table.
He took the microphone off the stand and held it with both hands.
"Hi. I'm Jude."
A laugh went through the hall, friendly and nervous.
"I have five minutes. I wrote a speech, and my mother edited it, and it's three pages. I'm going to throw it away."
He folded the page in half and put it in his pocket.
"Last Saturday, at my own party, my cousin said something to the man I love."
The laughter stopped.
"I didn't hear it. I was wearing red headphones and dancing to a song I'll never name. He said it to Ken, three feet from me, and Ken thought I let it go."
"Freddy apologized to him on the dorm lawn on Wednesday. Some of you were there."
Voices muttered near the front.
Jude found Ken in the crowd.
He was standing very still beside the coat check, in the good suit, with his hands at his sides.
"I need to tell you what he said," Jude said. "Because it's what some of you have been thinking since the first day Ken sat down in my father's house."
"He said Ken is in my family for the money."
Nobody moved.
"So here is my family's money. Ken has been paid four thousand dollars a month for tutoring me. He's earned every cent. And I want you to know where it is."
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