boy.
A boy that I’m seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly,
and undeniably in love with.
And he taught me the most important thing of all—
To put the emphasis
On life.
The feeling that comes over you, when you’re in front of an audience? All those people craving for your words, yearning to see a glimpse into your soul . . . it’s exhilarating. I thrust the microphone back into the emcee’s hands and run off the stage. I look around but don’t see him anywhere. I look at the booth we sat in on our rst date, but it’s empty. I realize, after standing there, waiting to be swept off of my feet —that he’s not even here. I spin around in a circle, scanning the room a second time. A third time. He’s not here.
The same glorious feeling I had on that stage . . . on his dryer . . . in the booth in the back of the room—it’s gone. I can’t do it again. I want to run. I need air. I need to feel the Michigan air against my face.
I throw open the door and take a step outside when a voice, ampli ed through the speakers, stops me in my tracks.
“That’s not a good idea,” it says. I recognize that voice and that phrase. I slowly turn around and face the stage. Will is standing there, holding the microphone between his hands, looking directly at me.
“You shouldn’t leave before you get your scores,” he says, motioning to the judges’ table. I follow his gaze to the judges, who are all turned around in their seats. All four of them have their eyes locked on me; the
fth seat is empty. I gasp when I realize Will was the fth judge.
I sense that I’m oating again as I make my way to the center of the room. Everyone is quiet. I look around, and all eyes are on me. No one understands what’s happening. I’m not sure even I understand what’s happening.
Will looks at the emcee standing next to him. “I’d like to perform a piece. It’s an emergency,” he says.
The emcee backs away and gives Will the go-ahead. Will turns back to face me.
“Three dollars,” someone yells from the crowd.
Will darts a look at the emcee. “I don’t have any cash,” he says.
I immediately pull the two dollars out of my pocket and run to the stage, smacking them down in front of the emcee’s feet. He inspects the money I lay before him.
“Still a dollar short,” he says.
The silence in the room is interrupted as several chairs slide from under their tables. There is a faint rumble as people walk toward me. I’m surrounded, being pushed and shoved in different directions as the crowd grows thicker. It begins to disperse just as fast and the silence slowly returns as everyone makes their way back to their seats. I return my gaze to the stage, where dozens of dollar bills are haphazardly thrown at the emcee’s feet. My eyes follow along as a quarter rolls off the edge of the stage and falls onto the oor. It wiggles and spins as it comes to rest at my foot.
The emcee is focused on the pile of money before him. “Okay,” he says. “I guess that covers it. What’s the name of your piece, Will?”
Will brings the microphone to his mouth and smiles at me. “ ‘Better Than Third,’ ” he says. I take a few steps back from the stage and he begins.
I met a girl.
A beautiful girl
And I fell for her.
I fell hard.
Unfortunately, sometimes life gets in the way.
Life de nitely got in my way.
It got all up in my damn way,
Life blocked the door with a stack of wooden two-by-fours
nailed together and attached to a fteen inch
concrete wall behind a row of solid steel bars, bolted to
a titanium frame that no matter how hard I shoved
against it—
It
wouldn’t
budge.
Sometimes life doesn’t budge.
It just gets all up in your damn way.
It blocked my plans, my dreams, my desires, my
wishes, my wants, my needs.
It blocked out that beautiful girl
That I fell so hard for.
Life tries to tell you what’s best for you.
What should be most important to you.
What should come rst
Or second
Or third.
I tried so hard to keep it all organized, alphabetized,
stacked in chronological order, everything in its
perfect space, its perfect place.
I thought that’s what life wanted me to do.
This is what life needed for me to do.
Right?
Keep it all in sequence?
Sometimes life gets in your way.
It gets all up in your damn way.
But it doesn’t get all up in your damn way because it
wants you to just give up and let it take control. Life
doesn’t get all up in your damn way because it just
wants you to hand it all over and be carried along.
Life wants you to ght it.
Learn how to make it your own.
It wants you to grab an ax and hack through the wood.
It wants you to get a sledgehammer and break
through the concrete.
It wants you to grab a torch and burn through the
metal and steel until you can reach through and
grab it.
Life wants you to grab all the organized, the
alphabetized, the chronological, the sequenced. It
wants you to mix it all together,
stir it up,
blend it.
Life doesn’t want you to let it tell you that your little
brother should be the only thing that comes rst.
Life doesn’t want you to let it tell you that your career
and your education should be the only thing that
comes in second.
And life de nitely doesn’t want me
To just let it tell me
that the girl I met—
The beautiful, strong, amazing, resilient girl
That I fell so hard for—
Should only come in third.
Life knows.
Life is trying to tell me
That the girl I love?
The girl I fell
So hard for?
There’s room for her in rst.
I’m putting her rst.
Will sets the microphone down and jumps off the stage. I’ve gone so long teaching myself how to let go of him, to break the hold he has on me. It hasn’t worked. It hasn’t worked a damn bit.
He takes my face in his hands and wipes my tears away with his thumbs. “I love you, Lake.” He smiles and presses his forehead against mine. “You deserve to come rst.”
Everyone and everything else in the entire room fades; the only sound I hear is the crash of the walls I’ve built up around me as they crumble to the ground.
“I love you, too. I love you so much.”
He brings his lips to mine, and I throw my arms around him and kiss him back. Of course I kiss him back.