Chapter 3 - The Call to the Stage
I looked up, startled. A large black umbrella had appeared above my head, blocking out the fierce gray sky.
Standing beside me was Dean Jonathan Bradley, the head of the School of Medicine, dressed in full, elaborate academic regalia—a deep velvet gown lined with gold piping and three wide green stripes across his sleeves, marking his authority. He was staring at me with wide, disbelieving eyes, as though he had just witnessed a crime on his own front steps.
“Dr. Hensley?” he exclaimed, his voice booming over the sound of the splashing rain. “What in heaven's name are you doing standing outside out here in the storm?”
Before I could formulate an answer, Dean Bradley looked up toward the closed bronze doors of the hall, then turned his gaze back to me, his brow furrowing in deep concern.
“The entire Board of Trustees has been searching everywhere for you!” he continued hurriedly, placing a firm, supportive hand behind my shoulder to guide me back up the steps. “The main processional starts in five minutes, and you are scheduled to deliver the valedictorian address!”
My heart pounded against my ribs like a trapped bird as he kept talking, his tone urgent and demanding.
“The major donors, the entire clinical faculty, and the international research committee are already seated in the front rows,” Dean Bradley explained, escorting me under his umbrella through the faculty entrance. “We still need to present your million-dollar clinical research grant award on stage before your speech. Where have you been?”
As we stepped into the warm, bright foyer of the faculty building, his eyes fell on my arm. He noticed the bright red marks forming on my skin where my father had grabbed me and shoved me into the rain.
Dean Bradley stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. “Did someone attempt to physically stop you from entering this hall, Dr. Hensley?”
I stood in the warm light, shivering as towel-bearing assistants rushed over to wrap a warm fleece blanket around my shoulders and hand me my pressed black doctoral gown and velvet cap.
I looked through the two-way glass partition that separated the backstage corridor from the grand auditorium.
Inside the vast, wood-paneled hall, hundreds of guests sat under soaring chandeliers. High up in the front-row VIP box—the absolute best seats in the entire house—my father and stepmother were proudly settling into their plush velvet chairs. Haley was holding up my gold VIP invitation, posing for selfies with her phone, laughing and pointing at the stage, fully believing that the entire prestigious event existed merely as a backdrop for her online aesthetic.
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They had no idea. They sat there in their unearned luxury, completely unaware that the grand ceremony could not begin without the daughter they had just shoved out into the rain.
“No, Dean Bradley,” I said quietly, taking a long, deep breath as I straightened my collar and slid my arms into the gold-trimmed sleeves of the valedictorian gown. “Nobody is stopping me anymore.”
