Speak Up Chapter 16
He lifted his head and looked at me.
His eyes were clear.
“Until you started passing me notes with problem-solving steps written on them.”
My grip on my pen tightened.
“You were the first person who ever seriously tried to teach me,” he said. “And the first person who thought I could actually learn.”
I looked away.
“You were always capable of learning,” I said. “It wasn’t that you couldn’t. It was that no one ever showed you how.”
He smiled again, revealing his canines.
“Well, you shouldn’t carry everything by yourself anymore, either.”
I didn’t answer.
But I remembered his words.
In late November, the student council began holding elections for a new president.
I made a decision that surprised everyone.
I was going to run.
When Wade found out, he was biting into an apple and nearly choked.
“You? You’re running?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you hate public speaking more than anything?”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
I looked at him.
“Because I don’t want to see something like this happen again.”
“Student council shouldn’t be a weapon. Holloway is gone, but the problem isn’t.”
“If the rules don’t change, someone else will just use the same tactics on a different person.”
“If no one steps up, the next person who gets falsely accused might not have someone to speak up for them like I did.”