I could feel the heat rise up my neck.
“What message was that?”
He shifted on his feet.
“That success is optional. That ambition is somehow less honorable than sacrifice.”
Emma made a noise that sounded like disbelief and disgust had met in the middle.
I kept my voice level.
“I did not tell one child not to dream bigger.”
“No, of course not.”
“But?”
“But some heard it as… anti-college.”
I looked around the gym.
At the scuffed floor.
The folding chairs.
The banners peeling at the edges.
The place where people had just clapped for the workers they depend on and gone right back to grading those workers by how polished they looked.
“Funny,” I said. “I talked for less than ten minutes and somehow folks still heard exactly what they came in here wanting to hear.”
Principal Dawes rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I’m only letting you know there may be follow-up.”
“I haul frozen food, Principal. Follow-up doesn’t scare me.”
That surprised a smile out of him.
A tired one.
The real kind.
“Understood.”
Emma took my hand as we walked out.
The hallway smelled like floor wax and cafeteria pizza.
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