“Was the pedophile a man or a woman?” the guy in the back shouts.
I start speaking, but it isn’t to anyone in particular, not anymore. I’m telling myself, staring out to the screen on the opposite side of the room where my face is being broadcast bigger than life. If I’d been given the choice, or maybe thought about it ahead of time, I wouldn’t want to look at me then. But right now, I see it as blessing despite all the sins from my past. That image shows me that I’m still me, despite the words I say next. “I was ten, and he was a man.” The clicks lessen with everyone’s growing shock, so do the murmurs making their way along the crowd.
Again, the silence returns, swallowing the room whole and cementing everyone in place. Including me.
“What do you want people to take away from your experience?” a deep voice asks me.
The voice is so loud, and appears so suddenly, it cuts through the quiet like the voice of God talking down to me. But it’s not God. Not even close. It’s the president of the UFC, standing at the podium waiting for an answer.
He smiles like I’ve seen him do when a fighter makes him proud. He’s known me for a while because of Killian, and we’ve spoken a few times following some highly publicized matches and at parties. But I never expected him to look at me with this level of respect. I hoped it would eventually come with a belt win, but not for something like this.
“What?” I ask. I heard his question, but there’s more to what he’s asking.
He realizes as much and rephrases his statement. “There are millions of people watching you right now, Finn,” he says. “Lots of them are kids who have probably been through what you’ve been through. What would you like them to know?”
I glance down at my folded hands resting on the table, taking a moment to absorb everything he said. There are millions watching, and because of it, chances are there are several thousand who’ve been hurt like me, watching, too.
I think I should say something smart and articulate like Declan would, or answer in that crowd-pleasing way Killian always manages. But I’m not them so I say what I feel, and what I wished I would have believed long before now. “That it’s not their fault,” I say, once more catching sight of my face on that giant screen. “That there are a lot of bad people they’ll encounter in life. But that doesn’t mean life can’t be good, or that you can’t be happy no matter what happens to you.”
“Are you happy, Finn?” a female reporter asks.
It’s weird for someone in this circle to call me by my first name. “I’m working on it,” I answer, grinning because I mean what I say. “Because I want to be, and because I think it’s something everyone deserves.”
There are a few smiles and approving nods my way before the conference resumes full swing. But it’s what happens at the end that I don’t expect. It starts with Amarato clapping my back as we stand to leave, then Griffith telling me I did a good job. But when our opponents on the opposite end walk over to shake my hand, I’ll admit, it gives me one hell of a pause.
It’s not a pity thing―at least, that’s not how I take it―especially with how pissed some of them appear, and how more than one seems to understand where I’m coming from, and maybe where I’ve been. We start to pile out. I’m not saying what I did wasn’t hard. In fact, my chest is tightening in anticipation of the inevitable shit storm that’s coming―from social media―everyone who knows me, and from the haters who are going to be assholes just to be assholes. Most of all I’m dreading those questions I may not be ready to answer. Yet it’s my family, and how they look, that halts all thoughts of anyone but them.
Sofia is teary, Tess, Curran’s wife, is too, but they’re sweet like that. Sol, she’s my girl. I knew what I had to say would make her cry. That doesn’t stop her from throwing her arms around me when she sees me and meeting me with a kiss.
I smile against her lips as I lower her to the floor, happy she’s with me, and out of my mind that she plans to stay. My smile leaves town as the rest of my family makes their way forward. Wren . . . no matter what she says, and how hard she’s been denying it, I know she’s had it rough lately and that something is going on with her. So when I see her wiping her eyes, I’m not completely shocked that she’s crying. But to see Angus break down, to watch Seamus and Declan drag their hands down their reddening faces, and for big bad Curran to pinch the bridge of his nose like it’s going to somehow plug those leaky tear ducts, I’ll confess, it’s hard to watch.
Yet it’s Killian―my closest brother, the guy who did what he could to make things right―that I swear to Christ almost makes me crack. Almost.