Chapter 9 - ALYSSA’S TENTH ANNIVERSARY
On the tenth anniversary of Daniel Reyes’s death, Lucia requested something simple.
No gala.
No giant memorial.
No donor dinner.
She wanted a bench.
Near the old site of West Hall.
The building was gone.
The land had become an open green.
We installed a modest bench.
The plaque read:
**DANIEL REYES
STUDENT, SON, BROTHER
HE ASKED THE UNIVERSITY TO CHECK AGAIN.
WE SHOULD HAVE LISTENED.**
That final sentence came from Lucia.
Thousands of dollars were not necessary.
Just truth.
Alyssa attended.
Richard and Catherine stood farther back.
Lucia permitted them.
Gregory obviously did not.
After the ceremony, Alyssa sat on the bench.
I joined her.
“Ten years,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I spent almost all of them thinking I imagined him.”
I did not answer.
She continued:
“Do you know what’s weird?”
“What?”
“I remember more now.”
“Like?”
“His shoelaces.”
I looked at her.
“They were red.”
She laughed softly.
“I remember thinking boys in college were supposed to dress better.”
“That sounds like you.”
“I was eight.”
“Exactly.”
She smiled.
Then:
“He asked me what I wanted to be.”
“An astronaut.”
“I remember what I asked him.”
“What?”
“What he wanted to be.”
I turned.
“What did he say?”
Alyssa’s eyes filled.
“An engineer.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she said:
“My dad took that away.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“Daniel’s accident took his life.”
I kept my voice gentle.
“Your father participated in hiding what Daniel discovered. Do not make the lie larger or smaller than it was.”
Alyssa nodded.
“You’re obsessed with precision.”
“I’m president of a university.”
“You broke your phone on the first day.”
“You broke my phone.”
“Technicality.”
I smiled.
She had grown.
Not transformed into a saint.
Still impatient.
Still occasionally entitled.
Still very wealthy.
But now when she made mistakes, she noticed sooner.
That counts.
Then she asked:
“Do you think Daniel would hate us?”
“I never met him.”
“Guess.”
“No.”
She frowned.
“Why?”
“People are more complicated than our guilt wants them to be.”
She stared at the plaque.
“I think about that morning with you all the time.”
“So do I.”
“You must have hated me.”
“I strongly disliked you.”
“Better.”
“I also thought you were ridiculous.”
“Worse.”
She laughed.
Then became serious.
“If Gregory hadn’t recognized you…”
“What?”
“What would have happened?”
I thought.
“Security probably would have taken me to an office.”
“You wouldn’t have told them?”
“Eventually.”
“Why didn’t you immediately?”
“Because I wanted to see how far the system went when it thought I had no status.”
Alyssa looked at me.
“And?”
“Far enough.”
She nodded.
“That’s terrifying.”
“Yes.”
Because the real scandal of my first morning had never been that the university president was mistreated.
It was that everyone changed behavior the moment they learned I was president.
The problem was not that they disrespected someone powerful.
It was that they believed someone without power deserved less process.
Daniel Reyes had learned that ten years before me.
May you like
I was simply lucky enough to walk into the building afterward.
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