It Started at Christmas...

If only.

If only.

If only.

Hadn’t he spent a lifetime playing out if-onlys in his head? What good had they ever done? He couldn’t go back to that night, couldn’t bring Shelby back. All he could do was carry on and make a difference in other teens’ lives.

He did make a difference in other teens’ lives. Both at his job where he counseled and encouraged teens to make good decisions and with Celebration Graduation.

Shelby would be proud of the man he’d become.

At least, he thought she would.

That’s what kept him going, knowing that he was living his life to make a difference for others.

He couldn’t let anything, anyone get in the way of that.

“There’s a full house out there already,” one of the other cast members told him, taking one last look in the mirror before moving to the doorway. “This was a great idea, Dr. Spencer.”

“I can’t take the credit. The Senior Citizen Center approached me,” he admitted.

“Well, I’d say they’ve sold out the show,” Lanette said, peeping through a curtain to look at the crowd. “There’s only a few seats left and it’s still a good fifteen minutes before showtime.”

Lance had called the cast members from the Christmas show and gotten them on board to do a St. Patrick’s Day show. They’d kept it simple, doing numbers that they all already knew, but that would be fun for the audience. Lance had even convinced a magician to come in and do a few tricks between sets. If the guy worked out, Lance hoped to have him perform on graduation night at the kids’ lock-in to help pass their time in a fun way.

Seven arrived and Lance went out onto their makeshift stage. He welcomed the crowd, apologized to the ones standing in the back of the room, but applauded them on participating in something that was for such a worthy cause.

He moved to the side of the stage. Four of the female performers came out onstage, holding sparkly four-leaf

clovers the size of dinner plates. The performers changed and a male singer crooned out a love ballad that had Lance’s throat clogging up a little.

He didn’t want to think about Shelby. He didn’t want to think about McKenzie.

He couldn’t stop thinking about either.

The crowd cheered each performance.

They finished the first half of the show, went to the back to grab a drink and change costumes while the magician did his show. Lance found himself laughing at some of the tricks and trying to figure out how a few others were done. The crowd loved the show. Soon the singers were back onstage and sang a few more songs. Lanette had the lead in the next number and took the stage with a bright smile.

“Okay, folks, this is a little different from what’s on your program, but sometimes the best performances are the unexpected, impromptu ones,” Lanette began, causing Lance to frown.

He was unaware of any changes to their schedule and certainly there weren’t any planned impromptu performances that he knew of.

That’s when he saw her.

McKenzie, wearing her sparkly green dress that she must have had hidden beneath a jacket for him to have not noticed her before because she glimmered with every step she took toward the stage.

What was she doing?

But even before Lanette handed her the microphone, he knew.

McKenzie was going to sing.

The question was why.

And why was his heart beating so crazily in his chest with excitement over what she was about to do when he had no right to feel that excitement?

To feel that joy that McKenzie was there?