“Well, yeah,” she said. “I’m going to look and sound like an idiot.”
“No, you’re not. The only requirement is for you to introduce yourself and talk about something you enjoy,” I said.
“I’m not doing it.”
“Do you want to run this company with me to the best of your ability?”
“What?” she asked.
“Do you want to run this company with me the way I believe you can?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Then go pick a random crowd of people, introduce yourself, and start in on a topic you’re passionate about,” I said.
“Christian.”
“Stella,” I said as I grabbed her face. “Stop thinking and start doing. Your brain is going to be the death of you if you don’t put it aside sometimes.”
“Fine,” she said.
I watched her walk up to a crowd of unassuming people, and I followed up behind them as she took her place. The tremble in her hands was visible even from where I was standing, and part of me wanted to reach out and save her. I wanted to pull her into my arms and take all the nervousness away. I wanted to tell her that I would do the talking from now on if she didn’t feel confident about it so I would never have to see her as self-conscious as she was right now.
But, she drew a deep breath before she began speaking, and with each passing word, a smile of pride grew on my face.
“Hey there, everyone. I’m uh, I’m Stella Harte.”
The people slowly simmered down their talking and turned their gazes toward her, and I could tell a few of them were sizing her up.
“Just stay out of your own head, Stella,” I murmured.
“When I was a little girl, there was this tree I used to read under. It was a massive weeping willow tree whose branches hung down almost to the ground.”
Her eyes looked back at me, and I urged her forward. People were beginning to murmur, and some were turning back to their own conversations, and I nodded for her to continue before she cleared her throat.
“I would crawl underneath that tree with a book, and I would pretend it was my own fantasy world. See, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a princess. But, I wanted to be a princess that saved the prince. I wanted to wield my own sword and slay my own dragon, and I wanted to do it in this pretty little dress and my long, flowing hair.”
A few smiles began to bloom on the faces of the people she was talking to, and more people began to gather just to hear her talk.
“Even though I was reading books about princes slaying monsters for their princesses, I imagined the opposite. I’d let those weeping willow branches cover me from the fantastical reality painted within the book, and it would give me the silence I needed to reimagine this world someone had written for me. I told myself that, one day, I would write a book where the princess was slaying the dragons for the prince, and I’d be able to make the king and queen proud enough for them to give me their son’s hand in marriage.”
Her eyes flickered back to me, and I could tell she was more comfortable. The tremble in her hands had stopped, and the fear had fallen from her eyes. Replacing the fear was this breathless sort of confidence I couldn’t remove my stare from.
“Then, there was a moment. A moment where my stepbrother had fallen off his bike and tumbled down the hill. I could hear his laughter turn to screaming, and it ripped me from my book as I listened to him call out for his mom.”
I felt the smile drain from my face as the memory of that tumble came rumbling back to my mind.
“He had broken his leg, and he was crying out for help. And, I was too scared to go help him. There I was, sitting in my own little fantasy world, dreaming about helping someone, and I couldn’t peel myself away from my own fear to go be the princess I was always dreaming of being.”
I felt tears crest my eyes before I pulled my gaze to my feet.
“That was the day I realized I didn’t understand how to push past my fears. I didn’t understand how to get past the paralyzing moment where adrenaline floods your system, and you need to make a choice. My stepbrother was calling out for help, crying for someone to help him, and I couldn’t move.”
I looked back up at her and saw a tear streaming down her face, and I knew she had done it. She had conquered so much more today than I ever thought she could, and all it did was make me respect her more for the woman she had grown up to become.
Holy hell, her father would be proud.
“So now, I’m trying to repay him for my inaction. I’m trying to conquer a fear that has held onto me for years. A fear that held me back in college, and a fear that’s holding me back from living up to the potential my late father thought I could rise to. And I hope my stepbrother sees that. I hope they both do.”