Page 59 of Johnny

our wake trail off behind us, internally waxing poetic about my life.

Why do I do this shit? Why am I doing this now?

I mean seriously, I’m here doing all this shit because Brooke Alder got me fired up over a half-

assed plan to steal the money my contributors put in my bank accounts every month and use it to buy

some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card using people who hate me as allies.

We don’t even know what that looks like yet. I’m down here looking for Charlotte because I think

she has answers I don’t. I think she knows shit. I think she has always known shit and that’s why she’s

so fucked up. That’s why she went wild.

But what if I’m wrong? What if she doesn’t know anything?

And even if she does have some kind of incriminating information that could buy us that get-out-of-

jail-free card, what then?

Do I really think Brooke has an endgame in mind?

No. Not for a fucking second. But her innocent, naive surety back in my office last week was

contagious. And it gave everyone in the room a sense of hope.

Isn’t that what she said Joey needed? Hope? Hope that we might all be able to just live our lives.

That’s all people really want. They want to shake off that collar of dependence. They want to feel

like they have choices.

Being able to make your own choices and not have them dictated to you by circumstance—that’s

the real definition of freedom, and wealth, and power.

I remind myself that that’s why I’m here.

For hope. Because back in my office that day we all needed it.

Hope is seductive too. It’s Secret’s second cousin.

Hope is more powerful as well. You can accomplish a lot of things running on the fumes of hope.

But it’s also very fragile.

It doesn’t take much to shatter one’s hope.

One wrong move. One wrong comment, for fuck’s sake. One wrong piece of information can

change everything just because it changes your belief in hope.

I’m not going to let it happen to me. I’m going to silence that voice inside my head that says, “It

can’t be done. It will never work,” and just pretend like it can.

I have decided to believe.