Watched

Chapter 36

When I first told my grandmother I wanted to do a press conference addressing the media she thought it was a bad idea and urged me to reconsider. However, after I explained to her that we could strike a deal with the press, so that they could finally stop hounding my friends and I. She ended up reluctantly agreeing to it. So here I stood, exactly three weeks after Samantha had propositioned me with the idea, in a small conference room at the Pebble Island Convention center. A few minutes before the live television broadcast began, the deal was that maximum of six reporters where allowed in the room at any given time. This excluded the camera mean and other crew members. Various news broadcasting stations were present everything from CNN to BBC and of course Pebble Islands very own news station PINS. After all it was not every day that they got the exclusive scoop on the kidnapping of a millionaires' granddaughter.

I watched the crew work from where I stood in the corner of the room with building anxiety, I kept looking down at the script I had drafted a week ago, which detailed the horrors of my kidnapping and entrapment. I had read over it for what felt like a hundred times by now, each word invariably etched into my mind. Yet still, I grew anxious at the mere thought of having to disclose all the intimate details of my horrific ordeal to the entire world when I could barley thing of those events in the privacy of my own mind without somehow succumbing to and emotional breakdown. However, I knew there was no backing down now, I had to be brave and power through. I just couldn't continue to allow my friends and myself for that matter, to live under the constant scrutiny of cameras and reporters.

A crew member barge into the room and startled me out of my thoughts. Her small round face looked flustered as she spoke.

"Alright people one minute till we air, get into position" she said waiving me in the direction of the conference table.

I swallowed nervously and looked back at Izzy who placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered to me.

"It will be ok, if you get stuck look for us in the crowed." She said as she gestured to Maddy, Naz and Randy seated in the second row.

"Thanks Izzy" I whispered clasping her hand on my shoulder to give it one tight squeeze before I made my way to the conference table.

Taking my seat I looked at my grandmother who sat on my right hand side and Samantha who sat on my left. Their faces looked blank and expressionless but I could only imagine they must have been as uneasy as I was in that moment. My grandmother's attorney sat at the far right of the table and Samantha's parents were next to her at my far left. In front of me was a row filled with journalist. They all had their mike's ready and perusing their clipboards; some were conversing in and among themselves.

The flustered looking crew member resurfaced and clapped her hands loudly to get our attention.

"Alright people final mike checks" she yelled.

Everyone at my table had a microphone placed before them, we all took turns starting with Samantha's parents to switch on our mikes and do a quick test. The crew member then looked to the sound guy and he shot her quick thumbs up. Seemingly satisfied she began to back out of view from the three cameras in the room, before she slipped on her head phones and began to do the countdown.

" Annnd were on in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6,5,4," she counted us down and stopped speaking at only to use her hand symbols for the numbers 3,2 and 1.

The red dot on the camera directly in front of me began to flash and my heart made a little flutter, suddenly the room went extremely silent and it was almost as if my tongue refused to move. I sat for a few seconds with my mouth slightly agape taken aback by how bright the overhead lighting and being actually aware that every pair of eyes in this room was tracking my every move.