Adopted by Hamilton

Chapter 120 - EduHam (4)

I smiled as I walked backstage, that went well.

"Nice job sweetheart." I felt Pippas hand on my back.

"Thanks." I looked at her, and started back to Lins dressing room to change back into my own clothes. As I was strapping my chunky heels back on I heard a knock at the door. "Come in!" I called, and heard the door open behind me.

"Hey kiddo." It was Daveed, I could tell by the voice. "That was awesome."

"Thanks!" I said, turning around.

"Hate to say this, but, you need to give your speech in like, two minutes." He said checking his watch. "The kid from one of the schools in the Bronx just went, another Manhattan kid is going now, you're up."

"Crap." I said, and grabbed my bag from the mail corner of Lins dressing room. Yes. He has a mail corner. He gets a lot of mail. I pulled my notebook out of my bag, and held it under my arm. "I'm good to go." I smiled.

"Awesome. Your dads really excited about this, you know that right?" He asked, walking me to the stage.

"Yeah, he's been trying to read this speech for weeks." I laughed a little, reaching stage right, I could see Lin standing center stage, and my breath hitched.

"Alright, so our third, and final, speaker." He started, "I'm excited to hand this mic off to my daughter. She was selected by her teacher to answer the question, 'what does Hamilton mean to you?' So, Niñita," he looked at me, and motioned for me to come onstage. I slowly walked back onstage, and reached him, he immediately threw his arm around me, giving me a side hug. "Okay, so this is Abigail Miranda, she's my daughter and I have no idea what she's going to say here, I'm serious, I tried to read her speech the other day and she actually tackled me to get her notebook back. So... Hopefully it's good." He smiled at me, "anyways, here you go." He handed me the mic, and walked to the side of the stage, leaning against the stairs on set.

(A/N: Hiya guys! So, Abigail's speech... I want to say that I spent a lot of time writing this.... You don't have to read it, it's decently long, it's not super important to the storyline, but I love it. And it really adds to her character and her relationship with Lin and the cast.)

"Hi." I smiled a little, looking into the sea of students that filled the Richard Rodgers. "Okay, so, a month ago my teacher told me that I was going to be representing our school by answering this question. I thought that a month would be long enough to write the speech, I was wrong, frankly, it wasn't even long enough to answer the question." I laughed a little, "I think that I would hand this mic to anyone in the audience and they could talk for an hour about what Hamilton means to them, and they could hand he mic to the person sitting next to them and they could talk for another hour, and that mic would make its way around the entire theater and we would be here for 1,300 hours and everyone would have something new, important, and relevant to add because that's just how special Hamilton is, that's what it's done. Sadly, they handed the mic to me."

"I mean, I get it. I've been greatly impacted, maybe more that anyone in this room, but for the life of me I cannot begin to answer 'what does Hamilton mean to you?' I know how it's affected me, I know where I'd be without it, I know why I love it, and I know what it has done for me, but I just don't know how to put into words what it means to me. I decided that instead of explaining why I couldn't answer the question, I'll show you what Hamilton has done for me, then maybe you can answer the question for yourselves."

"Did you know that you get $500 monthly for fostering a child? That doesn't sound like a lot, but for a lot of families, it's a ton, usually I fostered because families needed the money, although, that's not all I went through, I mean, I lived with drug addicts, but, most recently, I lived in an abusive home."

"It's worse than it sounds, it's constant fear, it's never knowing what's going to happen. It's covering bruises with concealer and promising yourself and your abuser that you will never say a word, and you never do. I was saved because someone figured it out. I'm not there anymore because someone saw the bruise on my face and did something about it."

"Lin saved my life that day. He opted to foster me in place of the abusive family. I guess not only did he save me from those people, he saved me from myself."

"5-6 months ago, I would've woken up, made breakfast for three people, had to walk to school with an abusive brother, returned home to a drunk father, and had gone to school the next day with a black eye and a cut on my forehead. This morning? Vanessa made gluten free blueberry pancakes." I smiled at Vanessa who was standing off to the side in the audience with Sebastian. "We walked here, and I hung out with Carleigh while we tried to give the boy, that I'm blessed to call my brother, her hair style for the show."

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that Hamilton changed who I am as a person, I'm much more confident. Without Hamilton I would still be in an abusive home. I love it because of the impact it's had on me and the world. Hamilton has brought me safety, love, and joy. And I guess I just want to say thank you. Thank you to the Hamilton cast, thank you to, well, my family." That last line wasn't written in my speech, it came to me as I finished the speech, and then I could finally answer the question.

"That's it. That's the word I'm looking for. What does Hamilton mean to me? It means family." I pulled the mic away from my mouth, trying to signify that I was done speaking.

"That was... Okay." I heard Lin say, "Niñita, you, oh gosh, I love you." After saying that he hugged me, "thank you. I love you so much." He said to me, without the mic.

"I love you too." I said back.

"I need to do something." I heard him say, pulling away from the hug. "Okay, this will only take a couple minutes." He told the kids, then I saw him motion for the cast to come onstage. "Sit sit my child." Lin said, grabbing my hand and pulling me over to the piano bench from my song. "Okay," he said into the mic, "since Abigail just gave that gorgeous speech to us, we'd like to return the favor, well, sort of. Hopefully most of you know this song." I sat there, kind of nervous, kind of excited, and the intro to Fix You started to play, over the theaters sound system.

One by one the cast would sing a verse of this song to me, and let me tell you, they nailed it. The song was slowly coming to an end, when I realized, Lin hadn't done a verse yet.

"Lights will guide you home." I heard his distinctive voice come from the group of people, "and ignite your bones." I saw him now, they formed a little line, with him at the center. "And I will try to fix you." As soon as he finished singing the last word, I ran up and hugged him.

"Thanks dad." I was crying on his shoulder, when I felt him shake a little, showing me that he was crying as well. "Why are you crying?" I asked.

"You called me dad."

•••

I'm tired... I think I'm getting sick. My brothers out of town, I'm sad, he's my best friend... My dads birthday is tomorrow! So, yeah... Also, I HAVE NO LIFE OR FRIENDS PLEASE KILL ME NOW.

11:00

Thanks for reading!

- Abi