Taking the Lead: Lessons From a Life in Motion by Derek Hough Read Free Book Online Page A

further explanation or discussion. The words hung in the air. I tried to wrap my eleven-year-old brain around the truth but couldn’t. This wasn’t happening—not to us. In the Mormon culture, where family is such a strong unit and marriage is supposed to be eternal, for better and for worse, this made no sense to me.
    At the next traffic light, I opened the door and jumped out of the car. My mother called after me but I pretended not to hear her. It was a very dramatic gesture, but drama was my middle name. It was the only way I knew how to express the emotions swirling around inside me. I just kept walking in the rain, unsure of where I was going but convinced I needed to run away. I was confused, sad, angry—a whole bunch of different feelings, none of them good. My mom let me cool off for a few minutes. Then she pulled up next to me and opened the car door, and I got back inside. I was soaked to the bone and made a huge puddle on the seat.
    I don’t think I said a word the whole rest of the ride, and neither did she. In the following months, there was a separation period and a tense time when my parents tried to work out the details of the divorce. After my initial protest, a calmness came over me. I just wanted them both to be happy. I knew they couldn’t find happiness together anymore, and I thought it would be selfish of me to wish that they stayed together under those circumstances. My sisters were less forgiving and philosophical; they were very vocal about how upset they were. I tried to stay neutral, but it was hard. Up until this point, I had always been a mama’s boy. But gradually, it became my dad whom I empathized with and saw in a different light.
    One day I was home, hanging out in my bedroom downstairs in the basement. My parents’ room was directly above mine, and I heard a strange, whimpering sound coming from it. I strained to make it out, then realized it was someone crying. My father.
    I didn’t know what to do. I had never heard or seen my dad in tears. I could hear him now through the wall, a muffled cry, and it broke my heart. I had always thought of my father as indestructible, bulletproof. Superman had nothing on him. Yet now, he seemed so broken and fragile. Lying there in the dark, listening to him cry, terrified me. It was as if I had lost my concrete. But at the same time, I felt completely helpless; I wanted to run upstairs and throw my arms around him, but I knew it would embarrass him. My dad was always such a proud guy—strong and consistent in his beliefs, the backbone of our family. He would never have wanted me to see him in that condition.
    Not that it would make me think any less of him. In fact, it had the opposite effect. From that day on, he seemed more real to me, more human. And when the time came to sell our house and move to an apartment complex in Orem, I chose to live with him over my mother. True, their apartments were adjacent, so I didn’t have far to go to visit my mom and sisters, but I felt a stronger connection to my dad. From the time he came to my competition in San Francisco, I had felt a shift in our relationship. He was more present, more thoughtful in small ways. I had always respected him, but I put him high on a pedestal. Now, he felt closer to earth, closer to me.
    Of course, I gave him a terrible time at first. We all reacted to the divorce in different ways. My three older sisters were almost all grown up—Sharee was about to be married—so they needed our parents less in their day-to-day lives. Julianne was little, so I’m not sure how much she understood. I got it; I knew what it meant. I knew how people would talk around the neighborhood and in church, how they would look down on us with pity and disapproval. I would be one of “those” kids—the ones that came from a broken home. I decided I might as well live up to the role, so I began to cut school and skip dance class and hang around with a bad crowd. If my mom or dad scolded me, or a