"Applause—too loud, and it's not for me," Julia breathes as she collapses in the auditorium doorway. "Julia! Julia!" someone shouts from the wings. Curtain applause roars like a machine. A spotlight glares through the gap and cuts her chest with light. "Haven, keep going!" Mrs. Lane's voice is high and proud from the stage. Julia tastes copper. Her hand finds the splintered wood of the doorframe and she clings to it like an anchor. "Are you okay?" Xavier is already there, breath warm on her face. "You looked pale." His voice is quick, worried and public. "I'm fine," she says, and the word slides out thin. She remembers being twenty-seven, remembers the prom night, remembers Zander laughing in a way that meant he chose himself. The memory is sharp enough to sting. "You're not fine," a voice says from behind. Haven's solo continues—those practiced notes, the practiced smile. "This one is for my new family," Haven calls, and the crowd erupts like someone lit fireworks. Julia lets the memory move through her: the applause, Zander's hand on her shoulder that night, her father's silence as the rumor turned into a decision. It's a parade of small betrayals. A light, a warmth—then black. A voice blurts, "Call an ambulance!" Someone says her name again, and she can feel the fabric of her dress, the grit in her teeth, the small white scar on her palm from a bicycle. The