My body still feels oddly detached. Like I left it onstage and picked it back up in the hallway.
I handled it.
That’s the strange part.
I didn’t fumble. I didn’t freeze. I didn’t feel the usual spike of anxiety that comes with public unpredictability. I sat. I listened. I asked. I chose.
“Okay,” Paige says, scooting closer. “Tell us everything you were thinking. From the moment the wall came down.”
“The wall didn’t come down,” I say.
“You know what I mean.”
I close my eyes for half a second, and it’s all right there again.
His answers.
Not flashy. Not rehearsed. No performance for the crowd.
The pauses.
The way he waited for the question instead of jumping over it.
The hug that was brief, respectful, intentional. No lingering. No claiming. Just a solid, grounding moment that said I see you without trying to own anything.
I open my eyes.
“I wasn’t thinking,” I say carefully. “That’s what surprised me.”
Nancy’s eyebrows lift. “That never happens.”
“Exactly.”
Paige grins. “So you chose him because he was hot.”
“I chose him because he listened,” I say.
The words hit me harder than I meant them to.
Paige’s smile slows. “Oh.”
Nancy tilts her head. “That’s… inconvenient.”
“I didn’t choose him because he was charming,” I add, because it feels important to clarify it even to myself. “I chose him because he didn’t try to be.”
No one says anything for a second.
Paige presses her lips together. “That’s worse.”
Before I can respond, the door opens again.
A PR rep steps in smoothly, like she’s been waiting for a lull.
“Sloane, congratulations,” she says brightly. “You did wonderfully.”
“Thank you,” I say, automatically polite.
She’s already flipping a tablet toward herself. “Just a few quick questions for the post-game interview while everything’s fresh. We’ll keep this light.”
