I turn my face a fraction off-center and give him a slow blink. The camera makes the same small click it did the first time he filmed me in prison—when I pressed my palms to the phone glass and cried when I wasn’t sad. Funny how practice turns fraud into pity.
“Ready?” he asks.
“I was born ready.”
The gala venue is a restored citrus packing house on the edge of the Santa Clarita Valley—the kind of faux-rustic, mission-adjacent palace Southern California adores. Whitewashed brick. Exposed beams. String lights. A drink station—spritzers branded “Faithful Fizz”—waits near the entrance like an altar, a halo of dry-ice mist hissing above the buckets.
The banner reads:Hearth & Hands Benefit: Stories That Heal.
“Sound good?” Blake says, eyeing the room. He’s already rolling B-roll: waxy flowers, hand-lettered place cards, the volunteer army trying not to sweat through satin. He streams a vertical shot for his Instagram. Hearts float up in real time, a digital rosary of strangers who want to be absolved by watching.
“It’s perfect,” I say. “Cheap and earnest. My favorite flavors.”
Lila rushes up in a lilac dress that looks like a bridesmaid gave up and let God decide. She grabs my hands, squeezing them with an almost painful reverence.
“You look like hope,” she breathes.
“Hope’s wearing shapewear,” I say with a grin, then lean in like a confessor. “Where do you want me?”
Her eyes shine. “Anywhere,” she blurts, then blushes. “I mean—there’s a step-and-repeat by the front, Harper’s on her way, the local paper is already here, and this is insane but theIndy Starsent a photographer and a reporter, and?—”
“Breathe, Lila. Tonight we tell true stories.” I lower my voice. “We heal.”
She nods too fast, like her neck is spring-loaded. “You’ll speak after the silent auction closes. Five minutes, right?”
“Five is plenty.” It takes less than five to start a fire if the timber’s dry.
Blake drifts to the entrance to catch arrivals—journalists with tired eyes and rigid smiles, influencers who smell like sugared lip gloss and practiced empathy, board members in forgiving clothes. A local newscaster with helmet hair checks her teeth in her phone and rehearses her “exclusive.” Little towns crack themselves open for any story that gives them a national pulse.
My phone buzzes in my palm. A new episode alert from The Watcher slides onto the screen:Ep. 06 — Marks You Can’t See
I don’t flinch.
Blake catches my eye. “You see it?”
“Mhmm.” I lock the screen and tuck the phone into my clutch. “Make sure we trend before they do.”
He presses two fingers to the brim of his lens. “You got it.”
He turns the camera to me, taps into Live.
“We’re rolling,” he says, mouth barely moving.
“Hey, everyone,” I say, and the room shifts—air rearranging around my voice. “It’s Shae. We’re at the Hearth & Hands Benefit where your donations help real survivors find housing, counseling, and legal support. If you’re watching this, share it. Share it again for every woman in your life that you love.”
Comments climb.
— I’M CRYING SHE’S AN ANGEL
— We love you, Shae! #JusticeForShae
— Watch out for that new pod—smells like clickbait
— White dress??? Queens only
I bat my lashes once—the kind that reads like sincerity. “I shouldn’t be here,” I say. “Not in this dress, not under these lights. Statistically speaking, I shouldn’t be anywhere but cement and fluorescent. But a few people believed me when it was dangerous to. They spoke. They stood up. And that’s why I’m here—because when we stand together, systems fall.”
Applause detonates politely.
