A woman who learned to make fear look like calm because calm is harder to attack.
“I’ll take it,” I whisper.
The woman nods. “Two hundred.”
My stomach flips. “I can’t.”
She studies me for a second, then says, “One fifty.”
Still too much.
“I can do eighty,” I say, and my voice breaks on the number. Humiliation rises hot in my chest.
She doesn’t pity me. She doesn’t scold. She just sighs like she’s angry at the world, not me.
“Eighty,” she says. “But you bring it back. And you don’t ruin it.”
I almost thank her too hard, but I hold it in. “I won’t,” I promise.
* * *
Back at the hotel, I hang it in the tiny closet like it belongs to a different life. Then I practice. Because pretending is a skill, and I am very good at it. I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and force my face into neutrality. Smile. Small. Controlled. Eyes steady. No flinch. No anger. No fear.
I practice saying “hello” like Marco hasn’t hurt me. Like he hasn’t tried to steal my child. Like he didn’t drag me back into this city with a court filing and a lie.
The one thing I can’t practice is how it will feel to stand in front of Turo once more.
