He thought he was humiliating me.

He was, in fact, taking attendance for me — sorting five hundred people into exactly the two categories I most needed them sorted into, and doing it faster and more honestly than I ever could have on my own.

I stood up slowly.

My elbow burned.

My voice, when it came, did not shake at all.

Chapter 5 — Take the Stage

I took out my phone, and I typed three words.

Take the stage.

I had written that message hours earlier and left it unsent, sitting in a draft, the way you leave a fire escape unlocked.

I had hoped, in some small and foolish corner of myself, that I would not need it — that the evening would pass and the board would quietly decline to confirm him in the morning and it could all be done without a scene.