I felt the heavily air-conditioned breeze of the ballroom touch my bare skin.

It grazed the massive, jagged keloid scars that spread across my shoulder blades and down my spine—pale, thick lines of brutalized tissue.

Souvenirs from a burning ship corridor, a collapsed, melting steel door, and a night of unspeakable, screaming agony that not one civilian sipping scotch in this room would ever be able to comprehend.

I did not cross my arms over my chest.

I did not try to pull the shredded silk back together.

I did not shed a single tear.