“Present it as planned.” Nothing more.

She had spent eight years editing herself down to fit the space others had left for her.

Tonight she would take exactly the space that was hers, no larger and not one inch smaller.

She waited in the reserved area with a stillness that the coordinator, glancing over, mistook for nerves.

It was not nerves.

It was the particular calm of a person who has finally stopped negotiating with herself.