Everything about her was controlled, curated, composed; she did not raise her voice, did not lose her temper, did not so much as laugh too loudly.

Control was her entire identity, the thing she prized above all others, the quality she used to dominate everyone around her.

And so to hear that scream tear out of her, involuntary and ugly and far beyond her management, was to watch her lose, in a single instant, the one thing she had built her whole self upon.

It was not the loss of the key that undid her, in that first moment.

It was the exposure.