Chapter 10: Performance

Opening night.

The dressing room was a cocoon of nerves and anticipation. I sat in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection. The girl looking back at me was a stranger, calm, composed, ready. I didn’t recognize her. I didn’t know where she’d come from. But I was grateful she was here.

“No costume,” I said to my reflection. “No makeup. No props. Just me.”

The words felt true. They felt right. I was going to walk onto that stage with nothing but my skin and my voice and my truth. It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. It was exactly what I’d been preparing for my entire life.

Anthea appeared in the doorway. She was already in character, her body language shifting, transforming. “It’s time,” she said.

I stood. I walked toward the door. I didn’t look back.

The wings were dark, cool, intimate. I could hear the audience beyond the curtain, the murmur of voices, the rustle of programs, the creak of seats. Hundreds of people, waiting to see me. Waiting to judge me. Waiting to witness.

Beatrice was standing beside me, her face serene. “Ready?” she asked.

“Ready,” I said.

Mina was there too. She’d come backstage to see me before the show. She was wearing a simple black dress, her auburn hair pulled back, her green eyes bright.

“You’ve got this,” she said. “You’re the bravest person I know.”

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to hold her. But there wasn’t time.

“After,” I said. “After the show.”

She nodded. “After.”

The curtain rose.

The lights were blinding. I couldn’t see the audience just the abyss of the house, the faint glow of exit signs, the occasional flicker of a phone screen. But I could feel them. Hundreds of eyes, pressing against my skin like a physical weight.

I took a breath. I closed my eyes. I thought about everything that had brought me here: the fear, the shame, the gradual acceptance. I thought about my sisters, my friends, and my mother. I thought about Mina, and the way she looked at me like I was the only person in the room.

I opened my eyes. I stepped onto the stage.

“I was born into this,” I said. The words came out strong, clear, confident. “I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t choose it. It was just ... how things were.”

The play unfolded. The words came easier now. They were my words, my truth, my story.

Anthea moved beside me, her presence commanding, fierce. “You think you’re different from us,” she said. “You think you can go back to being normal. But normal was never an option. You were born into this truth. You don’t get to abandon it.”

Beatrice drifted across the stage, her movements fluid, hypnotic. “The erosion is the truth,” she said. “The way the cliff surrenders, grain by grain, to the relentless sea. That’s not destruction. That’s becoming.”

I looked at my sisters. I looked at the audience. I looked at myself.

“I don’t want to be a living argument,” I said. “I don’t want to be a proof of concept. I want to be a person. I want to make my own choices. I want to live my own life.”

The words hung in the air, naked and unashamed.

“Is that so wrong?” I asked. “Is that so terrible?”