“Head up,” she says.
I do it.
Not because I want to please her.
Because if I let my head drop, I think I might never lift it again.
The curtain parts.
Light crashes over me.
The room opens around me all at once. Tables in the dark. Men in suits. Glasses catching the light. A raised stage under my bare feet.
I stop where they place me.
My face feels numb.
My hands hang at my sides.
Inside, I am shaking so hard it should be visible from the back of the room. Outside, I feel like marble.
The man with the microphone smiles down at a clipboard.
“Young,” he says. “Sweet. Untouched.”
The words drift over me like they are meant for somebody else.
A paddle lifts.
A number is called.
Another follows.
The sound in the room changes. Interest sharpens. Men lean in. They decide what I’m worth.
I look at nothing.
Not the faces.
Not the hands.
Not the smile on the man with the microphone.
Then, for one second, I look athim.
A big man in black near the edge of the room. Broad shoulders. Hard face. Eyes fixed on me with something that does not look like hunger.
He goes still.
Something in my chest tightens.
If I keep looking, I think I will break apart right here under the lights, and I do not know how to put myself back together again.
The bidding climbs.
Higher.
Then higher again.
