Thalia
The exchange with the reporter finally ended.
For a moment, I thought she might keep going. The look in her eyes said she'd found blood in the water and wasn't ready to let it go.
When she asked her question, the room had gone quiet.
My stomach dropped.
I had wanted nothing more than to leave. To turn around and disappear into the crowd before I said the wrong thing. But there was nowhere to go.
People were already watching.
Rows of faces stared back at me, waiting for an answer. The longer I stood there, the louder my heartbeat seemed to get.
It hadn't always been this hard.
There was a time when speaking in front of a crowd didn't make me think twice. I'd grown up knowing how to stand tall, how to answer questions without fumbling, how to keep my face calm no matter what
