Hazel's POV
I don't remember every word of the keynote afterward, only the shape of it, the way my voice found its footing somewhere in the second paragraph and never lost it again, steadying into something I recognized, distantly, as the same quiet certainty I used to feel standing in the wings before a performance, waiting for the music to begin. I remember the applause landing like something physical, warm and startling, rolling through the hall in a way that made my chest ache in a good way for the first time in longer than I could easily name, and I remember, more than anything, that I did not look toward the back exit again until it was over.
Afterward, students I barely knew lingered by the podium wanting to shake my hand, a few of them younger women who told me, quietly, almost s
