"And did you succeed?"
"No. I failed again. But differently. New mistakes. More sophisticated errors. Until eventually, success became the expectation, not the exception." Her gaze was measuring. "That's what separates winners from losers, Camille. Not whether they fail, but what they do with that failure."
Something shifted inside me. The humiliation was still there, but beside it grew something harder. A cold certainty that I would never allow myself to be outmaneuvered like that again.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"Now you document every mistake. Study them. Learn from them. And prepare for your next test."
"Which is?"
"Not yet determined. But rest assured, it will come when you least expect it. When you're most vulnerable. Just like today."
Just like life. Just like revenge.
As
