“No,” I replied, quietly but without hesitation. “Everything I have is because I walked through those doors myself and stayed standing when they tried to close.”
For a second, he just stared at me, as if recalibrating.
Then something in him snapped.
He stepped back abruptly, reached for a passing tray without even looking at it, and before I had time to process what he was doing, he flung the contents of a glass straight at me.
The shock was immediate.
Cold water hit my face, my hair, the neckline of my dress, soaking through the fabric in an instant. I gasped, more from surprise than anything else, blinking as droplets ran down my cheeks and onto the silk.
The music faltered.
Not all at once, but gradually, like a system losing power. One violin missed a note. Another followed. Conversations nearby stuttered, then stopped entirely.
Within seconds, the entire lawn had shifted.
People turned.
