Evaline:
I didn't remember leaving the ballroom.
I only remembered the heat in my chest, the stinging behind my eyes, and the noise of clinking glasses and laughter blurring behind me.
My barely made any sound on the glossy floor of the hotel lobby, then onto the pavement, and before I knew it... I was just gone.
I was gone from that hall, from the humiliation, from River's smug voice painting me as something I wasn't - an object to prove a point. A tool. A showpiece. The very thing I had vowed to never become again.
The air outside was cool and damp, tinged with the faint scent of the nearby river that was cutting through the city. I walked. Fast. Then faster. Turning corners, taking streets without looking at their names, ignoring the stares of passersby. I was still in that stupid blouse and trousers, clean and modest but plain. Cheap.
