in riddles.”
She stared at me.
Then her expression changed. “You really don’t remember me, do you?”
Something in her voice silenced the table. I studied her face, but nothing came.
I studied her face, but nothing came.
“Regional Qualifier,” she said. “Fifteen years ago.”
The name hit me first.
Then came flashes:
- bright lights,
- score sheets,
- coaches crowding the barriers,
- my old judging badge clipped to my jacket.
Audrey stepped closer.
“People were saying I might actually go somewhere.”
“I was seventeen. People were saying I might actually go somewhere.”
And then I remembered the ruling. A technical violation. An automatic penalty.
“You were that girl?”
Her jaw tightened. “You disqualified me. I begged you afterward.”
Audrey’s voice dropped.
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That memory came slower.
A teenager crying near the judges’ room. Me, exhausted after a day of arguments and appeals.
Audrey’s voice dropped. “You looked at me and
