Turn 6 of 10

Ask Tamsin what was on her card

You lean against the doorframe across from her, close enough that your shoulders almost touch the same wood. The parlor behind Tamsin glows with late-afternoon light, and the table at its center holds the bid cards in their gold borders, neat as place settings at a dinner where the menu has already been chosen. The face-down card sits at the front, its blank back staring up at the ceiling like a closed eye. You keep your voice low, matching hers.

"What was on yours?"

Tamsin's jaw tightens. Not dramatically — just a small flex, the kind of motion that happens when someone is trying to decide whether to swallow something or spit it out. She pulls the tote strap higher on her shoulder, and the enamel crest pin catches the light. Her fingers drift to it, touch it, drop away, like she's checking whether it's still there and disappointed that it is.

"I didn't read it. Not all of it." She looks past you, down the hallway, the automatic sweep.

"I got as far as the first line. It said — 'Tamsin Reyes is the kind of girl who makes everyone feel comfortable.' And I thought, okay, that's nice. That's a compliment. So I smiled and moved on, because Brynn was waiting and everything felt good and warm and I just — didn't go back."

She stops. The hallway is quiet. The vanilla scent is thinner here, or maybe you've just stopped noticing it.

"And then I started making everyone feel comfortable. All the time. That's what I do now. That's who I am here." Her voice doesn't crack — it flattens, which is worse.

"I was a biology major. I wanted to do field research. I had this whole plan, this specific, weird, detailed plan about studying lichen diversity in coastal ecosystems. And now when someone asks what I'm interested in, I say 'people stuff' and I laugh. This laugh."

She demonstrates — a bright, musical, perfectly pitched laugh that lands exactly where it should and sounds exactly like every other laugh you've heard in this house. It lasts precisely one second. When it ends, her face is empty.

"That's not mine. I don't know where it came from. It was on the card and I didn't read the rest, and now it doesn't matter because it's already done."

She looks at the face-down card on the table. Then at you. The house smile tries to surface and fails, trembling at the edges of her mouth like a muscle memory she can't quite commit to.

"Read yours. Read the whole thing. And then decide if you want to be what it says."