Claire offered a thin, reassuring smile, her eyes showed a fleeting, almost imperceptible flicker of discomfort. She tried to pick up the thread of her story, but the music had suddenly grown loud, the clinking of glasses grating.
The server’s second return cemented the humiliation. “I truly apologize, sir,” she said, her voice softer than before. “It is still not going through.”
The air became thick and heavy. The simple pleasure of the evening evaporated, replaced by the acute, public feeling of inadequacy. I felt exposed, stripped of the easy
