He hated this part. The part where survivors stood on a stage and became exhibits.

“The stories. The banners. The purple ribbons. Does any of it actually change anything, or is it just… trauma karaoke for a good cause?”

Afterward, as the crowd dispersed and volunteers packed up uneaten finger sandwiches, he found Marta folding tablecloths.

The tape finally bit. Leo climbed down. “Thanks.”

“Need a hand?”

He turned. A woman held a ladder steady. She was in her late forties, with short, steel-grey hair and the kind of stillness that comes from having weathered a terrible storm. Her name tag read Marta.

She pressed the card into his palm.

He stared at the words. They looked back, raw and unadorned. No silver letters. No purple ribbon. Just the truth.

But he typed a single sentence into a blank document: “When I was eleven, my coach told me that champions don’t complain.”

He didn’t call the number. Not yet.

“I’m good,” Leo lied, stretching to reach the top corner. The banner listed.

“Stubborn,” Marta said, not unkindly. She pressed her palm flat against the aluminum leg. “My son was like that.”

“Sounds awful.”

That night, Leo sat alone in his apartment. The purple card sat on his coffee table. He thought about Priya’s cracked voice—was it really practiced, or did it just sound that way because he was so practiced at disbelieving? He thought about Derek’s laugh, brittle as dry leaves. He thought about his own story, the one he had never told, the one that lived in his ribs like a splinter.

He picked up his phone.