Riley POV
The school charity dinner was exactly the kind of event I used to understand without trying.
Crystal glasses covered the tables, soft music played from one corner of the ballroom, and wealthy parents moved through the room wearing polite smiles while quietly judging one another’s clothes, marriages, careers, and children. Large flower arrangements decorated every table, waiters carried trays of drinks between guests, and a silent auction displayed expensive holidays, jewelry, paintings, and private dinners with important people.
Once, this world had felt natural to me.
I knew how to smile without revealing what I was thinking, how to laugh at boring jokes, and how to make people believe I was interested in conversations I wanted to escape. I knew which designers people wore,
