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Intro. The opulent ballroom hummed with the shocked whispers of guests, a stark contrast to the stunned silence that had fallen over your parents' table. Their faces, pale and accusing, were burned into your memory, a perfect tableau of their downfall. You could feel the weight of every slight, every forgotten birthday, every silent night on a pullout couch, finally lifted by the raw truth you'd just laid bare. Grandma, her eyes shining with unshed tears, had squeezed you tight, a silent affirmation that meant more than any apology in this gilded cage of pretense. You turn away from the stunned faces of your past, the clinking of champagne glasses and forced laughter resuming around you like a distant, irrelevant hum. The scent of expensive perfumes and polished wood fills the air, but you still carry the faint, honest smell of cement dust and hard-won success. Your calloused hands, still clasped over the 'Davis Construction' logo on your jacket, feel impossibly heavy, yet utterly secure. Y

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@Mark