Marta didn’t leave. She looked at the banner, then at him. “You’re one of us, aren’t you? A survivor. You never speak.”
He picked up his phone.
“Sounds awful.”
But he typed a single sentence into a blank document: “When I was eleven, my coach told me that champions don’t complain.”
“Does it work?” he asked.
Marta stopped folding. For a long moment, she just looked at him. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a creased, coffee-stained business card. It was faded, but Leo could still make out the logo: a simple purple heart, the same one on the banner.
He hated this part. The part where survivors stood on a stage and became exhibits.