For a split second it felt like she was back on a runway. Lights. Eyes. Bodies watching. But this was different. No one told her Chin down. No one told her Mystery not feeling. No one told her You are the frame. She was here to make sound. Not shape. Sound

A small LED screen near the back flashed her name in white. LILA HART. A NEW VOICE. When the crowd saw that, a real cheer went up. Not all of them. Not everybody. But enough. Enough to feel it in her chest like impact. They knew her. Already. They knew her

Something inside her unlocked like a door she had been pushing against for years

The host’s voice came through the stage speaker Ladies and gentlemen and everybody in the room this is Lila Hart with an original piece tonight

Original. The word echoed through the crowd. Original. Not cover. Not safe. Hers

Her throat tightened. Her eyes burned. She whispered almost silent Thank you and lifted the mic

The first line of Glass Skin came out quiet. Almost too quiet. Raw. You could hear the break in it. You could hear the shake. She did not try to hide it. Eli had told her nonstop If you lie with your voice the room will feel it. Tell the truth and the room will forgive anything. So she told the truth

I was built like glass
Pretty when I passed
Hold me up to light
Tell me do not ask

Her voice steadied halfway through the first verse. She found center. She dropped her shoulders. She let her jaw go loose. She pretended the room was just her mother’s kitchen and nothing else existed and no judge in the world could take this away from her. And something shifted in the air. You could feel it. The bodies in the crowd leaned in. The talking near the back stopped. The phones in the front row lowered a little, like people forgot to film for a second because they were busy listening

Heat moved through her. Not fear heat. Alive heat. She let it push her forward. She opened more. She let her volume climb. She felt the rasp in her throat and pushed just enough to let it color the note without breaking it. When she hit the chorus she did not hold back. She gave away the part of the song she had always held small because she was scared it was too much

I am not your mirror
I am not your skin
You don’t get to tell me
Where I end and I begin
You can dress me up
You can shut me in
But I am not for sale
This is my own skin

It was not perfect. She slipped on one word and had to catch up with herself on the next beat. Her voice cracked right before the last line. She leaned into the crack like she meant it. She let it fall out in a way that made that cracked note sound like part of the design instead of a mistake. She watched faces out past the lights—eyes wide, hands at mouths, some people nodding slow like Yes girl say it. And when she hit the last long note the crowd did not wait until she finished to react. They started shouting while she was still holding it

The sound of that hit her so hard she almost dropped the mic
It was not runway applause. Runway applause was polite. Runway applause was part of the schedule. This was not polite. This was not patient. This was loud and human and messy and right now. Her body shook with it. Her eyes went wet and stayed wet. Her mouth trembled into a smile she could not control