Everything was so perfect—so perfect that it made me feel like an outsider.
Or maybe I was always an outsider. From the beginning, it was just me forcing myself into this family’s picture. Now, it was time to walk away.
I picked up a pen and started writing my withdrawal letter. My hand shook slightly as I wrote.
Before I left, I had to protect what was mine. Even if I couldn’t dance this piece in public, I would never let anyone steal it.
This was my pride—my final act of defiance in this villa.
But I never expected the world to take even that last bit of pride away.
I stood backstage, listening to the applause echoing outside.
I had already submitted my withdrawal letter, but at the last minute, I was told the judges had rejected it.
“The competition’s about to start. Withdrawing now would mess up the whole schedule,” they said.
What shocked me even more was that Ginger, as the Vice President of the YAGP, was one of the judges.
This news shook the other contestants—after all, everyone knew she was Ulysses’s fiancée.
“Next, Darcey Lynn,” the staff member called, snapping me out of my thoughts.