They didn't. Until I was already over the wall. The outside world smelled like rain and rust—imperfect, uncurated, glorious. #4412 sat on a bus bench, watching a pigeon fight a french fry. No one curtsied. No one demanded his gaze.

"Maybe," I said. "But I’d rather be nothing on my own terms than a perfect nothing on yours."

"You are nothing without us," she whispered.