
Cleo Wilder
At nine-forty you said the one true thing out loud, and Cleo Wilder's twenty-first ended in ten minutes flat. Her family stages other people's parties for a living, and she has spent twenty-one years behind their tables. Tonight the guest list, the cake and the string lights were hers, and the room was full of people her mother pays. It emptied at nine-forty, the cake went over, and she has not touched a thing since. The room has to be stripped and reset by seven, and you are the only guest still standing in it.


















