Networking

The ballroom buzzed with handshakes, lukewarm coffee, and forced enthusiasm. Rowan moved from cluster to cluster, trading business cards like a gambler swapping chips.

“Content strategist?”
“Brand storyteller?”
“UX copy alchemist?”

Every exchange felt like peeling off an old skin. By noon, Rowan’s pockets were stuffed with other people’s identities — consultants, designers, futurists, coaches who promised to disrupt things no one understood.

Near the final booth, a woman in a silver blazer smiled. “Trade?”

Rowan handed over a card without checking which version of themself it was. The woman gave one in return — thick paper, embossed edges.

Rowan glanced down.
The logo looked familiar. The tagline, too.

But the name printed in clean, confident letters was not Rowan’s.

ROWAN EVE, it read.
Strategist. Speaker. Visionary.

A tiny photo in the corner showed Rowan — or someone who could’ve been Rowan, if they’d ever believed their own elevator pitch.

The woman in the blazer was already gone.

Rowan held the card, pulse quickening, wondering which version of themselves had just been handed out… and which one was expected to show up.