The bus ride back felt slower than the ride there.
Faye sat by the window with her bag on her lap, watching the city pass in the opposite direction, the buildings and streets now carrying a different meaning than they had this morning. The same shops. The same traffic. The same Lagos heat pressing against the glass. But she was not the same person who had stepped onto this bus hours earlier.
She had been selected.
The words sat in her chest like a heartbeat, steady and insistent, refusing to be ignored. She touched the strap of her bag where her notebook was tucked inside, the same notebook she had carried into the studio, the same pages that had held her through years of performing in bars where nobody listened. Today, people had listened. Today, her name had been called. Today, she had walked out of a room as something she had never been before.
A signed artist.
