# Chapter 22 Set-Piece Intensity Audit - Current Text

SCENE FUNCTION: PASS - The high-leverage private confession set-piece is not just a relationship talk; it changes the book's contract. Evidence: truth named at line 67, stay clarified at line 91, portrait governed at lines 127-131, collaboration recommitted at line 145, kiss landed at line 165.

PRESSURE ESCALATION: PASS - The booth scene moves from coffee terms to institutional harm, to week-three asymmetry, to June's own wanted-you admission, to New York facts, to fear-canvas misread, to the hidden portrait. The strongest escalation quote is the jump from "I wanted you" (line 79) to "I'm staying, Theo. It isn't for you" (line 91).

STAGING: PASS - The set-piece stays physically legible: taped booth, old coffee ring, cup turns, hands on Formica, sugar caddy, check, coat, sidewalk, hands in pockets. Evidence: lines 29, 41, 61, 113, 139, 157, 165.

ANTI-CLIMAX RISK: CONTROLLED - The chapter card calls for "release, earned and unspectacular." The kiss is imperfect and bounded ("angle wrong", "brief because she made it brief", "hands stayed in his pockets", line 165), so the low spectacle is the intended intensity mode.

Chapter verdict: SET-PIECE-HOLDS.

REVISION ORDERS: none.
