# Chapter 22 Tension-Naming Conformance Audit

Source: `../checks/audits/tension_naming.md`

CARD: `Conflict: the wound is asymmetry; the portrait is tender but cannot answer it; the Week 6 fear canvas still proves he saw her fear before he told her the whole truth; June's New York choice is already made and must not become romance's reward.`

Named tension type: bounded private repair under asymmetry. The chapter must sustain pressure from withheld knowledge, consent terms, and June's already-made life decision without substituting public romantic payoff or treating the portrait/kiss as a cure.

DELIVERS(bounded private repair under asymmetry) - scene 1 - enactment quoted: `It was the second one she'd minded, the exit installed before she'd even reached for the door.` June's reply is not generic longing; it is a boundary test of Theo's reflex to pre-excuse himself. `A paragraph about Tuesday and the class turned, halfway through, into an explanation of why he should not feel guilty before he'd even arrived, so she held her thumb down until it disappeared.` The scene makes her protection active, then narrows her answer to `Sunday. 9. Just coffee.` - sustained: the tension holds through the last beat, where his `I'll be there. Nothing after it.` passes one bounded-term test without resolving the wound.

DELIVERS(bounded private repair under asymmetry) - scene 2 - enactment quoted: Theo names the wrong as control over consent, not romance inconvenience: `I had the fact that would have changed what you could say yes to. I kept it.` June tests sequence and scale: `So for seven weeks I was in a real thing that I thought was a fake thing, with the man whose aunt owned the room.` The New York choice remains non-reward: `I'm staying, Theo. It isn't for you.` The portrait is denied cure-status and placed under consent terms: `It isn't evidence of anything and it doesn't fix anything.` / `Tuesday, if I want to see it, I turn it around myself. If I don't, it stays.` - sustained: the only weak stretch is the fear-canvas explanation (`That blank is your station, empty...`), which risks becoming interpretive summary, but it still enacts the card's pressure because June uses the painting to assign Theo a concrete repair action: `Tuesday at four... You paint before the room fills up.`

DELIVERS(bounded private repair under asymmetry) - scene 3 - enactment quoted: the kiss is not substituted for terms: `brief because she made it brief` and `His hands stayed in his pockets the whole time.` June explicitly governs its meaning: `That happened because the terms are set. Not instead of them.` Theo's last claim is newly learned and limited, not mastery: `I learned it this morning, but I know it.` - sustained: the final card keeps the unsolved decision visible, `I turn it or it doesn't turn`; the dish waits by the door, but the portrait remains unturned.

Chapter verdict: DELIVERS(bounded private repair under asymmetry). The chapter does not swap in public grand gesture, apology-as-proof, or destination-choice-as-romantic-reward tension. It builds the named tension through behavior, withheld knowledge, terms, and object state. No announcement-only tension labels found; grep/line sweep found no empty labels such as `tension`, `charged`, `the air`, or `something felt`.

REVISION ORDERS: none.
