I left the marketing job that hollowed me out and started working part-time at a bookstore downtown. It didn’t pay much, but it gave me back my breath. At night, I wrote. I’d been scribbling stories since middle school, but never thought they mattered. Grandma did.
“You’ve got a voice, honey,” she’d say, catching loose pages on her kitchen counter.
“Don’t let the world silence it.”
So I posted a few pieces online under a fake name, expecting nothing. But the void didn’t swallow them. Comments trickled in. A small community formed—people who said my words made them feel less alone. I kept it secret. Then I met Liana at the shop. She listened more than she spoke, remembered tiny details, and made my heart skip like a record hitting the right groove. One evening, walking home through crunchy leaves, I told her about the inheritance.
“She must’ve really seen you,” she said. I nodded. For once, I didn’t cry.
