Liana became the second person to read my work. She curled up on my couch with printed pages and a pen, marking the margins:
“This line lands.”
“Say the thing you’re avoiding.”
“You have something to say.”
And when she said it, I believed her.
Six months later, I self-published a small collection. It didn’t go viral, but it reached the right eyes. An editor emailed: “Ever thought about writing a novel?”
I stared at the subject line until it blurred, then forwarded it to my aunt:
“She was right.”
My aunt replied:
“She always was.”
