to outstretched hands
Once, long ago in a historic building, a thousand miles from where I write now, there was a boy who held my hand. Now, before you get excited, it wasn’t a romantic moment but one forged in the fire of nine years of friendship. The sun was bright, warming the eighth-grade classroom as we went around the room, reading excerpts from whatever important lesson of the week. I enjoyed reading, especially in class. How could I not? It was something else I felt like I was good at. I was that annoying kid who would jump in with the correct pronunciation of a word when another student struggled with it.
For some reason or another, on that particular day, I was buzzing with anxiety. If it wasn’t my knee knocking against the table, it was the faint rubbing of my hand against my jeans—back and forth and back and forth. As I read, my hands all but sawing a hole through the denim, the boy reached under the table and tucked my hand into his.
It probably doesn’t feel like a big deal but, as someone who has struggled with anxiety for her entire life, in that moment I felt seen in a way I hadn’t before. My anxiety, a trivial thing to others, wasn’t a physical malady that people could see. How could they know what was plaguing my mind? It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that anxiety wears many faces and none of us are immune.
I finished reading and then it was his turn. He didn’t let go of my hand until I’d finished buzzing, the panic of whatever was holding me at the time scared into dormancy by the simple act of being seen.
Ten years later, as I sat down to write a novel, I found myself drawn back to moments like that—small, human gestures that leave echoes.When I first started writing, I wanted to explore a love-triangle romance with a main character who was utterly horrible. No, I’m serious. Beside her name I wrote ‘just the biggest bitch.’ If I’m being honest, it felt like a way for me to share a sliver of myself with the world. The words that had been hurled at me—the truth I’d come to accept about myself—on display in a way that I could pick it apart while incorporating a happy ending. I toyed with the idea for a couple of months (30,000 words later) before taking a trip to New York, certain I wanted to base the story in one of the cities I love most. I stayed in an AirBnb in Brooklyn, got stuck in the middle of Manhattan (with a dead phone), and basked in the excitement of a city constantly in motion. There’s something about being in such close proximity to people without ever knowing their name that is simply thrilling.
And then I came back to St. Louis, the drive home from the airport reminding me how beautiful my fractured city was. The skyline came into view and my smile was as wide as the Arch, the giant hunk of metal getting closer with each passing minute. I knew I couldn’t write an authentic story in a city I only admired on the short trips I’d been on—no matter the twenty miles I was walking through the bustling city blocks every day. So, I tore the story apart and changed the setting. Here was another aspect for me to inspect—a city alive despite the pressure and division that has riddled its burdened streets for years. So much of St. Louis’s current beauty is built over desperation and tragedy and damn, that was a conversation I wanted to have.
Pick up the remote and fast forward a few months (about 55,000 words in). I started working with Nancy (coaching extraordinaire) and after our first session, I told her I was changing the entire narrative from present-tense to past-tense. I can tell you right now that that was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my entire life. The benefit (because of course there was one) was that I was able to take feedback from the sessions I was having with Nancy and incorporate it into the rewrite of the text itself. Reader, I wish I could tell you that this was the final change, that things were smooth sailing from there but I won’t hold you. My indecisive ass wasn’t quite done.
Eventually, I realized that there was even more I could be doing with this story. Rather than exploring a fluffy, love-triangle romance where the main character becomes softer and nicer and ‘finds her person,’ why not confront the questions behind her personality. Why is she so horrible? What makes her treat people this way? One of the first (and best) things Nancy taught me was that everything I put into this novel should have a reason. So I started simply asking myself ‘why?’ and let those answers guide the narrative. I reframed the novel once more and started leaning into some of my own fundamental beliefs:
Everyone has a reason for how they act—whether it’s a front or their authentic-self showing up, there’s a reason for it. There are a plethora of explanations for all of our complexities, some of us carrying a longer, heavier list than others but this character should encourage people to ask that of her: tell us why you behave this way.
Everyone is capable and deserving of healing. Every. Single. One. Of. Us. Is that path the same for everyone? Of course not—just like there is an abundance of explanations, there is a different road that everyone has to take, catered to them, the trauma they carry, and (most importantly) what keeps their peace the safest.
Suddenly, I found myself being taken through a different story (one I often tell people told itself—I just typed it out). I’m still not ready to share too much about it because it’s not quite perfect yet. What I will say is that the manuscript that I ended up with is the story of a girl trying to break free from the thoughts that became the foundation of her life. It’s a discussion about grief, and trauma, and the lasting impact they have on us. It’s a conversation about grace and how far we extend it to others (fictional or real), and how little we reserve for ourselves. It’s a reminder that the voices that silence our suffering may sometimes be loud but damn it, we can be louder.
This book is an outstretched hand, held out for anyone who hasn’t once in their life felt seen.
I don’t know when this book will get to be yours but I hope that, when it is, you take the time to sit with us for a while. We might be bitchy, but we don’t bite.
;)
Kaye
