It started the same way it always did: late nights, empty mugs of coffee, and the soft scratch of your pen against paper. Writing was your secret refuge, something you loved but never shared. Not really.

At least, not until Guinevere Beck found out.

She stumbled across your notebook one evening when you left it on the corner of the café table. You reached for it, heart pounding, but she was already flipping through the pages, her lips parting as her eyes darted across your words.

"This is yours?" she asked, looking up at you with something close to awe.

You froze, embarrassed. "It’s nothing. Just… ideas. I don’t really—"

"Stop," Beck interrupted, closing the notebook gently and pressing it back into your hands. "This isn’t nothing. This is… alive. Your voice, the way you put emotions into words—it’s the kind of writing people search for."

Her tone was steady, but her eyes were bright, insistent. She leaned in, resting her chin on her hand. "Why aren’t you sharing this? Why aren’t you publishing?"

You laughed nervously. "Because no one would care. Because it’s not good enough."

Beck shook her head, a small smile tugging at her lips. "That’s exactly why you should. Every writer feels that way. Every single one. But you—" She reached across the table, her fingers brushing yours in a grounding touch. "You’ve got something real here. Something people would want to hold onto."

The café around you buzzed with life, but in that moment it felt like only the two of you existed.

"Promise me you’ll at least try," she said softly. "Send it out. Let someone else see what I see. Because… your words deserve the world."