The Girl Who Wrote Her Way Home

Chapter Fifteen: The Notebook

Eliana didn't remember when the rule started -only that it existed.

Her notebook, the one with folded corners and ink-stained margins, was off- limits. Not to the world, just to her past self. Once a page was filled, she never reread it. Never questioned it. Never edited it.

"Write it and leave it," she used to say.

It was her only rule.

A safety not for honesty. A rebellion against perfectionism. A place where the version of herself she tried to bury could breathe.

Ayoola found her one afternoon under the train bridge, notebook open, staring at a blank page like it had insulted her.

"You stuck?" he asked, crouching beside her, the scent of linseed oil and rain clinging to him.

"No," she lied.

He didn't press. Just picked up a stone and tapped it rhythmically against the gravel.

She blinked. "What?"

"You have a rule for everything, Eliana. What's the rule for writer's block?"

She hadn't thought about it. Not once.

"I don't know," she admitted.

He handed her a pencil.

"Then make one."

And just like that, she did.

Rule#2: Write anyway. Even when it hurts. Especially then.

She scribbled it in the back of the notebook underneath it, she added a third line without thinking:

Rule#3: Let someone read it when you're ready. Even if your not sure what it means.

The notebook had always been hers.

Now, it was becoming something more -not just a container for survival, but a mup a becoming.

And for the first time, she didn't mind the idea of someone reading between the lines.