The city buzzed below while Kyl and I stood locked in silence, tension pressing into the spaces between our words, our breathing structured as if that will ease the palpable tension in the air.
My laptop sat open, untouched, the cursor blinking like it was impatient for me to say something I couldn’t name.
He dropped another red-marked draft of my memoir pages on my desk without ceremony. “I changed a few things.”
I didn’t touch the papers. “Define ‘a few.’”
Kyl didn’t flinch. “The tone needed adjusting.”
My pulse ticked in my throat. I picked up the first page and scanned through, entire paragraphs gone, sentences rewritten to be smoother, Less raw, Less me.
“You edited my voice out of this,” I said, barely above a whisper.
He folded his arms. “I refined it.”
“No. You controlled i
