The work of witnessing required a different rhythm.
Not slower, more deliberate.
Aaliyah learned this when the messages began to shift again. They no longer carried urgency or confusion. They carried hesitation, the kind that came just before someone admitted they were standing at the edge of change.
I don't know how to step back without losing myself.
I've done this for so long I'm not sure who I am without it.
How do you leave something that still needs you?
She didn't answer right away.
She read each message carefully, then set it aside. Not to avoid it, but to listen for what wasn't being asked.
Most of the time, they weren't looking for instruction.
They were looking for permission.
She met one of them for coffee on a gray afternoon, a woman whose name had once anchored a department, whose decisions still shaped outcomes even after her formal authority had thinned.
They sat by the window, cups cooling between them.
