Work swelled. With the promotion came better rooms—rooms where my voice didn’t have to fight its way through. In one meeting, a venture client floated a pitch for an app that repackaged predatory loans in pastel UI. I closed the deck, pushed it back across the table, and said, “Our brand doesn’t launder harm.” The room went quiet. The CEO blinked, then smiled like he’d remembered his own spine. “Kayla’s right. Next item.” When the elevator doors shut, my reflection looked like someone I would have wanted to know at twenty‑three.
Morgan invited me to a backyard barbecue in late August, a low‑key celebration that her last three deals had closed without drama. She lived on a quiet street with big trees and kids drawing suns with chalk. The grill smoked; someone’s playlist cycled through Springsteen and then Lizzo and then a podcast about national parks. I brought a peach cobbler that stained the plates gold. A woman from title escrow asked me where I’d gotten my dining chairs and what it was like to hike in Sedona alone. “Quiet,” I said. “Not empty. There’s a difference.”