It was only 300 words, but when she reached the final sentence, the panic had vanished. She hadn't written a masterpiece, but she’d written her story. She wasn't just a 17-year-old girl "barely" surviving her to-do list anymore. She was a writer, and she had something to say.
She wrote about sitting in this exact chair, about the fear that her future was barely in her own hands, that it was all scheduled, ranked, and judged. She wrote about wanting to be able to pause, to just breathe . 8teensworld barely
Maya sighed, her eyes resting on her screen. She hadn't even started writing a story; she was trying to live one. She had spent the last three days working on a piece for a competition writetheworld.com that just didn’t feel right. She wanted to win, but her story felt, well, barely there. It was only 300 words, but when she