That thought kept me going as I ascended to the twenty-eighth floor of the Ganas Tower. Eyes closed, sucking in air through my nose and exhaling slowly out of my mouth for a few seconds, I pushed down the urge to talk myself out of it. As I neared my office I shut the door right in the face of the smug little devil perched on my shoulder whispering in my ear that the Duarte family could not afford to take one more risk. That I was going to fuck up and waste my savings. That no one in their right mind would pay me to renovate their house. That people might hit like or comment on TikTok, but they would never actually shell out thousands of dollars and entrust me with their entire homes. That decorating bedrooms in the theme of someone’s favorite book could never work as a viable business. That I would be back here in a few months begging for my job. I shut all of that out, swallowed every ounce of doubt and imagined it being crushed to dust in my gut. Hesitation was not part of the program today. I had to stick to the plan.

Finally launching my business, the only thing in my life that I was proud of: Bookish Boudoir.

While in grad school for fun I started doing book-themed budget bedroom makeovers for my friends. They’d give me a thousand bucks and I would turn their room into an homage to their favorite story. Julia—who honestly always had the best ideas—suggested I do before and after posts on Instagram. I tried it and it kind of blew up. I was a whiz with the sewing machine and knew every trick in the book when it came to DIY, and soon I started making custom designs for my clients. When word started getting around a bunch of other grad students wanted my makeovers. I even had people sliding into my DMs, asking to book me. Since then, I’d been steadily building it up.

But for the money to really be good, I needed to focus solely on BB. Which was hard while juggling three jobs. Whenever I wasn’t managing Theo’s life, or doing makeovers, I took on freelance work from architects, which left me barely enough time to eat, shower and sleep a few hours. Something had to give and for once I was going to do the thing that made me happy.

I took out my phone and scrolled until I found my latest makeover. A suite inspired by a wildly popular fantasy series. I had read the books and loved them and went all out on recreating my vision for the Night Court where the protagonists reigned. The post for it went viral and it had given me the last push to finally strike out on my own. As I read the positive comments, I began to feel calmer.