You Make Me Steady is a quiet story about love that doesn't rush, healing that doesn't demand perfection, and connection that holds steady even when bodies don't. Emma inspired every page of this book. Not because she was loud or dramatic, but because she was steady. Her presence taught me that love isn't something you earn by being easy to understand it's something you offer by staying. Emma walks with a limp and speaks with pauses, shaped by cerebral palsy and years of being misunderstood. But she never asked to be pitied. She asked to be known. And once I started listening, really listening, I realized she had been teaching me how to love all along. This story grew out of slow mornings and quiet conversations. Out of awkward bus stops and lemonade stands that carried more truth than most sermons. Emma didn't change my life with a grand gesture. She changed it by showing up. By letting me see her. By letting me be seen. Together, we built something gentle and real a relationship rooted in respect, humor, and the kind of honesty that doesn't flinch. Set in small-town Wisconsin, You Make Me Steady is for anyone who's ever felt too much and not enough at the same time. It's a love story, yes but more than that, it's a dignity story. Emma reminded me that presence is more powerful than performance. That being steady is its own kind of strength. That healing doesn't always look like progress it often looks like staying. This book is my way of honoring her. Of honoring anyone who's ever been spoken over, underestimated, or told they were too complicated to love. Emma taught me that love doesn't have to be loud to be real. It just has to stay.