Can a story save a life?
Creative writing student Andrew Joseph is searching for a happy ending. Or at least a fair one. He has no idea what this might look like in reality.
After being attacked by his boss, Andrew struggles with whether to exact bloody vengeance or to forgive him. Andrew’s friend Perico believes murder is the only way to achieve retribution, and he’s willing to help him accomplish this. But Andrew isn’t so sure. His solution is to write a story about his situation, hoping that justice will play out accordingly if the book ends up in the right hands.
When Perico dies unexpectedly, Andrew must grapple with the implications alone. That is, until he meets Bellatrix, Perico’s long-lost daughter, who moonlights as a contract killer.
As Andrew continues to write, the lines between reality and fiction blur. His professor has tasked him with writing two endings to the story, so that he might fully explore the ideas of fairness and free will.
But free will is a tricky gift— and it leaves Andrew with an ending he never could have expected.
How Lealtad came to be written…
Jorge San Martin Zambrano was inspired to write Lealtad when he saw a yellow sticky note on a glass door. Onto this note, a young woman had poured her pain, describing a date gone bad. What struck him was the loyalty the woman showed to herself in not being silent about her pain. Reading the note, Jorge understood that he needed to show himself that type of loyalty. And he realized that he could be a voice for the voiceless. That moment was a catalyst.
As he wrote, he recalled his own experience being inappropriately touched by a person in power, and he went through a progression of devastation, rage, forgiveness, and, ultimately, healing—a process of becoming loyal to himself.
Many of Jorge’s works explore forgiveness as a form of healing. He believes forgiveness restores the soul, where our most profound emotions rest and sometimes hide.
Lealtad shows us that it is possible to be whole again through forgiveness. It shows us that forgiveness is an act of empowerment.