gave my first piece of critical code review feedback to someone who used to be my peer before I got promoted to lead and I rewrote the comment four times

Kept softening it until it said nothing useful, then kept un-softening it until it sounded like an attack. Landed on just describing the bug and asking a question instead of stating an opinion. They fixed it in ten minutes and thanked me for being direct. The dread was worse than the actual conversation, which I think is just how this goes for a while.