"What have I gotten myself into?"
Amelia’s reflection stared back at her from the mirror bolted above the tiny bathroom sink.
At twenty-six, Amelia Kate Foster carried the quiet weight of a life shaped by disappointment. Her mother—a woman who loved too easily and left even faster—had once traded Amelia’s father for a delivery guy in a uniform the color of wilted leaves. Love, Amelia had learned early, wasn’t some grand promise. It was fleeting, messy, and unreliable. And in its aftermath, she’d learned one thing: depend on no one but yourself.
Her childhood wasn’t a story of scraped knees and bedtime stories. It was microwave dinners, school notes left unsigned, and empty living rooms echoing with silence. By the time she was ten, Amelia had been more parent than daughter. While her mo
