Hair in a high ponytail.Just enough makeup to make me look like I had it together.
I looked in the mirror, forced a smile, and whispered,Fake it ‘til you make it, babe.
It was fall in Willowbend.The kind of fall people wrote songs about.
Golden trees.Wind that bit just enough to make you pull your sleeves down.That low sun that made everything glow like it had a filter on.
It was the kind of day meant for new beginnings.
Not that I knew that yet.
Willowbend was a tiny town tucked into the foothills of southern Alberta.About an hour southwest of Hawthorne Ridge, where I grew up.
Hawthorne was bigger, more polished.The kind of place that ended up on tourism brochures for cozy festivals and pristine downtown shopping.
It’s also where my family still lives.
The Morgans.
Everyone knew us.My parents were high school sweethearts, still incredibly disgustingly amazingly in love.
My sister Clara ran a café that had its own hashtag and seasonal menus.
My brother Chase was a doctor who now worked with my dad at our family clinic.
My mom, who used to be the stay-at-home supermom who packed themed school lunches, now splits her time between volunteering and watching Clara’s son full-time.
They werethefamily.Golden, grounded, glossy in that way people envy but never question.
And then there was me.
The youngest.The baby.The “writer.”The one with too many feelings and not enough structure.
The one who moved to the farthest town in the cluster, as my mom still liked to call it.
The one they didn’t quite know what to do with.
They said things like:
“Why would you work for someone else when you could open your own bookstore?”
“Why ghostwrite for other people instead of publishing your own books?”
“Why hide who you are?”
And I knew they said it with love.Idid.
But that was the thing.
I wasn’t hiding.
I just needed tobesomeone on my own.
Not Clara’s baby sister.Not Chase’s shadow.Not the golden child who forgot how to shine the way they expected.
If I were being really honest, I didn’t even know if I wanted to shine anymore.
Didn’t know if I wanted to keep smiling just because it was expected.
