The morning of Lily Harper’s sixteenth birthday began the way birthdays are supposed to begin—laughter in the kitchen, the smell of pancakes in the air, and a teenage girl pretending she wasn’t excited while secretly counting every message arriving on her phone. Lily walked into the kitchen wearing an oversized sweatshirt and messy hair, but the moment she saw the small cake waiting on the table she broke into the same bright smile she had worn since she was little.
“Mom, you didn’t have to make a cake this early,” she laughed.
