I was 30 when I met Rick and already convinced I’d missed the doorway to something lasting. I wasn’t the woman with a scrapbook of wedding dresses, but I did picture a noisy home—tiny socks tumbling in the dryer, fingerprints smudging the glass, laughter lifting out of the kitchen like steam. Instead, I had a one-bedroom apartment, a gasping spider plant, and a job that filled my calendar but starved my heart. The silence at night felt like an accusation.

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