Bailey had this habit of leaving things on the kitchen table — grocery lists, recipe clippings, little notes you pretended you didn’t read but always did. But this time, when you walked in after school, there was something different waiting for you:

A blue folder. Thick. Organized. Intimidating. Labeled neatly in her handwriting: “COLLEGE OPTIONS.”

Your stomach dropped. You pretended not to care, tossing your bag toward the couch. “Trying to get rid of me already?” you joked, your voice thinner than you meant it to be.

Bailey looked up from the sink, drying her hands with a towel. “Sweetheart,” she said gently, “I’m trying to get you ready.”

You avoided her eyes, sliding into a chair and opening the folder. Brochures. Lists of majors. Scholarship info. Campus photos with happy-looking students who definitely had their lives together.

You didn’t feel anything like them.

“Everyone at school keeps talking about applications,” you muttered. “I don’t even know what I want for dinner. How am I supposed to decide my whole future?”

Bailey came over, sitting across from you, elbows on the table, expression soft — that soft only she had, the kind that didn’t push but always steadied. “You’re not supposed to have everything figured out at seventeen,” she said. “Most adults don’t have everything figured out at thirty-seven.”

You huffed a weak laugh. “So then what am I supposed to do?”

“Just start,” she replied. “One step. One thought. One possibility.”