After Kayla’s mother leaves her, her father raises her to the best of his ability. Things are fine until he meets Tanya, her stepmother, who joins the family with her daughters. Things seem fine until tragedy hits and Kayla’s father dies, leaving her in the care of Tanya—where she is forced to decide what to focus on while she’s under Tanya’s roof.

My mother was never meant to be a mother. She said exactly that to my father when I was about three months old, and then she left.

“I’m sorry, Collin,” she told him while packing her bags. “But this just isn’t the life for me. I cannot do this. I don’t know how to be a mother, and I don’t know if I want to try anymore.”

“But Kayla needs you,” my father said.

“I’ll do more damage if I stay,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

And then she walked out of our lives.

For years, my father relied on my grandparents to help raise me, and they did a good job of making me feel loved and cared for, despite the fact that my mother had chosen to leave me behind.

“It’s difficult, I know,” my grandmother said while we sat at the table one day. “But you need to remember that being a parent isn’t for everyone, Kayla. Sometimes people only realize that too late.”

I understood my grandmother’s logic—it made sense to me. This was beyond my control. But at the same time, there was nothing easy about accepting the fact that my mother had chosen to leave me—that loving me wasn’t enough.

But as I grew, my father became more and more important to me—he was the one person who would do anything for me.

It was us against the entire world.

But then when I was twelve, my father met Tanya at my school. She had a set of twins who were a grade above me, and they met at a school fundraiser.

“Kayla, we’re really spending our Saturday at your school?” my father grumbled to me as he took one of the containers of cupcakes from the car.