I knew the specific hollow sound of a caseworker closing a file.

I learned young to take up as little room as possible — to ask for nothing and expect less.

By twenty-five I had carved out a small, quiet life that was entirely mine: a studio over a bakery, a job managing a rare-book shop, a routine I could predict.

It was not glamorous.

It was safe, and safe was more than I had ever been given.

Chapter 4 — Dexter