When I was seventeen, one moment changed everything I thought I knew about my life — I found out I was pregnant.
That truth cost me my home, my father’s trust, and the sense of safety I’d always taken for granted. I expected anger or disappointment, maybe even a painful argument that would eventually turn into forgiveness. Instead, my father chose distance.
He looked at me the way he looked at broken engines in his garage — something he couldn’t fix. That day, he opened the front door and told me to leave.
“Then go,” he said quietly. His voice was calm, but it cut straight through me.
He didn’t shout or cry. He just… let me go. My father wasn’t cruel, but he was unyielding. His love had conditions, and once I no longer fit them, I was erased from his world.
At seventeen, I stood on the sidewalk with a small duffel bag and a heart full of fear. The baby’s father stayed around for two weeks before slipping away without a word. For the first time, I was completely on my own.
The years that followed were hard. I rented a tiny studio where the heater barely worked and the walls creaked when the wind blew. I stocked shelves during the day and cleaned offices at night. I whispered to myself in the dark, promising that somehow, some way, I’d make it.
When I gave birth, there were no balloons, no family waiting. Just me and a small, fragile boy whose tiny fist wrapped around my finger like he was promising that I wasn’t alone after all.
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