I was seventeen when I got pregnant, and the first thing I felt wasn’t fear. It was shame. Not because of the babies—I loved them before I even knew I was carrying two—but because I learned, almost instantly, how to make myself smaller. I learned to walk hallways without drawing attention, to angle my body behind cafeteria trays, to smile while my life veered sharply away from the one everyone else seemed to be living.
While other girls worried about homecoming dresses and college applications, I learned how to keep crackers down between classes and whether swollen ankles meant I could still finish the school year. My days filled with doctor visits, paperwork, and quiet ultrasound rooms where the sound was kept low. That’s where I saw them for the first time: two heartbeats, steady and close together, like they already knew they had each other. In that moment, something inside me hardened into resolve. Even if no one else stayed, I would.
Their father, Evan, said he loved me. He was charming, confident, the kind of boy teachers forgave without trying. When I told him I was pregnant, he held me in the car behind the old movie theater and promised we’d figure it out together. He said we were a family now. The next morning, he disappeared. No call. No note. His mother told me he’d gone out west and shut the door before I could ask where. He blocked me everywhere. That was the last I heard of him.
My parents were disappointed—embarrassed, even—but when my mother saw the sonogram, she cried and told me she’d help. And help she did. When the boys were born—Noah and Liam, though I can’t remember who came first—they were perfect and loud and warm. Liam arrived fists clenched, ready for battle. Noah was quiet, observant, like he’d already figured the world out.
The years blurred together. Bottles, fevers, late-night lullabies whispered through exhaustion. I worked whatever jobs I could get. There were nights I sat on the kitchen floor eating peanut butter on stale bread, crying because my body couldn’t keep up with my will. I baked every birthday cake myself, not to impress anyone, but because buying one felt like surrender.
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