My mom got pregnant with me in high school.
She was seventeen. A kid herself. The kind of girl who used to practice prom poses in the mirror with her friends, who circled dress shops in magazines and dreamed about corsages and slow dances.
The day she told my biological father, he left.
No yelling. No dramatic fight. Just silence.
No calls. No help. No birthday cards. Nothing.
By the time prom season came around for her senior year, she was working double shifts at a diner, her feet swollen, her back aching, saving tips in a coffee can labeled DIAPERS. Her glitter dress stayed on a hanger in the back of the closet until one day she quietly donated it.
