Prologue
At seventeen, you thought you had your entire world figured out. Your parents were wrong about everything, and the boy you were in love with—the one everyone had warned you about—was the love of your life. Deep down, a part of you knew he was going to hurt you, destroy your faith in men, in the world. But you didn’t care because, at that moment, he was your whole world, and he’d told you there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for you.
Except stick around when the line on the stick turned pink or blue or appeared twice. And while you were happy because a baby meant you’d be with him forever, he had other ideas.
As did your parents. They were deeply religious and didn’t understand why you’d insisted on disobeying them. Why would you throw your life away for a boy who didn’t care about anyone but himself?
I love him, Daddy.
Love wasn’t enough. At least not to him.
Love meant something else to him, and as long as everything was just the two of you, there weren’t any issues.
Three of you became a problem.
I lay back and stared at the blue sky. I tried to imagine the clouds forming those shapes everyone saw when they gazed upward, but all I saw were mounds of cotton balls floating off to someplace better than where we were.
My best friend, Antonia, lay beside me, her hand in mine, staring at the same sky, the same clouds, the same nothingness.
“Maybe I should do what my parents want and give the baby up for adoption.” Instinctively, my hand covered my lower abdomen, where my little pea nestled.
“I can go with you, if you want to speak to someone about it.”
Antonia had always been by my side since we were three. Although I didn’t remember us at three, four, or five, I did remember us starting kindergarten together. Our teachers called us “inseparable busybodies,” and they wanted us in different classes. The joke was on them. The powers that be, thanks to Antonia’s aunt being the registrar at school, put us in the same class every single year. It wasn’t until junior high that we had different classes.
Different likes.
Always best friends.
“What if I keep her?”
“Is it a girl?”
I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I guess it could be a boy.”
“Or twins.”
I groaned at the thought and covered my face as a fresh wave of tears began to fall. “What have I done?”
Antonia let go of my hand and propped herself up on her elbow. “Nothing that any of our classmates haven’t done. We’re graduating soon, Miriam. Things will be okay. You can still go to college if you want.”
I did want to, but I knew my parents wouldn’t foot the bill if I had this baby. I’d heard about some programs, though. The government gave a lot of financial aid to single moms, and I could take out a school loan.
“If I keep this baby, we won’t be able to go to school together.” Going away to a big school like the University of Arizona had been our dream. Now it was just Antonia’s unless I made the right decision. Orthe wrong decision. It was hard to know which decision fell into the right category.
“If you keep this baby, you’ll be a mom, Miri.”
“I know.” My words were barely above a whisper. Being a mom was something I’d always said I’d do. Sure, I wanted a career, but I wanted children too. I just never thought I’d be a mom at eighteen.
“When do you have to decide?”
Without asking, I knew what she meant. I supposed when you were early in your pregnancy, everything was on the table.
“Soon.” I already knew I wouldn’t be able to do it, to follow through with ending my pregnancy. The father—the boy—I had considered the love of my life didn’t want anything to do with me or his child. He’d walked out on me, saying he had bigger dreams and aspirations than working some nine-to-five job so he could buy diapers and formula. This was news to me, since he’d already dropped out of high school and had a part-time gig at the auto shop.
Antonia lay back down, scooching closer to me. We tilted our heads toward one another, both sighing.
“Maybe my parents can help?”
