After the ceremony ended, families crowded the lawn outside the auditorium. Everywhere I looked, graduates were hugging parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters.
My classmates posed beside balloons and flower bouquets that seemed almost taller than they were.
Emma reached for one floating balloon and giggled.
I smiled, but there was an ache inside me.
No one from my family had come.
Not my mother.
Not my father.
Not even my older brother.
When I had told them I was pregnant at nineteen, they acted as though I had embarrassed the entire family.
My father had looked me straight in the eyes and said words I could never forget.
“You’ve thrown your future away.”
My mother cried—not because I was scared or alone—but because she worried about what the neighbors would think.
