For a long, terrible second, Cheryl’s face went completely blank. Then the emotions flickered across it like a storm: shock, anger, disappointment, and finally—settling in like a stone—fear. But not for herself. For Madi.
“Hey, little one,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m your dad.” madi collins 18 and pregnant
She went into labor on a rainy Thursday, two weeks early. Leo was at work. Cheryl drove, running red lights, her nurse’s calm barely containing a mother’s panic. The hospital room was white and sterile, and Madi held her mom’s hand through twelve hours of pain she couldn’t have imagined in her worst nightmares. For a long, terrible second, Cheryl’s face went
The hard part wasn’t the physical discomfort—the backaches, the swollen ankles, the midnight cravings. The hard part was the quiet. The 2 a.m. moments when she lay awake in the dark, one hand on her belly, and felt the weight of her own childhood ending. She wasn’t a girl anymore. She was someone’s mother. For Madi
She didn’t know if she and Leo would make it. She didn’t know if she’d ever get her degree. She didn’t know if she’d ever look at her friends’ travel photos without a twinge of loss.
The nurse placed a warm, squirming bundle on Madi’s chest. A girl. Six pounds, seven ounces, with a shock of dark hair and Leo’s crooked frown. Madi looked down at that small, wrinkled face and felt something crack open inside her—not her ribs, but something deeper. Something she didn’t have a name for.
The next three months were a crash course in adulthood. Madi deferred her college scholarship—a heartbreaking phone call that left her hollow for days. She picked up extra shifts at the diner, ignoring the way her apron strained over her growing belly. She and Leo moved into the tiny, converted garage apartment behind her mom’s house. It had one bedroom, a kitchen the size of a closet, and a landlord (Cheryl) who charged them only what they could afford: $400 a month, utilities included.