When my girlfriend got pregnant, I didn’t run. I got a job at a hardware store, kept going to school, and told myself I’d figure everything else out somehow. And, honestly… I did.
We had plans back then. A tiny apartment. A future we had scribbled out on the back of a fast-food receipt between part-time shifts, just trying to stay afloat and finish school. We were both orphans—no safety net, no family to fall back on. It was just us.
But by the time Ainsley was six months old, her mom realized this wasn’t the life she wanted at 18. One August morning, she left for college… and never came back. She never called. Never checked in. Not once did she ask how our daughter was doing.
