Emily was 14 years old and sat on the porch of her family’s suburban Ohio house with a duffel bag at her feet and a phone that was only 12% charged. The wind brought the sting of early November, but it wasn’t the cold that made her shudder; it was the quiet behind the closed door.
Emily’s mom had been in the kitchen two hours earlier, looking pale and stiff as she held the pregnancy test Emily had thrown out, which was wrapped in tissue paper twice.
“You lied to me,” her mother replied in a voice that sounded flat and artificial. “All this time.” How long have you been waiting?
Emily couldn’t answer right away. She was still thinking about it. She hadn’t even told Carter, the boy she had been seeing in secret for four months.
“Eight weeks,” she said in a low voice.
Her mom looked at her, then at Bill, her stepfather, who was halfway into the room. She didn’t say anything at first; she just crossed her arms.
In the end, her mom declared, “You can’t keep him.”
When Emily looked up, she was shocked. “What?”
You heard me. And if you think you can just stay in this house and ruin this family’s excellent name—
Bill sighed and said, “He’s fourteen.” “Karen, he has to deal with the music.”
“I’m not…” Emily started, but the phrase didn’t finish. She realized that what she said didn’t mean anything.
At night, she was on the porch. No shouting. Don’t ask for things. She had time to acquire two pairs of jeans, three T-shirts, her math binder, and a bottle of pregnancy vitamins from the clinic that was almost empty. She put everything in the bag and zipped it up.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Jasmine’s place. She sent a text first, then called. No one answered. It was a night for school.
She felt sick to her stomach. She was sick to her stomach since she was going to be homeless and didn’t want to deal with being sick.
She grabbed on to herself more tightly and looked about. There was no noise, and every house was a cage of warm, golden light and normalcy. The porch light behind her went out. Her mom usually told it to stop at a specific time.
That was it.
She wasn’t going to come back.
Emily finally stopped attempting to get in touch with Jasmine. She couldn’t type because her fingers were too numb. She walked around 11 at night. She walked by the park where she and Carter used to spend time together. She walked by the library, where she first looked up “pregnancy symptoms” on Google. It felt like every step was getting harder.
She didn’t cry at all. Not yet.
The teen shelter in the city was five miles away. She had seen it earlier on a poster in class. “Safe place for kids.” Nobody asked any questions. “Don’t judge.” That stuck with her.
When she got to the shelter, her feet hurt and her head felt light. There was a buzzer, but the door was locked. After a minute, a woman with short, gray hair opened it and looked her over from head to toe.
“What’s your name?”
“Emily, I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
She thought it would be colder indoors. Not comfy, but calm. Donna, the woman, handed her a blanket, a granola bar, and a bottle of water. Don’t talk. No threats. She ate carefully because her tummy pained.
That night, she slept on a bunk bed with two other girls: Maya, who was 16 and working on her GED, and Sky, who didn’t say much. They didn’t ask anything. They did things their own way.
The next morning, Donna took her to a little office. “Emily, you’re safe here.” You will get a worker to help you. Take care of your health. Help with academics. We won’t notify your parents unless you are in severe trouble.
Emily nodded.
“And I know you’re pregnant,” Donna said in a quiet voice. “We’ll help you with that, too.”
For the first time, Emily felt some breath rush back into her lungs.
Emily learnt how to take care of herself in the weeks that followed. Angela, her social worker, helped her set up prenatal care appointments, undergo therapy, and sign up for a local alternative high school where pregnant girls could keep going to school.
Emily worked very hard on her academics. She doesn’t want to be known as “the girl who got pregnant at 14.” She wanted to be more than that. For her own good. She also wanted to think about how the baby inside her was doing.
Finally, around Christmas, Carter sent her a text that said, “I heard you left.” Is that true?
She looked at the screen. She got rid of the message after that.
He was aware. He simply didn’t care enough to be there.
Her tummy started to round out by March. She went to school in maternity pants that the shelter’s clothes closet gave her, and she read every parenting book in the library. The fear came back some nights. What kind of mother could she be at 14?
But there were times during the checkup when she could hear the heartbeat or when Sky, who usually didn’t talk, smiled and put a hand on her stomach. Those were her favorite times.
In May, she stood in front of her alternative school class and told them how many teens in Ohio were pregnant. She spoke with confidence. What she stated was interesting. She didn’t look like a girl who had lost everything. She looked like a girl who was working on something new.
Emily’s baby, Hope, was born in July, but she wasn’t with her parents. She was with Donna, Angela, Maya, and Sky instead, who were chosen to look after her. Her new family.
She was only 14. She was still afraid. But she wasn’t by herself anymore.
Emily said, “We start from here,” as she held Hope in her arms in the hospital room, which was full of summer sunlight.