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.
The next week was a blur of appointments and conversations. Leo took the news better than she expected—or maybe just quieter. He stared at the ultrasound image, a grainy black-and-white blob with a flickering heartbeat, and his jaw tightened. madi collins 18 and pregnant
“So what do you want to do?” he asked, finally meeting her eyes. She went into labor on a rainy Thursday, two weeks early
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. The hospital room was white and sterile, and
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Cheryl said, muting the TV.
It was the question everyone asked, wrapped in different packaging. Are you keeping it? Are you getting married? Are you dropping out of school? Madi didn’t have answers. She only knew that when she saw that tiny, bean-shaped heartbeat flutter on the screen, something primal clicked into place. It wasn’t a consequence anymore. It was a person. A very small, very dependent person.
Leo nodded slowly. “Okay. Then I need to talk to my boss about a raise.”
