I was only sixteen when I found out I was pregnant. My boyfriend at the time, Mark, was seventeen, and when I told him, he disappeared without a trace. Then, Mark came back. It happened at my son’s doctor’s appointment. I turned around, and there he was. He went on about how he regretted everything and how he wished he had been there. When he finally stopped, I took a deep breath and said, “You don’t get to walk back into our lives just because you suddenly feel guilty.”
He blinked, like he didn’t expect me to say that. Maybe he thought I’d cry or fall into his arms. But I didn’t. I was tired. Tired in a way only a single mom working double shifts and going to night school can be.
Mark looked the same, just older. The same brown eyes, same nervous fingers tapping at his sides. But something about him felt… smaller. Maybe it was seeing him after all the storms I’d already weathered without him.
“I know I don’t deserve a second chance,” he said, voice low. “But I just want to meet him. Just once.”
I stared at him for a long second. My son, Caleb, was in the little play area by the receptionist’s desk, stacking blocks with all the focus in the world. He looked so much like Mark it hurt sometimes. Same wild curls. Same smirk when he was up to something.
But unlike Mark, Caleb never ran away from anything.
“Why now?” I asked, arms crossed, trying not to let my voice shake.
He sighed, eyes glancing toward the floor. “My mom… she passed away last month. Cancer. Before she went, she asked me if I ever reached out to you. She said I’d regret it forever if I didn’t. And… I do. I already do.”
There was silence. Just the quiet thud of blocks and the hum of a pediatric clinic.
“I can’t make promises,” I said. “But you can say hi to him. Here. Today. Just this once. I don’t owe you anything more than that.”
He nodded quickly, like a drowning man grabbing a rope.
When Caleb came back to sit beside me, Mark crouched down gently. “Hey, buddy,” he said with a careful smile. “I’m Mark.”
Caleb just blinked at him and offered him a goldfish cracker. Mark laughed a little, probably surprised, and took it.
I didn’t say anything as they talked. I just watched. And something in me cracked open that day — not for Mark, but for the girl I used to be. The one who thought her life had ended at sixteen.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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