There were a lot of questions about my home life, how safe I felt, how supported I was. There were questions about the baby daddy, too, which got handily squashed when I told them I didn’t know his last name, where he was from and no, I promise, it wasn’t sexual assault. My takeaways from the meeting was that Mrs. Wong, my guidance counselor, had pretty metal hair with a white stripe starting at her temple, that I’d be meeting with the social worker once a month for check-ins, and that they wanted me to enroll in some state program for teen moms that met on Saturdays.

I was dubious of that and told Mom as much as we walked out of the school, my enrollment packet in hand.

She wasn’t keen on my skipping out.

“Do the crime, do the time, m’dear.”

“But I—”

“We’re not messing around with the school on this. They’re being pretty reasonable about your end of year, all things considered. Take some time to think about it, but I don’t want to push your luck.”

She wasn’t wrong. Since the kid was due in February, and I still had three months of senior year left, they determined I could effectively complete my schooling from home the last term without issue. Digital course loads and curriculums meant I could follow along at my own pace; the only time I had to bring my sad carcass in the flesh to campus was to take the finals with a teacher or counselor on hand to make sure I didn’t cheat. One downside: it was possible I wouldn’t actually graduate with my classmates. My ability to contribute to schoolwork might be diminished with a tiny human crap factory, and if I couldn’t complete at the same time as everyone else, there’d be no cap and gown.

I was weirdly okay with that. I didn’t know anyone in Stonington, and the important part was the diploma, not the horse-and-pony show. Mom seemed okay with it at first, but once we got into the car to leave the school...

“Well, I didn’t want those graduation pictures, anyway. Much rather have pictures of you with baby puke in your hair,” she said, strapping herself into the Jeep. “Sitting around in yoga pants, dark circles under your eyes, leaking through your bra and staining your shirts with breast milk. Much better than a cap and gown.”

“Eww! Wait, what... Baby puke in my hair? Does it defy gravity or something?”

“You’ve clearly never held a baby who’s spitting up. You were a champion barfer. Got great range. You’ve seen The Exorcist, right?”

“Oh, my God! Mom!”

“What! It wasn’t green, more white because of the formula and milk, but you get the picture.”