My backpack felt heavy as hell as I tossed it into the backseat of my car. I groaned as I climbed behind the wheel, feeling exhausted.
I sat there at the wheel for a minute, staring into the distance. I was in the student parking lot of Purdue University after my first day of my senior year, or at least my second attempt at my senior year.
I was beyond tired. I knew it was going to be difficult, but I never guessed exactly how difficult. Nobody told you that raising a baby while trying to go to school full time, even with the help of your amazing parents, was pretty impossible.
But I had to do it. I knew that if I didn’t get my own education and further myself, I’d be doing Mason a disservice. I needed to be able to get a good job to support him. He was all I had, and I was all he had. Being a single mother wasn’t easy, especially a single mother in your early twenties.
I never imagined this would happen to me. I always saw those reality shows about pregnant teenagers, and I always assumed that they were just really dumb. They weren’t using protection, or maybe they weren’t taking their birth control properly, or something along those lines.
But there I was, a virgin, and the first time I had sex I got pregnant. We used a condom—I distinctly remember him putting one on—but a few months later I wasn’t feeling good, hadn’t gotten my period, and sure enough I was pregnant.
I finished as much of that semester as I could, but eventually my parents made me stop going to classes and focus on having my child. They were amazing, my parents. Roger and Celine Bright were supportive, kind, patient, and basically I would be totally lost without them.
I started the engine and headed home. Fortunately my hometown of Dayton wasn’t too far from campus, and so I could commute to school every day while my mom watched Mason back home. I hated leaving Mason alone with my mom, but she understood and encouraged me to get back to classes to finish my degree.
One and a half semesters’ worth of credits, that was all I needed, and then I was finished. As I headed home, exhausted from staying up most of the night with Mason, I felt for the first time like I couldn’t do it.
But of course I was going to. No matter how tired I got, I had to get my degree if I wanted to have a future for Mason.
Fifteen minutes later, I was pulling into the driveway of my parents’ house. It was two stories with blue shutters and white siding all around it, just like most of the other houses in the neighborhood. I climbed out of the car and grabbed my backpack.
As I walked into the house, the smell of my mom cooking hit me like a hammer. I breathed deeply, smiling for the first time all day, and headed into the kitchen.
Mason was sitting in his little bouncy chair, smiling up at my mom as she worked at the stove.
“Hi, Mom,” I said.
“Honey, you’re home!” Celine walked over and kissed me on the cheek. “How was it?”
“It was great,” I said, and went over to Mason. “Hello, big boy. How was Grandmommy today?” I asked, picking him up. He smiled and laughed at me as I bounced him, and suddenly the whole day seemed completely worth it.
“He was good today,” Mom said. “Even took a nice long nap.”
“Oooh, took a nap,” I said to Mason. “Sleeping during the day but not at night? Naughty little boy.”
He just cooed at me and I laughed.
“Dinner in fifteen,” Mom said.
“Okay. Thanks.” I took Mason out into the living room and sat down with him in my lap.
As I looked into his piercing blue eyes, couldn’t help but think about Mason’s father.
Emory, the total stranger, the ghost. He had swept into my life and overwhelmed all my defenses, and he had given me one of the best nights I’d ever had.
Lindy hadn’t believe me at first. When I got back to the room the next morning, she was in full-on panic mode and had even called the front desk demanding that they find me. I’d laughed and told her not to worry.
It wasn’t until I showed her the note that she finally believed me. Tara Bright, life-long virgin, had gone home with a total stranger. She wanted to know every single detail about the guy, and so I told her: mysterious, tall, bright blue eyes, muscular, tattoos, intense, amazing. That description failed to live up to the real Emory, but I figured I’d never see him again.
And I was absolutely right.
Emory was like a ghost. When I found out that I was pregnant, it was obvious who the father was. I’d never had sex before and hadn’t had it since him, and so it must have been that very first time. I called up the resort where we had stayed and asked if they had a record of a man named Emory staying there, but they said they didn’t. I couldn’t tell if that was because they didn’t give out that sort of information or if he had given me a fake name, but I assumed the latter considering I probably cried on the phone for ten minutes to that poor woman.
I tried everything after that, even hired a private detective, but nobody could find a thing about this ghost named Emory, and eventually I gave up.
I couldn’t spend my life hunting for a man that had completely disappeared. I had to focus on my new life, and that new life was Mason.
As I bounced Mason and made faces at him, I heard the doorbell ring. “I got it,” Mom called out. I heard her open the door and then some voices, and then Lindy walked into the living room.
“Hey, girl!” she said, coming over toward me.
I grinned at her. “Hey yourself.”
Mom went back to cooking as Lindy sat down on the couch with me.
“I heard Celine was cooking dinner, so I got my ass over here,” she said.
“Oh good. I’m sure you were expected.”
“Please. Celine always expects me.”
I laughed. “How’s it going?”
“Good. How was class?”
“Tiring,” I said honestly. “This little guy decided he didn’t want to sleep well last night. Right, Mason?”
Lindy laughed. “May I?”
I handed Mason over to her and she bounced him. “I can’t believe how big he is now. What is he, five months?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sleeps through the night most nights, but of course not last night.”
She laughed. “Well I’m proud of you for getting back out there.”
I smiled at her. “Thanks, Lindy.”
Lindy had been amazing. She finished her degree and got a job working as an administrative assistant in Purdue’s alumni division, which meant she was still living nearby. She came over all the time and spent a lot of time with Mason, and we joked that she was basically like his second mother.
I’d decided to make that a little more official when I made her Mason’s godmother.
“How were your classes?” she asked.
“Good. It felt weird being back there,” I said honestly. “I remember being an actual college student before this little guy.”
Lindy grinned. “Yeah. Feels weird being graduated. I still sometimes think I’m going out to a kegger over the weekend.”
“You’re saying you don’t?”
“Only sometimes.”
Just then, Mason started to make a face. I knew what that meant, and I quickly took him from Lindy. “He’s about to cry,” I said, “and he needs a change.”