She’s yours. I can’t do this.
That was all it said.
Dad later admitted he didn’t know who to call. His mother had died years earlier, and his father had disappeared long ago. He lived with an uncle who barely spoke to him except about grades or chores.
He was just a teenager with a part-time job and an old bike.
Then I started crying.
So he picked me up.
And he never put me down again.
The next morning was his graduation.
Most people would have skipped it. Some might have panicked, called the police, or handed the baby over to social services.
My dad wrapped me tighter in the blanket, grabbed his cap and gown, and walked onto that football field carrying me.
That was the moment captured in the photograph above our couch.
After that, he gave up college to raise me.
He worked construction during the day and delivered pizzas at night. Sleep came in short fragments. When I started kindergarten and cried because another girl laughed at my messy ponytail, he watched terrible YouTube tutorials just to learn how to braid my hair.
