Chapter 3 - The Morning After
The sunlight filtered through the thin curtains of our living room,
casting long,
dusty shadows over the stacks of baby clothes.
I woke up on the couch,
my back aching from the springs,
but the house was already humming with activity.
Adriana was in the small kitchenette,
mixing formula with a precision that made her look years older than eighteen.
"You should be sleeping,"
I said,
rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
"The doctor said you need to rest after the delivery."
"The doctor doesn't have a pile of scholarship applications to finish,"
she replied,
not looking up from the bottle.
She had her laptop open on the counter,
the screen glowing with forms and essays.
"They're going to try to take them away,
aren't they?"
she asked,
her voice steady but laced with a hidden anxiety.
"The scholarships for 'outstanding young women' usually don't include teenage mothers."
I walked over and put my hand on her shoulder,
feeling the tension in her muscles.
"We will fight for every cent,"
I told her,
meaning it with every fiber of my being.
"You earned those grades,
and a baby doesn't change your GPA."
But we both knew the world didn't work that way;
we knew that 'morality clauses' were often just weapons used against the poor.
The phone on the counter began to vibrate,
an unknown number flashing on the screen.
Adriana looked at it with a mix of dread and curiosity.
"Hello?"
she said,
pressing the phone to her ear.
Her face went pale,
then tight,
her lips thinning into a hard line.
"I see,"
she said,
her voice dropping an octave.
"And is that a final decision?"
She listened for a moment longer before hanging up without saying goodbye.
"That was the university,"
she whispered,
leaning her forehead against the cool surface of the refrigerator.
"They saw the video of the graduation ceremony."
Someone had posted it online,
and it had gone viral within hours.
"They're rescinding the housing grant,"
she said,
a single tear falling onto the linoleum floor.
"They said the dormitory isn't equipped for infants,
and my presence would be a 'distraction' to other students."
The anger I felt was a physical thing,
a heat that started in my chest and radiated outward.
"They can't do that,"
I hissed,
already looking for my shoes.
"It's a public university,
they have rules against discrimination."
"They're not saying I can't go,
Mom,"
she clarified,
looking at me with hollow eyes.
"They're just making it impossible for me to stay."
The cost of an off-campus apartment in the city was triple our current rent.
It was a polite way of telling her to stay home,
to stay in her place,
to be the statistic they expected her to be.
"Then we bring the fight to them,"
I said,
my voice trembling with a new kind of resolve.
"I’ll take a third shift at the diner,
and we'll find a way."
But Adriana just shook her head,
looking at Lily,
who was beginning to fuss in her bassinet.
"I'm not a victim,
Mom,"
she said,
picking up the baby.
"And I'm not going to let them turn my daughter into a 'distraction'."
At that moment,
May you like
I realized my daughter wasn't looking for a way in anymore;
she was looking for a way to change the game entirely.
