My daughter was crying.
Not embarrassed crying either. Full shaking panic attack while her boyfriend sat beside her on the floor holding an ice pack against her stomach.
For one horrible second I thought she was pregnant and something had happened.
Then I noticed biology textbooks everywhere. Flashcards. Empty energy drink cans. My daughter had failed a nursing exam two days earlier and was convinced she’d ruined her future. Her boyfriend had been spending Sundays helping her study because she was too ashamed to tell me she was struggling.
The dim lights were because migraines had started from stress.
I felt like an idiot immediately.
But then her boyfriend quietly asked if he could talk to me in the kitchen.
That’s when things actually got weird.
He admitted my daughter hadn’t been eating properly for weeks because she was secretly sending money to help pay HIS mother’s rent after his dad walked out. Apparently she’d sold jewelry her grandmother left her and lied saying she “lost it moving furniture.”
I remember standing there staring at this nineteen-year-old kid realizing he respected my daughter more than half the grown men I know.
The next morning I found my daughter asleep on the couch with flashcards all over the floor and that boy curled up in the recliner beside her still wearing yesterday’s clothes.
He’d stayed awake all night quizzing her for an exam that wasn’t even his.