I opened the door ready to embarrass both of us.
The room was dark except for her desk lamp and the glow from the TV. Her boyfriend jumped so hard he nearly knocked over a bowl of popcorn.
But my daughter wasn’t half-dressed.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor in one of my old sweatshirts with mascara streaked under her eyes.
And she was crying.
Really crying.
Her boyfriend looked at me and immediately stood up like he thought he was in trouble. Then he said, “I told her we should tell you.”
Tell me what?
That’s when my daughter held up a stack of papers from the community college across town.
Academic probation notices.
Failed classes.
Withdrawal forms.
She’d lost her scholarship three months earlier and had been pretending to leave for class every morning anyway because she didn’t know how to tell me.
Every Saturday that boy came over pretending to “hang out,” but half the time he was helping her redo assignments trying to get her grades back up before I found out.
I just stood there feeling like the worst mother alive because my first thought had been sex instead of why my daughter barely smiled anymore.
Then she finally looked up at me and said, “Mom, I think something’s actually wrong with me.”
I sat down beside her thinking she meant depression.
But her boyfriend suddenly went pale.
And quietly said, “Show her the hospital bracelet.”
That’s when I noticed the trash can beside the desk overflowing with pregnancy tests.