I was eighteen years old when I finally understood something that took me my whole life to learn.

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Love is not always quiet.

Sometimes it is not gentle or private.

Sometimes love means standing up, out loud, in front of everyone, for the person who has spent years standing up for you when no one was watching.

That realization came during my senior year, as prom season crept closer.

While my classmates talked endlessly about dresses, dates, and after-parties, my thoughts kept drifting somewhere else entirely.

They kept drifting to my mom.

Her name is Emma, and she had me when she was just seventeen.

Before that, she was like every other high school girl. She dreamed about prom dresses, slow dances, graduation night, and the kind of future you imagine when life still feels wide open.

Then she found out she was pregnant.

And everything changed overnight.

The boy responsible disappeared the moment she told him.

No explanation.

No support.

No goodbye.

Just gone.