Chapter 8: The Streets Don’t Teach Love

I was loved wrong before I ever knew what love was supposed to feel like. The streets taught me survival.

How to wear confidence like armor.

How to smile through pain.

How to make broken look beautiful.

People saw the body ,The pretty face.

The woman who knew how to survive. But very few ever stopped long enough to see the little girl underneath—the one still carrying wounds she never asked for. Yeah, I sold pieces of myself while trying not to lose my soul.

Not because I didn’t dream of love, but because survival has a way of changing the shape of your choices.

Still…

Somewhere inside me, I always wanted softness.

A family My parents.

A safe place.

Someone who could hold my scars without making me feel ashamed of them.

Someone patient enough to understand that healing is messy. That some days I needed a shoulder to cry on. And other days completely shut down. Trauma teaches you strange things.

How to push away what you need most.

How to question love.

How to fear being abandoned while wanting closeness at the same time. Who knew I would end up pregnant at just 16?

“Damn… I’m about to be somebody’s mom.”

I remember telling myself that my child would be my best friend. I wanted to give my baby everything I never had. See, me and my child’s father were two people trying to heal from different battles. He was eight years older than me, so his fight in life looked different than mine.

At first, things seemed okay.

We stayed in Sacramento for a while. It was tax season, so he had a little money. We bounced between staying with family and hotels.

But eventually the money ran out.

Reality showed up.

I was getting bigger every day, and by the time my son was born, we needed money for food, bills, diapers—everything. It felt like we argued every day because of the stress. That’s when I started thinking about doing what I knew best.

So I would leave him home with the baby and go work.

While I was working on International, I ran into an old friend. He had taken some old shut-down apartments and turned them into places people could actually live.

We gave him $500.

And just like that…

We had an apartment on 37th and International.

In a way, it made things easier I was right there where all the action was.

Work was close.

Home was close.

Everything was right there My baby’s father wasn’t the type to say:

“Stay inside. Let me figure it out.”

“I know you’re healing.”

“I got us.”

And maybe I never expected him to.

I had always been independent. I always told myself I would make it happen on my own.

I didn’t want to go without. See, being a teen mom doesn’t come with instructions you just figure it out as you go.

Every time I looked at my son, I felt guilty.

I wanted us to have more raising my baby

wasn’t hard my family was active in his life.

His dad was too.

To this day, I know he love his son with everything he have in him even though we

don’t speak. But jumping back into the lifestyle while trying to raise my child wasn’t easy.

Every minute I spent away from him made it harder to work. All I could think about was my son.

What if something happened to me?

What if I never made it home? Every night I told myself I had to make it back.

I had to.

Eventually my baby’s father wanted me to leave the streets alone.

But… I had a mission.

A plan.

A goal.

The problem was, he was fighting battles of his own. He didn’t smoke weed, but he did a lot of cocaine. The paranoia got worse. The arguments got worse.

And eventually…

He started putting his hands on me so I started leaving. I was back in the streets.

This time without my son.

I wanted to take him with me, but I knew I couldn’t. Calling the police never crossed my mind.

I just kept telling myself:

Stick to the plan. Keep moving.

Keep surviving. I’ll come back for my son

Sometimes while I was working, he would find me and make me come home.

Really, he wanted me there with our son.

And part of me understood that. But another part of me was tired.

We would sit and talk for hours, but I expected more from him I wanted to finally relax with no worry. Be a mother , Not hustling running the streets paying bills.

I wanted growth.

I wanted change.

Instead, things kept getting worse. The day he slapped and pushed me gave me a black eye

was the day I knew I was done.

Mentally.

Physically.

Emotionally.

But somehow, I still stayed. All I could do was cry.

Because the truth is… I wanted a family , I thought he would change.

The relationship was toxic but It wasn’t all bad.

shit it wasn’t good either. We were going in circles with no destination. And truthfully I was still lost.

It felt like every time I tried rebuilding myself, it felt like he poured his chaos into me I was carrying the weight of loving us both and our child.

Trying to build something that neither one of us fully knew how to build. And for a long time, that was enough for me to keep holding on. Knowing I had my own family.

See, I already knew the feeling of not being enough. I knew what it felt like to be controlled.

To be confused , to love somebody while losing yourself at the same time.

One minute he wanted me off the streets. The next minute I was back out there trying to keep our family afloat with no choice. It’s crazy how I was being talked down upon called Hoe’s made

me feel less than , Then in the same breath having to provide food rent habits. You go outside feeling so low but you gotta hold your head high. I was left with no room for change or security.

I had been wrestling that monster long before he came into my life. But after everything I had survived…

I didn’t want survival anymore. I wanted peace.

I wanted something real I wanted a love that felt safe enough to rest in. A love that didn’t hurt.

A love that didn’t require me to keep proving my worth. I was tired ready to give up my mind was playing tricks on me. I never recovered from postpartum so depression became my friend along with PTSD.

I couldn’t let my son down or my self it wasn’t just about me anymore. I had a son watching

looking up to me. My son became my motivation and it was up from there.