Chapter Three #2
But for now, we had this—pancakes and the simple stubborn joy of survival. Of love. Of living one breakfast at a time in a world that wanted to devour us both.
The afternoon found me hollow-eyed and brain-dead after four hours of remote tutoring. My laptop was warm against my thighs, the screen full of red corrections and gentle suggestions that felt more like pleas.
Leo had been remarkably patient, sprawled on our living room floor with his dinosaur figures, occasionally bringing me artwork to critique.
"All done?" he asked, looking up from his meticulous coloring of a stegosaurus.
I nodded, stretching arms that felt like they belonged to someone else. "All done. Park time?"
The bus ride to Westside Park was a journey. From our neighborhood of broken windows to the land of functional streetlights and nannies.
Leo curled against my side, his small body warm and trusting, while I counted stops in my head. The playground was worth it, though, it was tucked behind a community center where people didn't look at us like future statistics, and the equipment wasn't tagged with gang symbols.
I could actually sit on a bench without constantly scanning for threats. One of the few places where Leo could just be a kid.
But even here, in this pocket of relative safety, the judgments followed us like shadows.
At the playground, I sat next to another mother as Leo ran off to play.
"How old is he?" the woman beside me asked, her toddler bouncing on her hip. She was older than me, maybe thirty, with the polished look of someone who had time for things like regular haircuts and clothes that matched .
Her diamond wedding ring caught the afternoon light, throwing rainbows across her manicured nails.
"Five," I said, pointing to Leo as he navigated the dinosaur climbing frame.
Her eyebrows rose slightly. "And you?"
Here we go.
"Twenty-four."
"Really?" She studied my face with the intensity of someone solving a particularly difficult math problem. "I would have guessed maybe twenty. You look so..." She gestured vaguely at my frame, my face, my general existence.
“Thin?” I supplied, knowing that wasn’t what she was going for. I could at least find fun in throwing these people off.
"Well—yes?—”
Her face turned red when she realized what I’d said and what she agreed with. I fought to hold back my laugh.
She seemed to be searching for a polite way to say what everyone was thinking. “Are you sure you're eating enough? It's important when you're nursing—oh, wait, he's too old for that.”
Not nursing. I wasn’t his biological mother, just the only thing standing between him and his father's world of violence and drugs.
"I eat plenty," I lied smoothly. "Good metabolism."
She nodded, but I could see the skepticism in her eyes, the calculation as she took in my cheekbones and the way my jeans hung loose around hips that had never carried a pregnancy.
"Is his father involved?" she asked, the question casual but loaded with judgment.
I nearly snorted. Involved in drug trafficking and murder, yes. Involved in Leo's daily life, thankfully, no.
"Not really," I said, the understatement of the century.
Her expression shifted to that particular blend of pity and disapproval that I'd learned to recognize from fifty yards away.
"That must be hard, being so young and raising him alone. Do you have family support? "
My sister's gone from an overdose, my parents were never in the picture, and the only family Leo has wants to recruit him into a cartel. But sure, tons of support.
"We manage," I said, my voice sharp.
She must have heard the edge because she backed off slightly. "I'm sure you do your best. He seems like a sweet boy."
He’s perfect , actually, but I kept my mouth shut as the minutes passed.
A teenager on a skateboard rolled past, his eyes lingering on me with interest. "Hey, you babysitting?" he called, his smile cocky and familiar.
I ignored him, keeping my gaze fixed on Leo as he helped a smaller child learn the monkey bars.
"Come on, you're way too hot to be somebody's mom," the kid persisted, circling back on his board like a shark scenting blood in the water.
“I’m someone’s mom,” I said flatly, only a half-lie. "Move along."
He shrugged, muttering something about "stuck-up bitches" as he skated away. The woman beside me looked embarrassed on my behalf, which somehow made it worse.
Leo appeared at my side, his small hand slipping into mine. "Can we have our snack now?"
We settled under a large oak tree, spreading our meager picnic on the grass—granola bars from Seaside, an apple cut into slices, and a shared water bottle.
"The big kids showed me how to hang upside down from the monkey bars," Leo reported, pride evident in his voice. "They said I was really good at it for a little kid."
"That's because you're the best," I smiled, pushing my half-eaten granola bar toward him. "I'm not very hungry. Want the rest?"
He studied my face with those too-perceptive eyes. "Eat it, Elle. You didn't have lunch again."
Shit. He noticed everything .
"I'm eating," I huffed, taking a bite to prove my point, even though my stomach cramped with hunger that had become much too familiar.
A group of mothers had settled on a nearby blanket, their voices carrying across the grass as they discussed preschool applications, piano lessons, and summer camps. Their children played together in designer clothes while nannies hovered nearby with organic snacks and artisanal juice boxes.
"Can you believe she brought that child here?" One of them said, her voice pitched low but not low enough. "I mean, look at her. She's clearly just a kid herself."
"Probably one of those teenage mothers," another added. "You know the type. Twenty seconds of bliss turns into this.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to march over there and explain that I was twenty-four fucking years old, that I'd sacrificed everything to keep Leo safe, and that I worked two jobs and hadn't bought myself new clothes in eight months.
Instead, I sat quietly under our tree, letting their words wash over me like acid rain, adding them to the collection of judgments that followed me everywhere I went.
Young mother. Teen pregnancy. Poor life choices. No support system. Bad decisions.
I wanted to tell them all off, but I was just me. I couldn’t risk Leo’s or my safety because I wanted to mouth off to some women with corporate husbands.
None of them ever bothered to look closer, to see the fierce love in the way I watched Leo play, the careful way I rationed our snacks, the protective hover of my hand when strangers got too close.
All they saw was what Owen saw, what the teenager on the skateboard saw, what everyone saw: a young woman too poor to be taken seriously, struggling to raise a child in a world that had already decided she was failing.
I told myself not to care as I watched Leo climb higher on the dinosaur structure. They didn’t know our story. They didn't know what we’d survived.
But their words still stung, adding weight to the exhaustion that already threatened to drown me.
But I knew I was exactly who he needed. I was where I needed to be, even if the rest of the world couldn't see it yet.