I did not stay in Ohio.

Within a matter of weeks I had left the state entirely, changed my phone number so that no one could reach me even if they tried, which they did not, and begun the slow, frightening work of building a life somewhere new, out of nothing, alone.

And I made the decision that shaped everything that came after.

I was going to keep my baby.

Whatever it cost me, whatever I had to become to make it possible, I was going to have this child and raise her and give her the kind of home I had just been thrown out of.