My name is Anna and I grew up in an orphanage. I slept in a room with seven other girls. Some were adopted. Others reached the age limit. But Lila and I remained best friends.
We weren't friends because we chose each other; we were friends because we stuck together. We promised each other that one day we would have a family like in the movies.
Girls holding hands | Source: Unsplash
We both reached the age limit at 18. Lila got a job at a call center. I started working as a waitress at an all-night restaurant. We shared a small studio apartment with mismatched furniture bought at yard sales and a bathroom so small you had to sit sideways on the toilet. But it was the only place no one could ask us to leave.
Three years later, Lila returned from a party.
"I'm pregnant," she announced, standing in the doorway at 2 a.m. "And Jake isn't answering my calls."
Jake, the boy she'd been seeing for four months, blocked her number the next day. She had no family. No parents to rely on. Just me.
I held her hand at every doctor's appointment, every ultrasound, and every 3 a.m. panic attack. I was there in the delivery room when little Miranda was born.
A mother with her baby | Source: Unsplash
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