Married at 18

I was sixteen, pregnant, and terrified. There was no family meeting, no discussion of options; it was just assumed what we would do. The plan was simply handed to me: you’ll marry him. And because no one told me otherwise, because no one even gave me words like choice or freedom, I believed it. I believed this was the only path, the only way forward.

Then I miscarried.

For a moment, it felt like the world cracked open just enough for possibility to slip in. I remember thinking, Maybe this is my chance. My chance to step back. To breathe. To date. To be a teenager. To see what else was out there. To find out what I wanted, not just what was expected of me.

But the words lodged in my throat. I didn’t know how to speak them. I didn’t even know if I was allowed to. So I swallowed the truth and carried on with “the plan.”

By eighteen, I told myself I knew what I wanted. But deep down, I think I already suspected it wasn’t really my want at all. It was what I thought the want of everyone else wanted, pressed onto me until I couldn’t tell the difference. I believed that once I had said yes, I couldn’t take it back. That a promise made in fear, made in silence, was still a promise I was bound to keep. I said I would "Eat the Crust", so I just better do that.

When you’re young, afraid, and don’t know the sound of your own voice, you trick yourself into believing that following through is safer than speaking up. Even when your gut is begging you not to.

Looking back now, I see that wasn’t the first time I betrayed myself with silence. I’d been doing it for years—quieting the part of me that didn't want to eat the crust, shoving down fear, ignoring doubt, pretending certainty. And so I stepped into a life I wasn’t ready for. Not because I chose it, but because I thought I had to.