Sometimes, love looks like giving away your shoes and trusting someone will grow into them. Don’t quit in the middle of the storm; the bigger picture is still coming into focus. Jasmine grew up answering the same question repeatedly: Where are you from? The truth was, from everywhere and nowhere. Her family moved so often that she could pass through a dozen schools in a year. A kid who craved safety and routine never got either. Home sounded like slammed doors and hoarse voices, not quiet dinners. She learned early to brace for impact.
Both parents carried old wounds. Her mom had married at fourteen to escape her own house, dropped out of school, became a teen mom, and kept chasing a life she never found. Her dad, the youngest of eight, had been torn down by his father, later became a preacher, and arrived at their marriage already bruised by infidelity in past relationships. They loved each other through pain they hadn’t healed. Jasmine and her two little sisters watched that pain spill into their nights for thirteen years. She became the buffer. When fights ignited, she gathered her sisters in the dark and sang nonsense songs over the noise. She held her father when he sobbed and her mother when she fell apart, then carried everyone to school like nothing happened. “Don’t tell,” was the rule. A visit from CPS was confusing; wasn’t this just what love looked like? She decided she wanted nothing to do with love if that’s what it meant.
After fifteen years together, her parents finally split. Their Tennessee foreclosure, with no furniture, just mattresses, and wild paint on the walls, was the first place that ever felt solid. It was also where something new began. The summer before high school, she met Brian: short, biracial, huge dimples, bigger afro, and the kind of laugh that makes strangers smile. They were instant friends. Even when she got homeschooled and moved in with her dad mid–sophomore year, they stayed close. Life got harder. Her dad was couch-hopping, then homeless. At sixteen, her Toyota Camry became their shelter. She napped in bug-infested motels between his shifts and ate whatever the crockpot could stretch. Later, they lived in a battered trailer for work, fourteen-hour days spent in stifling chicken houses. Eventually, her dad sent her back to her mom so she could have something better.
It wasn’t better. Her mom remarried quickly, slid into pain pills, and said things no parent should say. Jasmine worked days, did school at night, and used waitress tips to feed her sisters. She learned to keep quiet and keep going. The only steady, bright spot was Brian. He showed up. He didn’t push for secrets, just stayed. At seventeen, the weight of years crashed in. When she asked for help, she was told she wanted attention, that others had it worse. She planned her death down to the where and when and wrote goodbye letters. At the exact time she would disappear, Brian walked through her door and stayed. He didn’t know what he was stopping; he knew she shouldn’t be alone. She couldn’t go through with it.
A week after she turned eighteen, her mom kicked her out. She left with a trash bag of clothes and nowhere to sleep. A friend of her sister’s opened her home. Brian went wherever she went. When that friend invited them on a trip to Virginia, he planned to skip it, then showed up at dawn to say he didn’t want to be anywhere she wasn’t. She saw who he was in a single, quiet moment in Virginia. A little boy admired Brian’s brand-new sneakers, wearing his father’s torn pair with holes through the soles. Brian took off his shoes and handed them over without a blink: You’ll grow into them. He walked back to the car barefoot. That was love, the kind she didn’t want to run from.
A few weeks later, the friendship shifted. They chose each other. Not everyone cheered. Some in her family made their racism plain. Brian absorbed slurs and small cruelties he never deserved and kept showing up with the same soft strength. They moved to Georgia, he started a car detailing business, and in May 2019, they got married. Their son, River, arrived the following year, generous and smiley like his dad. When River was three months old, Brian sold his car to buy Jasmine a camera and gear.
She wasn’t skilled yet; he didn’t care. He placed it in her hands and said, in his way, that she’d grow into it. Today, she photographs couples, how he taught her to see love, steady, giving, and uncomplicated. Jasmine still remembers the girl curled on a bedroom floor, the high schooler sleeping in a sedan, the big sister humming over the sound of rage. She also knows the woman she became because someone kept showing up. After all, she kept choosing to stay. The worst parts of her story didn’t get the final word.
