Chapter One
In Baltimore, during the eighties there was a lot that was going on. There were good days filled with kids playing hopscotch in the street, running after the ice cream truck and deciding which celebrity would be their new crush. The bad days came ever so often with gang violence, implementation of the crack epidemic and huge poverty. Growing up in this part of Maryland were two young teens on very different paths. They are Curtis Ashford and Jordan Berry.
Curtis Ashford lived with his brother Tommy and mother Debra. Their apartment was about the size of fitting room at a local department store. Curtis' father was in and out of the home because he had to take care of Curtis' incapacitated grandparents in Austin, Texas. In school, Curtis was a major jock; he was captain of the Frederick Douglass High School football team and co captain of the boxing team. He also was very well liked, popular and quite the hunk but nothing serious with any of the girls in his class.
Jordan Berry lived in a foster home starting from the age of three years old. Jordan's mother, Shelia, gave her up for adoption after she forced into witness protection due to an abusive relationship with Jordan's father, Mike. Giving Jordan up was the hardest thing that Shelia had to do. Once Jordan was able to comprehend why she did not have a true mother and father, it shaped the course of how she carried herself going forward. Jordan was an average student, did not partake in after school activities and was not into girly things like make up and fashion.
When Jordan was sixteen, she started dating Curtis' brother Tommy, who was seventeen. They were known as AshBerry amongst their classmates. They really loved each other. They supported each other with making the most of their studies but half the time drifted out of the classroom. It showed when both of their grades fell significantly and just after six months of being together, Jordan found out she was pregnant.
