Nobody teaches you how to step into someone else's life halfway through the movie.

You fall in love with their mom—that part's easy. Then you realize you're also signing up for the scraped knees, the silent treatments, the report cards, the nightmares at 2 a.m. that you didn't cause but now you're responsible for soothing.

The first time he called me "Dre" instead of "that man," I nearly cried. Not because it was sweet—but because it meant I mattered enough to have a name.

It's hard loving a kid who has a whole story before you showed up. Harder still to know they don't owe you a damn thing.

I used to think love was about blood. DNA. That deep biological pull.

But love—real love—is choice after choice after choice. It’s sitting at school plays even when they pretend not to see you. It’s learning the names of stuffed animals and pretending you care about Minecraft. It's letting them hate you some days and still showing up anyway.

There were nights I sat in the car after dropping him off, head against the steering wheel, wondering if I was doing any of it right.

There’s no manual for step-parenting. No trophies either. But last month, he introduced me to his friends as "my pops." No ceremony. No big moments. Just a few words tossed out like they'd always been true.

And maybe they had been. Maybe every lunch packed, every bedtime story read half-asleep, every argument that ended with "I'm still here" was writing a story bigger than biology.

I'm not his blood. But I’m his.

And that's enough for me.