Teen Mom Jenelle Evans has given up hope of getting custody of her little boy, Jace, and is ready to leave her hometown for a new life at college without him. “She wants Jace back,” Jenelle’s best friend, Tori Rhyne, tells OK! exclusively.

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“But she feels like she has to wait and do it right, or she will lose custody of him permanently. She told me that when she has her life together, a job, some money and a house for Jace, then she will fight her mom for her baby.”

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All those things may take years, however. In the meantime, Jace will only know his
real mother as a visitor to the home he  hares with his grandmother Barbara — and it breaks Jenelle’s heart.

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“She can’t let herself love Jace too much or ond with him too much because she knows she can’t be any kind of a mother to him,” explains an  insider. “If she lets herself feel too much for him, she’ll just lose it and cry for days.”

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Jenelle plans to move an hour away from Oak Island, N.C., to attend classes at Cape Fear Community College this summer. “She told me she’s going to let her mother keep custody of Jace while she finishes college and gets her degree in film editing,” says  Tori.

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Though it hurts her to leave Jace behind, Jenelle knows it’s for his own good. “If she had to do it all again, Jenelle says she probably would have waited to become a mom. It’s not like she feels that having Jace ruined her life or anything; in fact, he saved it,” says Tori.

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“If she hadn’t had Jace, she told me, she would probably have been just another high school dropout, living at her mother’s house with no job. Because of Jace, Jenelle went back to school, graduated early and now plans to attend college.”

FOR MORE ON JENELLE AND HER CUSTODY OVER JACE PICK UP THIS WEEK'S ISSUE OF OK! ON SALE EVERYWHERE NOW!