My fingers were crossed tightly to the point where they started to cramp up. The thoughts raced through my mind about what would become of my sister. Was she going to ruin the rest of her life because of this one stupid mistake? How would her decision affect my family? How would her decision affect me?



The suspense of the situations heightened as the bathroom door creaked open. My sister, holding the pregnancy test in her hand, walks out of the bathroom slowly. Her face, nose and eyes were red from the constant crying. My face was showing compassion for my fear stricken sister, but deep down inside, I was laughing my head off yelling “that’s what you get” at her as she cried her heart out. But I wasn’t that kind of sister. My sister looked at me with an irritated and elated look that made you feel uncomfortable. She began to cry again. I walked over to her and put my hand on her shoulder. “What did it say?” I asked in curiosity. She shook her head and looked at me. “I don’t know. It’s not ready yet.” she said as she continued to cry. We both just sat down and waited. Emma Mathis is a 16 year old senior in high school. I know she’s a little young to be a senior in high school, but that’s because she’s smart for her age. Some guys just take advantage of her since she’s so young. I always complain on how I hate being the oldest person in my class, but it’s better than being the youngest. I mean, imagine being picked on everywhere because every student thinks you’re a sophomore. The test made a beeping sound that startled the both of us. We both looked down at the test with anxiety. We broke into immediate tears. The test was negative.


My sister hugged me as her tears of joy dripped onto my shoulder. “The test was negative! The test was negative!” she squeezes me harder as breathing gets harder and harder. “Yeah, I saw it.” She must have been happy because my sister hates me. She says she would trade me for Brittany any day. Brittany was our 22 year old sister who moved to New York City to go to med school. I miss her but Emma missed her more. I wiped the sweat from my forehead after my sister let go of me. She looked down at the test, smiled, and then tossed it into her waste basket. I looked at her and smiled. Suddenly, a knock on the door brought me and Emma into a state of panic. If our mom found out about this little “event”, she would kill us both.


“Emma! Joy! What are you doing?” We breathed a sigh of relief. It was only our little sister, Jenna. I opened the door and stepped out of the room closing the door behind me. “What’s going on?” Jenna asked. I looked at her and lowered myself to her level. “Nothing, we were just…talking.” I’m a bad liar. Jenna looked at me as if I was insane. “You guys don’t ever just…talking.” She starts to get suspicious and reaches for the door. I quickly grab her hand before she could touch it. “Hey, you know you can’t go into Emma’s room.” I tried to buy Emma some time to get herself together. “But you’re in her room.” she starts talking with an attitude. “That’s because she let me in.” Now she really looked confused. “You’re hiding something. I’m telling mom.” She’s smart just like Emma. I guess I just didn’t get that gene. I didn’t know what to say, so I just told her the truth. “Ok, wait.” I took a big sigh and prayed nothing would go wrong. I got closer and made sure that Emma couldn’t hear our conversation. “Emma was taking a pregnancy test because she slept with her boyfriend.” Jenna looked at me and shook her head. For a 7 year old girl, she sure does know a whole lot about sex.



Jenna turned around and walked towards her room. I grabbed her arm tightly. “You have to promise not to tell anyone, especially not mom.” Jenna smiles and put her hand on her heart. “I promise.” She skips away with a smile on her face. I stand to my feet and watch her skip away. I never should’ve told her. I walk back into Emma’s room and closed the door. Emma looks up at me and asks what Jenna wanted. “Um…she just asked me for the answer to 7 times 6.” Emma smiled. “Well, good night.” I turned around and opened the door quickly. “Thanks Joy.” she said gladly. I turned around and looked at her as sincere as I could. “You’re welcome Emma.” I turned as quickly as I could and headed to my room. I slammed the door behind me, jumped into bed and feel asleep.



The next day at school, I couldn’t help but think about if and when Jenna was going to tell my parents. I knew I was in for a world of hurt if Emma found out that I told Jenna. After school, Emma drives home and leaves me to ride my bike home. But today, she let me ride home with her. I put my bike in her trunk and she even let me ride in the front with her. When we came home, our parents were standing outside the house waiting for us to come home. I was confused at what was going on, but I had a pretty good idea.


“Both of you get in the house.” My mom had a confused, worried and outraged look on her face all at the same time. “Why? What happened?” Emma asked. She really looked confused. I tried to stay quiet for a moment. “Now!” You could never win an argument with my mom. We walked into the house to see Jenna sitting at the table with a smug look on her face. I knew what was going to happen next. I just hoped Jenna would keep my name out of it.


“Ok Emma, since there is a lot of explaining for you to do, you can start from the beginning.” My whole family looked at Emma. “What are you talking about?” Emma really made it look as if she had no idea what they were talking about. “Oh, you don’t remember? Then maybe Jenna can remind you.” Please leave my name out of it. “Joy told me that Emma took a pregnancy test because she slept with her boyfriend.” I’m dead. Emma looked shocked. “I also saw the pregnancy test in your trash can.” exclaimed my dad. “So Emma, do you remember now?” Emma turns towards me and looked at me with the eyes of a betrayed sister. “You told her?” I could see Emma tearing up behind all that anger. “I didn’t want to.” Emma becomes more aggressive. “Then why did you?” she turned towards me. I backed a little to distance myself for her. “Sit down Emma. The rest of you, go to your rooms.” I looked back at Emma. “I trusted you.” She turns and sits down. “I’m sorry.” I slowly walked to my room as the pressure of guilt settled in. It was sickening.


It was late at night that I heard Emma coming up the steps from the long talk with our parents. All I heard was yelling and screaming from my mom and my dad. Not a word from Emma. I cracked open my door to see if the coast was clear. I was more afraid of Emma then I was of my parents. Everything looked clear so I slowly crept into the bathroom and slowly crept back out. Suddenly, on my way out, I feel a sudden tug on my arm that dislocated my shoulder, which by the way, is painful. It was Emma, and she had my arm tight. I was not going to get away from her grasp. I yelped in pain but Emma clapped her hand over my mouth. “Do you know what you’ve done?” Emma pulled my arm harder. The pain was unbearable. I tried to say sorry but her hand was over my mouth. So I stuck out my tongue and licked her hand. Her hand shot off of my mouth and she released my arm. As soon as I was free, I made a break for it. I ran to my room. But before I could get through the door, Emma grabbed my arm and popped my arm back into place. Now that hurt the most. She slammed me to the wall and punched me in the face. I fell to the ground as Emma continued to kill me. She finally stops punching after she saw blood. I blacked out after the first three punches so I don’t remember reaching my bed. The next morning was a Saturday, thank goodness. I didn’t feel like getting out of bed anyway so I slept until 2:45. When I woke up, I didn’t hear my moms soap operas on so I figured she left. But then I didn’t hear my dad cutting the lawn, but I thought he went to work. I walked into Emma’s room to see if she was still mad at me, but she wasn’t there either. Neither was Jenna. I was home alone. I was worried at the same time didn’t care. So to take my mind off of the incident, I went to watch TV hoping to forget the whole thing for a while.


At 4:00, my parents and Emma came back from wherever they went. When they came back, they asked me to leave the room. I asked where Jenna was to try and observe the situation a little. “She is at a friend’s house. Now leave!” I wasted no more time and hurried upstairs. Emma had her head down and was crying. Her face was red and she wouldn’t even look at me. I hurried to my room tried my hardest to go to sleep, but I couldn’t. I heard a lot more yelling this time, and Emma joined in today. In a few minutes, Emma came up the steps angry. I could hear her crying through my walls and it made me feel even guiltier. The only way to make the feeling go away was to confront the situation head on. I walked into Emma’s room and her face was in her pillow. “Emma?” I said softly. She didn’t respond. I walked into her room, grabbed a chair and sat beside her bed. “Look, I know you’re mad at me, but I didn’t mean to tell Jenna. She’s just clever that way. And…she outsmarted me.” It’s embarrassing to admit that your 7 year old sister outsmarted you when you’re 14. “I’m really sorry.” I stared at Emma as she continued to weep. Finally, she spoke up. “I’m pregnant.”