I don’t know how many of you will read this, but it’s nice to get it off my chest. My story goes a little like this.
It started 15 years ago on February 22. That was the day my twin sister and I were born. We were born into a family of five, our mother being 17 and my father, age 19. We had a brother, age 3, and a brother and sister, age 2.

We lived in a small house on First Street and my parents worked minimum-wage jobs, trying to provide for 5 children. When my sister and I turned 7, my mother fell pregnant and it was time to move. We moved to a new house, a big one at that. It was nice. My little brother was born just a few months later. My parents worked like crazy and my brothers and sisters and I were in school, doing our best. It was a week before our 12th birthday. Our parents told us terrible news. After being together for 14 years and married for 8 years, they were getting a divorce. the worst part about it was that we all knew it was coming.

Our father moved out in October. I resented my mother for doing such a thing to us and sending our father away. I thought everything was her fault so I made her life hell. My brothers and sisters did the same. Things got better and we soon understood that it wasn’t all our mom’s fault. but she began to piss me off again. I was starting high school and I had always been a goody good out of all the kids. When my brothers and sisters smoked or drank, I would never do any of it. When they would go to parties, I was the designated driver. By the age of 11, I was driving my drunk siblings and their friends everywhere while having a fake ID and dressing up to look 16. I passed it off when I was stopped 6 times in the three years, I still don’t know how. Well by 14, I got tired of driving them around and being the only sober one. Even my twin sister had been doing it for a little less than a year. I was ready to rebel against my mother when she introduced us to her first boyfriend.

He was a year younger than she was. He played baseball and he tried to act tough, but he wasn’t and we all knew that. He didn’t scare us one bit. He tried to act like our father, which made us even madder. My brothers and sister now had their license and their own cars, so it was easier to go to parties. We would never tell my mother. We would wait till she fell asleep and then sneak out. Her boyfriend caught us one day sneaking out. He let us go, but when we came home at our normal time (5 am), he was sitting in the living room waiting for us. We were all pretty drunk, including me this time. I walked right up to him, slapped him across the face, and managed to get out, “You’re not my father so stop trying to be and leave us alone” but it more sounded like gibberish. He looked at each of us, one at a time. We were standing in the doorway, trying to act sober, but our drunk smiles gave us away. He looked at me the longest and at last, he said, “I’m sorry you feel that way. Good Night,” and walked into his room, shut the door, and that was it. We all started to laugh as we walked into our rooms.

Then the next morning, I had a terrible headache, they told me it was a hangover. It sucked! I didn’t see Mom’s boyfriend all day. The day after that was Sunday. We all got ready for church and left him, who said he wasn’t feeling good so he didn’t go with. When we got home, he was not there and neither were any of his stuff. There was a note on my mother’s bed. She started to cry. I read the note he wrote to her. It was long. To shorten it up, he said he was leaving her and he was sorry. He didn’t belong in a place he wasn’t welcomed. I felt bad because I knew it was all my fault. I walked into my room and there was a flower on my bed with a note underneath it. The flower was my favorite, they are very hard to find. It was yellow at the base and went orange and red at the tip. It was called a fire-rose and it was beautiful. The note was addressed to me. I opened it and inside it read. “I’m sorry I made you feel so invaded. I didn’t mean to do that. I know it’s hard to see your mother with other people, but all she wants to do is be happy and provide for you and your siblings. Maybe one day, you will let her be happy.” Love [his name].

I closed the note and cried I cried myself to sleep that night. I woke up the next morning with a new perspective, but it disappeared soon after that night. And the rest of the week to follow came along with all of the parties and I was up to them all with my siblings. I came home night after night drunk or high. School was to start in just a week and our all-week parties were to end and we would be down to just the weekends. A month into school, I began to get worse, finding the right crowed of boys and girls to get me into parties to get my discounts on drugs. At one of the parties, I saw a boy that I had not seen in a very long time. He was my brother’s best friend. We had known him since the day we moved into our house so long ago, but he moved away a year ago. Him and I began to talk drink and smoke more and more. We were soon pretty gone. I invited him over so he came home with us that night. He slept in my bed with me and that night, he took my virginity. We talked and we flirted for the next two weeks, we went to a party two weeks after him and I had sex. I had taken a little too many pills and I overdosed. He rushed me to the hospital. My siblings were sitting in the waiting room, he was by my bedside as I laid their unconscious.

It was 3 am on a Saturday night. They called my mother. She rushed to the hospital. When she got there, she saw my brothers and sisters sitting in the waiting room, sleeping. The doctor met her there and took her back. She saw my boyfriend asleep at my side and she cried. I was in the hospital for two weeks and he never left my side, not once, not even to go to school. I was about to leave the hospital. The doctor told me I could check out. I was getting my stuff together and the doctor came into the room. She sat me down and told me something I could not even believe. She told me that I was 4 weeks pregnant. She asked me if I knew who the father was and if I wanted to get an abortion. I said yes, he is the man who sat by me day and night for 2 weeks and no, I do not want to kill my child. She said okay and we went our own ways. As I walked to meet him, I told him what the doctor told me. He hugged me and told me not to worry. That he loved me and he was going to be there for me. We were a couple at that moment.

I explained the news three weeks later to my family. My mother cried and cried. My brothers and sisters were excited. I went for my first doctor’s appointment at 8 weeks along. The doctor told me the baby was looking good but then he added, and oh and so is your other one. I looked at him like he was crazy. He then told me I was to have twins. I cried. I went home and told my family. My mother told me to get an abortion. I refused! She got mad but we worked it out over the next few months.

Things got better. My boyfriend permanently moved in. We found out we were having identical twin girls. Makana Eveyln and Dahlia Jewel. We started to get their nursery together. I went in at my 26th week check up and the doctor told me that one of my little ones had died and the other wasn’t looking too good either. he gave me a shot and soon their were no heartbeats at all. i gave birth to my daughters just 4 days before my 15th birthday. We were all devastated. My boyfriend still lived with us and we were still together. He wanted a baby now more then anything now. So two months later, we tried again and by June, i was pregnant. Things went fine, just as they did before. It was only one this time and another girl but again, I lost her at 23 weeks. We got into an argument. We broke up. He moved out. We haven’t talked since then. My brother is having twins due in February. To think, they would have just been a few weeks older then my daughter. I cry sometimes, thinking about how alone I am and how I have lost three daughters in a matter of a year. How I lost my best friend and a lot of other friends at that.

I am 15 years old with a 19 year old brother, 17 year old brother, 17 year old sister, a twin sister, and a 8 year old brother. I think about the words my mom’s boyfriend said to me and look at my mother, all alone but she doesn’t mind. All that matters is that her children are happy and I can see that in her eyes. It kills me when one of us is mean to her because she’s trying her best and I think about how badly I wanted to have my daughters and to see them grow up and take care of them. But things happen for a reason. It just wasn’t my time to have a child yet, maybe one day I will. But until then I’ll teach my niece and nephew to be wonderful, respectable children and love them like my own.

Thanks for reading my story.