I nodded my head, but tears filled my eyes as I watched Anisa lower her shirt. She was pregnant at fourteen by our mother’s husband.

Bam! Bam! Bam! My mother knocked on the door. “I hope y’all ready for school! You better get your asses dressed so you can catch this bus!”

I wanted to open the door and tell my mother everything that we had been through, but Anisa was still gripping my hand. “Don’t say anything, okay?”

As badly as I wanted to tell, I couldn’t. I trusted my sister and was loyal to her. If she wanted me to keep this secret, then I would. I wiped my eyes, flushed the toilet, and sprayed air freshener in the air before opening the door.

We dressed in silence and headed off to school, our souls heavy and our minds on problems that we were both too young to truly comprehend.

Brooklyn born and raised, we kept to ourselves. It was only Anisa and I. We weren’t cliqued up like some of the other bitches in our borough. We had already been jumped on twice behind some beef that Anisa had caught with some girls from her high school, so I learned quickly to stay bladed up. I had seen Anisa put a razor blade in her mouth and carry it around all day without taking it out. I had cut my shit up a couple times trying to be like her, and when they caught us both slipping, she finally taught me how to tuck a blade away in my mouth just in case I ever needed it.

We knew the spots that these girls hung around, and we usually avoided those paths at all costs just to stay out of unnecessary conflict. So when Anisa hit a left and headed up toward their block, I stopped mid-step, not knowing why she would walk right into an ass whooping.

“Nisa, what are you doing? You know if we go that way we’re going to have to fight. You’re pregnant, Nis. We can’t fight them girls off right now,” I said.