My Best Mistake [#1][#WATTYS2016][COMPLETE]

one*

WARNING: There is swearing within this book and there are mentions of sex, but nothing explicit, simply the mention of it or references to it. There is also the use of foul language throughout, so please remember this when reading this book.

NOTE: Chapters which have a * beside them are the chapters which have been edited. I will slowly be making my way through this book, editing chapters, improving the characters, and developing the plot holes which exist.

© 2014 Emma Norman. All Rights Reserved.

[chloe]

All I could do was stare at the test which laid in front of me

The pink cross was impossible to ignore and, no matter how many times I blinked and hoped that it would change, the cross didn't disappear. It just sat there and glared at me with all of its predetermined disapproval.

The test knew as well as I did that this shouldn't have been happening to me. It knew, just as I did, that I wasn't ready for this type of responsibility; I could barely even look after myself.

I was seventeen. I had my whole life ahead of me, everything planned out, and I knew what I wanted from myself. I had my education and future to be concerned with, and there was no room for something such as this in that future. There was no room for this type of mistake.

"No. No. No," I sobbed quietly, continuing to close my eyes in the hopes that this was just some horrid dream from which I couldn't force myself to wake. "This isn't real. This is a dream and I am going to wake up any moment now."

Perhaps, if I told myself that enough times, then it may just become truth rather than a fantasy.

"Are you alright in there, Sparky?" My older brother shouted through the door, and I could hear the concern in his voice as he asked the question, but there was no way that I could tell him the truth. He would immediately tell our parents, and that wasn't something which I was ready to share with them. I don't think I would ever be able to bare their judgemental looks and cruel comments, not when I was already an abomination of a daughter which they resented.

"Yeah. I'm fine," I wiped away the tears which stained my cheeks and splashed water over my face in a lame attempt to hide that I had spent the last hour crying to myself, wondering just how I could actually be so bloody stupid. I shoved the pregnancy test in my hoodie pocket and opened the door, forcing myself to smile at my brother who stood on the other side.

"Well, I know that to be lie. How about you tell me what the problem really is," Jason demanded and, as much as I didn't want to tell him the truth, I also knew that I wouldn't be able to keep this from him for all that much longer. He would discover the truth sooner or later, regardless of whether I told him, because there was only so long you could hide a pregnancy for.

Ever since the day I was born, Jason was the one who had been there for me, and he was the one who had kept me safe. I was the child which my parents never wanted and I was the mistake which remained just that, a mistake, and I was effectively palmed off to my brother for the majority of my life—Jason wasn't only my older brother, he was also my best friend, and I had told him everything there was to know about me.

He was the one who was there for me when I was upset and needed a shoulder to cry on. He was my rock and, honestly, there was no one I would trust more with my life than him. He is the one male I know I can always count on and I know that he will never hurt me, the one I am always going to be able to rely, and the one who will always love me, no matter what happens.

"Nothing. It's nothing," I pushed him to the side and headed towards the stairs.

"Chloe. Jason. Dinner is on the table," our mother shouted up to the both of us and, after discovering that I was now eating for two, I suddenly found myself craving more food than usual and I would happily stuff my face for the entire evening.

"Coming," I sighed, giving Jason a quick glance before I followed the smell of food towards the dining room, but I only managed a couple of steps before I felt Jason's hand around arm, pulling me back towards where he was standing at the top of the stairs.

"Be there in a minute, mum," Jason called down confidently. "Tell me what the hell has happened, Chloe. Is it that guy you're seeing? Did he hurt you?"

"No," I was almost on the brink of tears as my hands wrapped around the test in my pocket, clutching it so tightly that I could almost feel them going cold from the lack of circulation.

"Tell me the truth," Jason demanded and, in that moment, I knew that he was never going to give up and he wasn't going to let this drop either. He was going to continue to question me, he was going to wear me down, until I gave in and told him what my problem was.

The moment that I admitted the truth to him though was the moment he would turn overprotective older brother on my ass. He was going to want to know who get me pregnant and he was going to ask why the hell I was sleeping with them in the first place, and that was all before he marched round their house to kick the crap out of them for getting his teenage sister pregnant in the first place.

"I can't and I won't Jason. You would never understand."

"Has that dick you call a boyfriend hurt you? I swear, if he is the reason you are acting this way, then he will never walk again," Jason stressed and, as much as I loved my brother, he was beginning to annoy me now. I wanted him to shut the hell up and to just leave me alone, and just this once I didn't want him to be the overprotective older brother who was always there for me.

I hated myself for lying to him and I hated that I couldn't just tell him the truth, but it would be the worst mistake—well, second worst, right after having unprotected sex with a renowned player—I could make. But I wasn't about to confess the truth to him before I even knew what it was that I wanted to do.

"Braydon hasn't done anything, so there's no need for you to break every bone in his body the next time you see him."

"You tell me everything, Sparky. What have you gotten yourself into that you can't even tell me?" He asked and there was a softness to his voice which hadn't been there when he previously questioned me, and that's how I knew that he was genuinely worried about me, and all he wanted to do was help me.

Before I even had the time to think about it, or to talk myself out of my decision, I pulled the pregnancy test from my pocket and showed it to my brother, hoping that he wouldn't hate me too much for the situation I had managed to get myself stuck in. But, when his face became expressionless, I didn't know what I was supposed to think or even how I was supposed to feel.

He simply looked at the test as though it was about to come to life and murder him, like he was the one who had just found out that he was pregnant with an unplanned child and, at my age, an unwanted child. If he were disappointed, I think that I would be able to handle that, but there was nothing and that hurt more than anything else ever could.

"Come on kids. Your father and I are waiting," my mother's voice made me jump slightly, the pregnancy test falling from my hand in the fear that she was about to walk up the stairs any second now and discover the one thing I would never be able to tell her. She would only kick me out of the house and shun me further from the family, though I suppose that wouldn't be a bad thing, and there would be a chance for me to have a normal life.

"Coming, mother. Clo was just telling me about her day," Jason finally spoke, not breaking the eye contact with me as he spoke.

"You could have done that at the table. You know how your father and I love to know what the both of you have been doing," I would have laughed, had it not been for the situation which I currently found myself in, because my parents never gave a damn about what I had been doing. They loved to hear about Jason's day and what Jason had been doing, and even how life was with his fiancée, Charlotte, but they had never given a damn about anything to do with me; they ignored me and acted as though I didn't even exist most of the time.

"Yeah. Perhaps she would love to share her newest revelation with you," Jason muttered, loud enough so that I could hear what it was that he said, but not loud enough that our parents were curious enough to ask questions. And I could only watch the retreating back of my brother as he left me to figure out which felt worse.

The fact that Jason was considering telling our parents that I was pregnant, or the fact that he simply said nothing on the matter when I told him.