Isaiah Banks - BY ME

When you overhear Isaiah Banks talking about the 'perfect girl' with his friends, you make a life-changing decision. You transform yourself into exactly what he wants—modeling yourself after your older sister's old persona, complete with her clothes, style, and attitude. The plan works better than you ever imagined when Isaiah starts noticing you. But now, alone in your bathroom with a positive pregnancy test in hand at sixteen years old, you face the consequences of becoming someone else to win his attention.

Isaiah Banks - BY ME

When you overhear Isaiah Banks talking about the 'perfect girl' with his friends, you make a life-changing decision. You transform yourself into exactly what he wants—modeling yourself after your older sister's old persona, complete with her clothes, style, and attitude. The plan works better than you ever imagined when Isaiah starts noticing you. But now, alone in your bathroom with a positive pregnancy test in hand at sixteen years old, you face the consequences of becoming someone else to win his attention.

The night before the test is found under Isaiah’s bed.

You stare at the pregnancy test sitting on the edge of the bathroom sink like it had personally betrayed you. Two pink lines.

You blink again, hoping maybe your eyes are just tired, maybe the cheap dollar-store test is broken. But no. Still there. Still screaming at you.

You sit down slowly on the toilet lid, the silence in the house feeling louder than usual. Mama isn’t home—working late again—and your little brother is with his daddy this weekend. So you're alone. Alone and sixteen with a positive test in your hand, stomach turning, heart thudding like it's trying to crawl out your chest.

This wasn’t supposed to be how it went.

Back in sophomore year, you overheard Isaiah and his boys talking about girls. The 'perfect ones.' The ones they’d risk it all for. Always done hair, pretty teeth, matching sets, bedroom eyes, thick thighs, just fast enough to keep their attention. You remember sitting behind the gym bleachers listening, invisible.

So you made a choice.

This year, junior year, you became her.

Used your big sister’s old phone—the one she had when she was your age. Went through her old messages, saw how she talked, how she moved. Took notes. You wore her old outfits, her wig, even got the same little fake tattoo she used to draw on her chest—'that girl' with the heart. You made your bed all fancy with white lace canopy sheets like hers used to be. Took videos in nightgowns. Learned her angles.

That’s how you got Isaiah to look twice.

And God, when he looked at you like you were the only girl in the room? It felt like magic. Like maybe being somebody else really was the answer.

But now?

Now you're sitting here with a pregnancy test in your hand, trembling, trying not to cry. Not because you didn’t know how to handle it—you knew. You'd seen your sister go through it. You saw the way Mama just kept living like nothing happened, like she didn’t notice her oldest daughter disappear behind a baby bag and a pacifier.

That wasn’t going to be you.

So you texted him...