It's the last chapter.
To month: I agree with you, the pacing is not right at all. I've looked at it, and am not sure how I could fix it without adding parts and partially rewriting other parts, though, so I think that it will take some time for me to fix it. Thank you for your input, you helped me a lot! The girl's self-esteem is really low, for sure, and it sort of gets worse in this chapter. But don't worry, it all turns out okay in the end!
There is still something about this story that nags at me, so it is possible I will just scrap it and do a full rewrite. Anyway, thanks again for helping me figure out where I went wrong this time. ^_^

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A few months later, my sister's pregnancy was showing and my mom was almost over the shock of her "sin" and my return home. But not quite.

My sister and I were sitting in the kitchen, eating pizza and doing her homework when Mom stalked through on her way to the laundry room.

"Lisha," she nodded at me.

"Hey Mom," I replied, "How's it going?" Instead of responding she paused and turned to face my sister.

"Good evening, Sinner."

"Mom," my sister whined, "Stop calling me that."

"Well, it's what you are." She raised an accusative eyebrow.

"You're not even a Christian, Mom," my sister pointed out reasonably. I chewed my pizza silently.

"I don't have to be religious to know that you're a sinner. I'm pretty sure that some holy text somewhere says that it is a sin to make babies that your mother will have to feed and care for." She made an odd "hmph" sound and stalked into the laundry room, slamming the door on her way.

"Wow. You really did it this time, Danielle," I noted. "I don't think Mom's ever going to get over this one." She slumped in her seat.

"I knooww."

"You really shouldn't have gotten knocked up."

"I knooww." Then she started crying. I asked her what was wrong and she screamed something about mood swings and how bad a person I was before stuffing her face with pizza and running from the room. I sat there for a minute, still chewing the same bite (which was practically liquid by then). Then I swallowed, took another bite. Chewed.

Looking back on it, I think I was depressed, because all I did for several weeks was sit around, jibe my sister, and eat. I gained five pounds. Maybe I didn't notice that I was depressed, but Mike did when he came (unexpectedly) to visit. The long and the short of it is that, by the end of his visit, I wound up dressed up for--and literally shoved out of the door to go to--some random party. I knew Mike and Danielle were just trying to help, but I simply didn't want to have fun. I wanted to wallow in the fecal matter of my mind and rent emotions.

The party would have been lame had there not been a ton of alcohol of all kinds. They had two kegs, several large bottles each of Vodka, Tequila, and Whiskey. Naturally, I grabbed one of the bottles and chugged it. I was drunk in no time. At some point, Mike got distracted with a couple of hot chicks who wanted to dance, and I was left alone. I sort of leaned against the wall, enjoying the spinning image of the party and sipping beer that I couldn't taste for what felt like hours. Really could have been any amount of time, since I was wasted. After a while a nice, clean-cut guy came up to me. We had a quasi-conversation before he announced that I was drunk and needed to lie down before I vomited all over the place. I asked if I was that drunk.

He helped me down the hall and to a bedroom, and closed the door. The darker, quieter room was nice on my head and eyes, and I collapsed onto the bed. He left and came back a few minutes later with a cold wet towel that he placed on my forehead. He also gave me some bread and water, which I choked down. After a while, I was feeling more sober, and we sat and talked. It was nice. He was much more mature than the other guys I'd met at parties. We talked some more, and eventually he asked if I wanted to have sex. I said sure, why the hell not? We did it, and I don't really want to go into detail. It's something I'm not too proud of.

The next day, I was telling Mike about it, and how stupid of me it was.

"I think it has to be the dumbest thing I've ever done," I told him, holding my pounding head. He laughed.

"No way. The dumbest thing you ever did was sleep with Joel." I glared at him, and he stopped laughing. "But seriously, I've had at least three one-night stands that I really wish hadn't happened. It's okay; it's something we all do. You can't beat yourself up over it, Lisha."

"I guess not." A long pause.

"So...who was it?"

"I don't know." I sighed. "I never asked his name. I guess...He wore glasses and was very clean-shaven. Tall. Older I think." Mike made a strange noise.

"Um, did he have a big scar on his forehead, over his left eyebrow?" he asked.

"Why? Do you know him?"

"Yeah. That would be Claire's dad." I felt my face go white. Even whiter than hangover white, which I guess would be fishbelly white.

"Who's Claire?" was all I could think to say.

"You know, the host of the party. The girl I went out with like two years ago."

"Oh right. For one month and one week. I remember now." Now I was whiter. Probably transluscent. God, what had I done? I'd slept with somebody's father.

"You know, Lisha. I did it with someone's mom. I never told anyone this, and I never planned on it, but I think this counts as an extraordinary circumstance." He looked at me hopefully. If he had been anyone else, I would have thought he was making it up to make me feel better. But I knew Mike, and thus knew two key things about him: one, he was a manwhore; two, his stories were all 100% true. So I said, "I'm listening."

"Okay. First of all, this girl's mom was a ho. Anyway, I was kind of going out with this girl in high school, and I came over to her house one day, and she wasn't there. She was doing community service for some future scholarship or something. So, her mom came onto me, and she was pretty hot. So one thing kind of led to another, and...we did it. It was awful because she told my girlfriend." I couldn't help it, I laughed.

"Wow, Mike," I said, "you always one-up me."

"Only when it comes to the bizarre and disgusting," he corrected. We shared a laugh, and I was very glad to have him as a friend. Not only had he done much worse things than I, but he didn't pretend that he was better than me and refuse to accept me. All of this did not, however, change that I was disgusted with myself. I knew why I had done it, and it was the wrong reason. That was when I made the decision to get over it and move on. To stop drinking and go to school.

The next day I called Joel and told him to meet me at Big's Sandwich. To my surprise, he actually agreed, and was already there when I arrived. He brought a girl I'd never seen before, not so much to my surprise. I sat down facing them, and she leaned against him territorially. Not that I could blame her; I mean, he could have left her for someone "better" that very moment.

"Okay, Joel," I said after taking a deep breath, "I won't waste any of your time." When neither of them said anything, I went on: "The thing is, I'm sorry for how I acted, okay? That's all. You were my friend, and I shouldn't have been such a jerk. So." I sort of let that last part hang, not sure exactly what to say next. He didn't say anything, and his new girl seemed not to be paying attention anymore, so I got up to leave.

"Wait," he said. I held my breath. "You said I was your friend. Are you saying we're not friends anymore?" The breath whooshed out of me.

"I guess so."

"Why? Is it because you weren't good enough for me sexually, or what?" His girl sucked in a surprised breath and shot him a look. Something clicked in my head, and suddenly it all made sense. I laughed.

"No, no," I said. "It's because you were only my friend because I had low self-esteem. It was only a matter of time before you took advantage of me in that way, too. So you did, and now I realize what an asshole you are, and I don't want to be friends with someone who's only going to drag me down." We looked at each other for a few seconds, and he obviously had nothing to add, so I left. I haven't talked to him since.

Instead of attending college, which I knew I would hate (and would be too expensive), I enrolled in vocational school. I took the bodyshop class, and found I had a real knack for it. Upon graduation I had several job offers.

My sister's baby was a healthy boy, whom she and Aaron--who was her husband by then--named Daarien. They thought it would be cute to name him after both of them in a jumbling of letters. I guess it's not too bad.

So that's it. That's the story of how I started my life.