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Raquél: Outside Looking In
Raquél
Chapter 1: Someone
Raquél
Chapter 1: Someone
I moaned groggily as my peaceful slumber was yet again interrupted by a loud outburst.
"… Why do you have to act this way? You're so irresponsible!" I heard my mother scream.
Groggily, I sat up in my bed and rubbed the sleep from my eyes before stretching my limbs. The sun was shining brightly this morning, which usually meant that it was going to be a good day.
But not for my dysfunctional family…
This routine would usually repeat on a daily basis. The heated argument between my parents would grow from hushed shouts, until they would escalate into full-blown, thunderous screams. Doors would slam, heavy objects would be thrown to the floor, and abusive names would be tossed back and forth.
Neighbors who lived upstairs, downstairs; left and right of us would be able to hear every word. They used to bang on our front door in anger, and even call the police if things became too intense. Eventually, they never did anything at all. Perhaps they’d gotten used to it.
"I'm not irresponsible! I don't believe this; I just came home and you're treating me this way?"
"You act like this is my fault! You brought this on your own freaking self!"
I began to collect my pencil and notebook, and an annoyed sigh blew from my lips as my parents' dispute continued. I knew I wouldn't be able concentrate on my homework, so there was no point. Try as I might, my punished ears couldn't shut out their abrasive yells.
It never ends! I thought in outrage.
Those two were always at each other's throats, day and night; and I'd suffer whenever I had to listen to the hateful words they kept throwing back at each other.
"Well, it isn't my fault you gotta be such a bitch all the time!" my father spat.
From the shocked gasp that followed, I knew that he was in for a whirlwind of trouble.
SMACK!
I winced as the sharp sound of skin piercing echoed throughout the house, followed by the frightened cries of my younger siblings. Even I felt the impact.
"You are such a damn jerk! Get out of my house now!"
"What the hell are you talkin' about, girl? This is my house. I'll leave whenever I want to."
"GET OUT!" my mother screamed again.
I jumped as the thump of a heavy object—obviously a suitcase—hit the floor with brutal force, followed by thudding footsteps, and the piercing slam of the front door.
A satisfied grin arose on my lips once the house grew quiet.
My father had lost the battle this time.
I set my homework aside just as my mother entered my room, looking flustered and angry. She sunk onto my bed and buried her head in her hands, which caused a wave of black tresses to tumble over her petite shoulders. Though she seemed very exhausted and weary, she always managed to look beautiful.
I looked just like her.
I had her long, curly brown hair, her dazzling green eyes, and her high cheek bones. But I was not as gorgeous or as perfect as her. The only permanent reminder of my father, unfortunately, that I inherited was his dark skin color. All my siblings and I looked that way because he was black.
I sighed, "What did he do now?"
I prepared myself for the onslaught of furious words that would be unleashed. She began to carry on about my father ordering her to do something for him and then wanting sex from her.
Yep, that was just like my father.
"I would've figured that since he spent 18 months in jail. ¡Él es un cerdo (he is such a pig)!"
During her rant, I thought of my little sisters. The poor things must have been so scared. They had burst into tears when my mother slapped him.
Whenever my mother and father got into a fight, my siblings would always barge into my room, distraught and frightened. And I was always the person who had to comfort them.
Now, our family had to get back into the swing of things.
My dad was put in jail for 18 months because of assault charges. He used to be in a gang, and they were rivals with another gang in the area. His friend, who he had known all his life, was sent to the hospital in critical condition after he was injured in a drive-by shooting. Soon after, my father found the guy who was responsible for hurting his friend, then beat him up really bad, also sending the man to the hospital. For weeks, the authorities were busy searching for him, but they couldn't find him because he hid at his parents' house.
My mother and I never found out about the assault until the night he was arrested.
I could never forget how terrifying it was when we found the large cluster of police cars surrounding the building. We were not allowed to leave because the place was put on lockdown. We didn't know what was going on, nor did the neighbors, so we went on with our usual evening routine. My mother and I were busy preparing dinner in the kitchen, and we rushed into the living room once we heard the loud commotion. Utter chaos broke out once an army of police officers burst through the front door and tackled my father to the ground.
The frightened cries of my little sisters echoed throughout the house and spilled into the corridor, where the curious and disturbed neighbors peeked out their doors to see what was going on.
Once an officer informed my mother of the crime he had committed, she didn't believe him. As the other officers slapped a pair of handcuffs onto his wrists, in a frenzied panic, she tried her best to convince them that they had the wrong guy. For her, it still hadn't registered that my father had committed such a brutal crime. She didn't think that it was even humanely possible for him to hurt anyone like that. We were all fearful, especially my younger sisters. They couldn't understand why their father was "going away", as my mother had sugar-coated.
Although she tried to keep herself together for the kids, reality finally set in, and she broke down in tears. I couldn't blame her for losing her composure.
My mother was only two and a half weeks pregnant with my brother at the time. So, my father wasn't there for the birth of his only son. But once he found out the sex of the baby he insisted—no, demanded that the baby be named after him.
My father's name was Andre James Richmond, and my mother, Gabriella Janélle Richmond (which in my opinion, should've been changed back to her maiden name a long time ago). I always hoped that my parents would get a divorce so that the remaining six of us could move on with our lives without him.
I absolutely hated my father, but I never mentioned it aloud to my mother. She never understood.
He had always been such a deadbeat father to us, and a terrible husband to my mother. And to be honest, I really thought that our family would have been better off without him. As harsh as that may have sounded, after all those years of disappointment, anger and misery, a line had to be drawn somewhere.
Many times, my mother had warned my father that he needed to wake up from whatever fantasy he thought he was living and take responsibility if he wanted to keep their marriage from ending up on the rocks. But their marriage had shipwrecked a long time ago. To me, the person who I thought desperately needed a wake-up call was my mother. She needed to realize that her life was not going to get any better if she didn’t leave him soon.
Inevitably, she was bound to get her heart broken.
Finally relieved of the angry voices rattling my mind, my pen connected to the blank sheet of paper and I began to write. I smiled to myself knowing that it wouldn't take long to finish my homework.
AP Math—in my case—AP Trigonometry, was a piece of cake for me. Also I always had a love for Chemistry, which I had inherited from my mother.
The one thing I had always regretted about my devotion to school was that it has made me a complete outsider and a target.
I was only in my first year of high school, and ever since my family moved to New York, fitting into the "A-crowd" or even staying invisible had always proved to be a challenge. Philip Randolph Campus High School was like a shark pit, and people like me were like the bloody little pieces of chum waiting to be eaten.
I had learned that after a painful lesson during that year. I wanted to be in the A-crowd like other kids who were former students of my Middle school, but I was never accepted.
In fact, I was ridiculed for it.
"Freak", "Loser", "Geek", or "Nerd" were just a few of the hurtful, and might I add, G-rated words I would be called on a daily basis. As if making fun of my intelligence wasn't enough, people used to make fun of my looks. They'd make fun of my hair, my eyes, my nose; my height.
If there was one thing I learned about high school, it was that Upperclassmen should never be trusted. At least in my school. Because of their unpredictable, manipulative ways, a freshman could fall into the torturous snare of humiliation and ridicule.
Just like I had.
I'd fallen victim to the shark pit after I met a girl named Maya Ramiréz, who was a Junior at my school. I had been new to the high school, so of course I didn't know my way around the building. During orientation, our homeroom teachers had decided to pair us up with Upperclassmen volunteers, which couldn't have been more embarrassing.
That was when I first met Maya.
My first impression of her was that she was very friendly. She approached me with a warm smile and said, "Hello, my name is Maya. What's your name, Sweetie?"
For a moment, I was taken aback. I wasn't expecting to receive such a decent greeting from an upperclassman, but I decided to go along with it.
It can't do any harm listening to her, I naïvely told myself. But I was very wrong.
Eventually I became the target for those cocky, selfish "Superiors" who loved to pick on vulnerable losers like me. I had always been afraid of criticism and what others thought of me. My mother used to tell me that there was a good chance that others didn’t see me as negatively as I saw myself. She'd always tell me this while combing her fingers through my curls at bedtime. But I could never bring myself to believe her. I'd supposed she just told me that because she was my mother.
To be honest, I was never content with myself, especially with my looks and my body. I was extremely petite for my age, as in 4 feet, 6 inches. I weighed a measly 90 pounds, another troubling inheritance from my mother which I absolutely hated.
In school I felt as though all eyes were on me, judging me, critiquing my clothes, my hair, my demeanor—everything about me as I walked through the hallway, tightly clutching my books to my chest. I would rely on walking behind people who were taller than me to avoid an unwanted confrontation from Maya and her drones.
Unfortunately, they would always find me, smelling my fear. Maya would approach me so quickly; she would be in my face before my back could hit the wall.
"Well, well, well if it isn't the dirty slut. Which jock did you have sex with today?" she sneered, which prompted her friends to break into malicious laughter. "I hope this time you remembered to lock the closet door."
I didn't know why Maya had always assumed that I slept with different members of the football team or the basketball players. I had never even talked to a member of the football or basketball team, much less had sex with any of them.
I’d know that the worst was yet to come when Carlos, her right-hand man, would approach me with the stealth of a cold-blooded serpent. He wasn't her boyfriend, but she loved to watch him harass me. It really scared me and upset me. I could see the danger in his eyes, which glowed with cynical amusement. My heart thumped against my chest with such a force, I felt like everyone could hear how panicked I was. I thought that I would suffocate and drop dead under his icy glare. Carlos would reach out his hand to stroke my arm. It was surprisingly gentle, but the way he touched me sent chills up my spine and made me cringe. I was thankful I had never worn a skirt, or who knows where else he would've touched me?
"What's wrong, baby girl? I thought you liked to be touched… Or do you like to sit back and let the men handle you?" he'd taunt, his fingertips burning the hairs on my arms.
I'd flinch at the sudden movement of his arms once he'd reach up to tuck a curl behind my ear. Then I would burst into tears as he'd wrap his palm around my neck and slam me against the lockers.
"N-no," I denied timidly, while watching the walls behind him. I could feel the burning heat rising in the back of my throat.
"Ha!" Maya laughed. "That's not what Jones told me. Don't you remember what you did for him last night? Or do I have to refresh your memory, you ignorant little whore?"
That was basically a typical thing Maya would do just to watch me crumble. She'd tell me which particular athlete had "informed" her about our daily "encounters." And she would assume that I never remembered because I was such an "ignorant" or "forgetful whore."
Her posse would lean forward with anticipation, eager to hear what I had supposedly been up to the night before.
"Can you guys believe she danced for Jones on a pole in her own house? How can her mother let her have a stripper's pole in her bedroom? But then again, she's a slut just like her mom... Isn't that right, Raquél?"
A smile of satisfaction arose on her face once she knew her story had worked. My vision would grow blurred as tears began to flood in my eyes. The situation would go from bad to worse at the mention of my mother.
My mother would usually take the blame in this for allegedly making me a "slut" just because she had me at 14. I always wondered how Maya knew that about me. It was quite scary.
"Yeah, he told me that you were working that pole like you were an expert. I guess the slutty apple doesn't fall far from the tree, huh? You know, for a dirty slut, baby Mama got back with a nice rack. "
The offensive comment would slice right through me.
"Sh-she's not a s-slut," I would defend my mom, fighting my incessant hiccups as I stammered.
"Ohh, Carlos, you made the baby cry. You're so mean sometimes," she often chided mockingly.
They would then burst into callous laughter before the rest of the group took turns making fun of me. I felt dizzy as their laughter seemed to grow louder and louder, swallowing my thoughts as it forced its way into my head. I'd feel sick, like I would throw up on the floor right before them.
"C'mon, let's go before she pees her pants. See you later, bitch. And next time you're looking for easy money, don't ask a cheap bastard like Jones. You know he shouldn't be wasting his money on a worthless piece of shit like you."
In the short moments I'd have to myself, I took in a few deep, shaky breaths once they sauntered off to torment some other nerd. But I could not rest easily. I knew that the worst was far from over.
During class where a student could get a first-class ticket to the principal's office for harassing someone, Maya and her friends knew that they wouldn't be able to get away with it. They felt that sneering at me in English wasn't enough to keep them satisfied with themselves. So they resorted to the second best alternative to making snide comments at me by speaking in a way that I could naturally comprehend: In Spanish.
It made them invincible.
Unfortunately for me, most of my classmates were Latino, and once the teacher would turn her back, the ridicule never ceased as Maya muttered nasty jokes behind my back. And what made it worse was that they knew that I could hear every word they whispered. I could feel all eyes on me everyone joined in the chorus of stifled giggles.
My face burned with humiliation, even as I tried my best to concentrate on my schoolwork and the teacher, which in fact made it worse because I was the only one who cared about passing the class.
Even if Carlos and Maya were caught whispering about me, they would smooth-talk their way out of trouble by using their renowned charm. Sometimes when a teacher would grow tired of the snickers and murmurs, they'd always question as to why the classroom had suddenly turned into Comedy Central. Their voices dripped with sarcasm as they said, "Was there some memo I didn't get this morning? Because I had no idea it was 'Act like a Jackass Day.'"
I'd always hide the smug grin that arose on my face. I knew they couldn't help but swear at them because they knew what immature idiots their students were. But I couldn't keep a smile for long. They hated getting caught in the act, and would actually accuse me of being a "snitch" and a "teacher's pet". If the teacher was a man, they would make up a claim that I had supposedly slept with them. It was expected anyway.
Once the dismissal bell sounded, they would chase me to my next class while throwing their books at my back and call me names while threatening to hurt me.
On days when I was on my monthly cycle, gym class was the worst. I'd suffer from the most excruciating cramps, my head pounded from ruthless migraines, and school was even more nightmarish than any other week. Those were the days when I felt extremely moody and self-conscious, which was basically a lethal combination regarding how uncomfortable I was. I'd also feel dirty, which forced me scrub my body in the shower for hours on end.
What really scared me was that Maya seemed to know when I was on my period, and she would steal my pads during the class. Since I was obviously a virgin, I was deathly afraid of using tampons. Usually at the beginning of the week when I was paranoid about accidents, I would stuff my book bag with pads as backup.
But one day, my plan backfired on me when Maya emerged from the downstairs locker room; book bag in hand, and discarded my much needed "supplies" onto the floor… right in front of the class.
She had received detention on several occasions for it, but that would only leave me to pick up every pad while the boys laughed in my face. And with my unbalanced hormones raging, tears of shame and defeat streamed down my face as I left the heap and ran for cover in the girl's locker room. My thick curls bounced behind me as I skipped down the stairs, nearly tripping myself in the process. I would myself in an empty stall and cry and throw up all through lunchtime until a nurse came to my rescue. And by rescue I meant sending me home.
To my humiliation, the nurse would try to convince me to come out of the stall while the next group of girls yelled at me for hogging the last stall. I ignored them, hesitant to leave in fear of being watched or criticized. The situation was already embarrassing in itself, and I never wanted to feel worse by being laughed at a second time. Between the nurse and me, we both knew the only person who I trusted and would actually listen to.
"Where is she?" I'd hear my mother's sweet voice call from outside the stall. It was only then that I could let out deep sigh of relief, once she'd gently tap on the door.
"Raquél, are you okay? Please come out, baby girl… para mí," she whispered, followed by a short sniffle.
My mother always cried when things like this happened to me, and I was very emotional at that time. It prompted me to cry even more. Before her knuckles could tap against the surface again, the door would swing open and I'd be in her arms, sobbing like a little child. I wouldn’t feel so ashamed anymore. And by then, the group of girls would have disappeared.
"Mami, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to…"
"Shh, you didn't do anything, baby. It's not your fault. It's alright, I'm here," she'd soothe, while combing her fingers my tousled curls and kissing my blotched face.
The both of us would remain seated on the tiled floor until I had calmed enough to catch my breath. She would help me to my feet, and pull me into another hug.
"Come on, let's go home. I'll talk to your principal later, okay?"
Once we hurried out the building through the back door of the gym, she'd tell me to wait in the car so that she could talk to my principal. When she said "talk to the principal", she really meant yell at him. I truly pitied anyone who dared to get in my mother's way whenever she was heated. There was nothing more intimidating than an angry Puerto Rican woman. I knew that it wasn't the principal's fault that these incidents happened to me, but I couldn't blame her for being angry after hearing about her daughter's constant bullying.
My mother’s long brunette tresses would swing behind her as she stormed back into the building, her stiletto heels tapping loudly against the pavement. I supposed that she was going in there to murder Maya, but the principal always seemed to suspend her just in time. I had a feeling that he could've sensed an approaching storm. Usually a week's suspension would do, but my mother always demanded for her to be expelled. But like always, Maya got off easily.
And just because she had been sent home, that didn't mean she wouldn't get the last word in. Sometimes as her car would pull up beside me in the parking lot, she'd call out one last insult like, "Did your mom go in there to 'talk', or is she just screwing him for a favor?" before speeding off.
Sitting in the seat next to her was her boyfriend, who sat back listening to his MP3 player. He was almost in his 20's and still in high school, which showed that he didn’t care about his grades in school. He never seemed to pay attention to me. I always found it strange that he was never in sight whenever I faced confrontation with Maya in school. Perhaps he didn't want to waste his precious time on someone who was unimportant. I didn’t know what he saw in Maya, because she treated him like dirt.
I would spot them from the deserted table where I sat alone, and when he'd lean in to talk to her, she would push him away before continuing to gossip with her girlfriends. As expected, they would be gossiping about me.
Like any other teenage girl, I longed to find that one special guy who would love me for the rest of my life. I yearned to feel his strong arms around me that would leave behind tingling sparks as he'd caress my body. Someone who could make me smile and laugh at their humor, to wipe away my tears when I was feeling upset, or to encourage me whenever I faced adversity. Someone who would protect me from harm or defend me from those who tried to kick me when I was down or tell me that I was beautiful... Someone who would love me for who I was.
But I knew that I had a better chance at winning the lottery than finding my soul mate. My mother always told me not to give up faith, because that perfect guy might just be right around the corner.
"For all you know, he could be right in front of you," she'd say to cheer me up.
It never worked, but I believed her. I knew couldn't deny how right she was. I believed that someone, somewhere, also waited for their right person. And that right person could maybe, just maybe, be… me.
If only I could make it out of high school alive.
This is a very long chapter with a lot of events and information crammed into it. Because of that, everything seems a little rushed. You don't take time for little subtleties and nuances. Try splitting it somewhere. Maybe the first chapter could just be about your home life.
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