From the Other Side of My Bed

10. Paper Planes

I don't remember much from the ages of 11 through 13.
Kelly, my therapist, tells me that the brain often blocks unwanted memories to protect you.
I wish it had blocked everything bad that's ever happened.
But then there wouldn't be any book.

Mostly through those ages, it was about us settling down here in arizona.
We first lived with my paternal aunt and her husband for a while, in which we lived outside, in a small duplex they had built for us in their yard.
I guess I didn't care much about this time because I don't remember anything fascinating.
Although, now that I remember, we got kicked out of my aunt's home because of a physical fight that broke out between my two sisters.
My aunt didn't want any parts of this, so she bought (with my dad's money) the ugly house in mesa.
When we first got to the house, my mom broke character and started jumping, like a little girl, at the glance of this house. She was so happy.
I wrinkled my nose and shocked my head in disgust.
It was ugly.
Everything inside was... dead.
That was what you felt when you walked in.
It was like bones of something that once was alive.
And made me depressed to have moved here.

But I got my own room.
It was small but mine.
It was the first time I slept without mom and I felt great.
If only I knew that feeling wouldn't last forever..

Anyways, during this time, i don't remember having contact with my dad that much.
I remember crying and writing letters for him, telling him how much I miss him and how I wanted to go home.
But what was home?
Even then, I didn't know what was home.
But either way, those letters never got to him. My aunt, whom I gave those letters to send him, would read them and burn them because I don't know.
What a jealous bitch she was.
I'm glad you're dead now.

Anyways, my world was constantly changing, and I hated it.
I had come to a country knowing nothing of english.
It all sounded French to me.
I was put in elementary school for a year before I moved to junior high.
Now in junior high, they used to pair you with a bilingual student so you could do your work with them and maybe have someone to be with so you wouldn't feel alone.

That's how i met yaretzy.
Now yaretzy was two years older than me, making me only 12 when i met her.
She was so beautiful, and looked like any Mexican girl with dark skin and luscious hair.
The thing about her was, she was a sexually liberated gal, in better words, not a virgen.
Which now that I think about it, that was weird because she was only 14.
But according to her, she lost her virginity one day when her parents were not home with some fool she met online.
Most guys she slept with were older than us.
I never thought anything about it.
No one told us that was wrong.
But because no one knew her, and I, talked to older men.

Yaretzy's parents were your typical rancho people, who held yaretzy with an iron hand.
She couldn't go out without permission, and they had strict times and needed to know who was going and would really make sure. Sometimes the mom would stalk us if we were going to the tiendita by yaretzy's barrio.
I hated that but oh well, that's how some Mexican parents are.

I really got to love yaretzy, she taught me english despite having a difficult time understanding me with my thick accent. She taught me all about sex, about kinks and what men liked and found attractive, she even taught me how to dress and do my makeup.
She made me drop my childish clothes and made me enter into my teenage glamour.
For once I felt like I had connected with someone.
We used to talk for hours on the marble tile of her home, we used to even dance to drake and eminem or to biggie smalls. Her music was so badass and her style, which was appropriate for 2013 swag style of the time, made me want to feel desirable.
I didn't care about home, I wanted to make my home wherever the fun was.
And yaretzy was fun.

-

When I was put in ell classes, I didn't know that I was going to spend most of my two years in junior high there. But i'm grateful because my teacher, named miss hannae, was the loveliest lady i've ever met. Her daughter was called madeline and she loved calling my name because it reminded her of her baby. She taught us how to speak, write, and understand english through a book called tuck everlasting. And because of it, i attribute my love for reading.
In my second year of junior high, I had become friends with a tall Navajo girl named sky, and she had a group of friends that consisted of three other girls which didn't really matter. So why do I mention them?
It's essential for later.