TWO WALLS - the summer i turned pretty (conrad fisher)

fifteen

"Hey, hold... Connie, hold on. I'm sorry, man. I got a lot going on right now."

"Just leave, Dad." Conrad slammed the door behind him.

I didn't know what to do at that moment, but I knew that I wasn't going to allow myself to use the back door. Mr. Fisher would automatically know I had been listening to their argument, so I walked around the house and used the front door instead.

As I closed the door behind me, I looked around to see if anyone was close. My eyes landed on him. He was in the kitchen drinking a glass of water. He didn't see me, so I tried to sneak my way up towards my room.

I failed, only it wasn't him that had caught me.

"¿Dónde estabas?" Where were you?

I stopped in my tracks, flinching at her regularly harsh voice, but something about it made the heat turn up in me. I wanted to throw her aside and simply go up the stairs without even acknowledging her, but life didn't work like that, especially when having a Latina mom.

"En la playa. Necesitaba estar sola." At the beach. I needed to be alone.

"Por Dios, lo que necesitas es estar con tu familia." For god's sake, what you need is to be with your family.

I practically laughed. "¿Cual familia? ¿La familia que se saca fotos sin mi?" She was glaring at me, but I didn't care. "I have to watch as you three take pictures without me. You parade around your little family while I sit there and wish that I was a part of it. God, you're so... infuriating. You pretend—you pretend like you care, but you don't. Mom, you couldn't give less of a shit about me. You have no idea how crappy it feels to watch the picture perfect family form right in front of your eyes... without you. And I'm sick and tired of you pretending like I'm a part of it all. Because I'm not. I'm not an Alvarez. I'm a Rodriguez and it's so obvious that you completely agree, so don't deny it.

"Dad fought so hard for me, for you, but you needed that picture perfect family, didn't you?" I fought hard to keep my tears away, but I couldn't help it. I started to cry and she watched. "Guess what? I'm done. I'm done trying to be that for you because you don't care. No matter how hard I try to be perfect, nothing is good enough for you."

I was about to walk away, but I had one last thing left to say to her, the one thing that has been weighing on me since the night he was detained. "Do you remember walking into the police station that night? I had been waiting for you for what had felt like hours. I wanted comfort from my mother because that's what moms do, right? No, you didn't even look at me. You had this disappointed look on your face. You were disappointed in me. You didn't even stop to think about what I could've been feeling at that moment.

"Which is crazy. I thought that maybe you'd have the decency to try to understand what I was going through." I paused, taking a long breath before I ripped my heart out and lay out for her to see. "You were supposed to be the one person in my life that understood. You are the only person I know that had that same fear growing up. We both feared that one day our parents wouldn't come home after their long day at work. Well, it happened to me and you weren't there. You were supposed to be there for me. The one time you would have redeemed yourself from the other times you have simply ignored my importance, you didn't. You stood there, talking to the officer, a disappointed look plastered all over your face.

Then I said, "I want abuelita back because she sure as hell would've at least tried to comfort me the one time I couldn't handle it myself."

"Well, she's gone. I'm all you've got."

"I have my dad. Do you remember him? The guy you slept with and left? The guy who tried to prove himself to you? The guy you abandoned for some other man? The guy you simply ignored?"