Q: what do you love more: thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, or New year?
Mine is Thanksgiving. (By the way I hope you all had an amazing thanksgiving and I'm so thankful for you all. I remember having 300 reads and coming home from school all excited to read like five comments. Now I come home and can barely keep up with them haha. Thank you all so much; you are cherished ❤️).
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"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" Harry asked Zulema as she shut her locker door.
Zulema rolled her eyes, "yes. Stop worrying about me for once," she sighed and tossed a sweatshirt over her head.
He sighed too and then nodded before bidding her goodbye and heading to his first period class. Zulema did not feel like to going to class at all. She was scared she would start feeling any kind of pregnancy symptoms and she would have to throw up or something like that.
She still had postponed her appointment for another week since Harry needed to make a trip to the bank to take money out.
He was just relieved to guide her through whatever she needed.
Zulema contemplated going to class, but easily remembered that she needed to graduate. She remembered promising this to herself and it was one promise that she'd stuck with for a long time.
Lunch rolled around pretty quickly, which she was so thankful for since she was starving. For once she actually wanted to eat what their school was serving.
Zulema held onto her tray and sat down at their usual table. Everyone was pretty much talking amongst themselves except Harry since he went to tutor during his lunch period.
"You alright?" Benny asked Zulema, from across the table as she looked queasy.
"I wish people would stop telling me that," she sighed and rested her cheek on her palm.
"Sorry," he mumbled, unsure of what she was taking about.
"No, I'm sorry," she shook her head, "I'm just, I don't know... upset."
"What's wrong?" Benny furrowed his brows.
Zulema bit her lip, "I have no idea what I'm doing with my life."
Benny laughed, "then the whole school is upset. Because I don't either."
Zulema laughed too, "I know but at least you have an idea of what you want to do. You said you looked into criminal justice right?"
Benny nodded as if it wasn't a big deal. But it was. He was just tying to give her comfort.
"That's great. I'm completely lost."
Benny shook his head, "well that's not true, you have to like something."
Zulema shook her head. Art didn't count. If she were to tell a teacher that, the teacher would not call art a realistic goal. She needed something pragmatic.
"I don't know. I guess a job will be fine, but I just want something I'm gonna enjoy, you know?" Zulema asked.
"I feel you too," Benny looked down and played with his hands, "but I mean you have the rest of your life to live. Think about going to school as your first goal," he looked at her as he stuffed food into his mouth, "then start thinking about what your future will permanently look like. You have people looking out for you," he smiled.
Zulema smiled too, "thanks, Benny. Your little girlfriend better not let you go."
He laughed nervously, "she kind of already did?"
Zulema gasped, "what happened?"
"She's republican."
Zulema gave a dumb look, "are you serious? That's why?!" She almost reached over and shoved him.
"I don't know! It's just a real deal breaker for me. It's not really even the fact that she has a different political view that turns me off- it's how she expresses it. She was going on and on about her hatred on illegal immigration and I'm just... I don't, Zulema, like I got a sister struggling to stay here legally but can't because they won't let her renew her papers. She just doesn't understand..."
"Does she realize the majority of the population of California is Hispanic?" Zulema laughed then looked at Benny who faintly chuckled, "Anyways, she never will understand," Zulema spoke quietly and looked down, "I mean I don't think I could stand being with someone who's even into politics in the first place," she chuckled.
"Exactly," he laughed, "but in all seriousness I'm better off without her. I don't need that right now, my sister has been scared these past few months because of all that."
"I'm really sorry your family is going through all of this," Zulema said sincerely.
Benny shrugged, "it's okay. I'm just praying the abogado comes through."
"Lawyer, Benny, Jesus," Zulema corrected him, because he sometimes forgot words in English.
"Maybe I'm the one who they should deport," Benny chuckled but deep down, Zulema could tell he was actually frightened about his sister.
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Zulema was on her bed doing her homework while Harry sat next to her doing his. She furrowed her brows at several problems because she didn't quite understand the equations. However, eventually she was able to solve them. Harry looked down once in a while to see if her answers were right, without her knowing.
"I can see you."
Harry jumped slightly as he heard her say. He chuckled, "sorry, just curious."
"Well, good. I was going to ask you for help on this one," she muttered and pointed at a problem.
He scanned it, nodding as he realized her mistake. He brought his pencil to her paper to erase something she had written down, "okay, so you were supposed to actually set these equal to each other rather than adding them."
Zulema hummed and wrote down what she thought was the correct format, "like this?"
He nodded, "yeah. And make sure you combine those two like terms," he pointed at two sets of the same variables.
"Thank you," she smiled and reached up to kiss him on the cheek. He blushed and nodded before looking down at his paper again.
For a few hours, they'd seem to have both forgotten that Zulema was pregnant. It was nice to be normal for a while before next week when they'd have to be sitting in that doctors office...
Harry immediately shook off those thoughts.
"Is it cool if I go get something to drink?" He asked her, closing his book.
"Of course," she told him, "get me water?"
Harry nodded and got up to go into her kitchen. He walked towards the fridge to grab the pitcher of water and set it on the counter. He turned around to grab two cups from the cabinet.
While pouring the water, he lost slight balance and a bit of water accidentally spilled onto the counter.
"Shit," he whispered and saw that the water was traveling towards a piece of paper. Quickly he grabbed it before the water could touch it then cleaned the bit of water with a nearby rag.
Harry looked down at the envelope in his hand and was going to set it down until he saw the cover of it. On it said "School of the Art institute of Chicago."
He raised a brow and couldn't help but open the already opened envelope. He read it quickly and his heart sped as he did. Did she know about this? Maybe it was Ricky who opened it and she didn't know.
It just seemed odd that she wouldn't tell him about something like this. Then again, she never really told him much. It took him a very long time just to get her to open up.
What angered him the most was that he had no idea that art was significant enough for her to apply to art school. He did not want to seem selfish, especially because art is such a personal thing. But he thought she would tell him something like this. Something that obviously has meaning to her.
He bit his lip and held the paper in his hand before walking back to her room. Zulema looked at him and noticed that he wasn't holding water, but a piece of paper. Shit. She thought.
"Where did you get that?" She sat up and tossed her books aside.
"Your kitchen. Why.." he paused and looked down at the letter, "why didn't you tell me?"
"Because it means nothing to me," she shook her head.
"Obviously it means something, I mean- I didn't even know you applied here nonetheless, got in," he almost slammed the paper onto her small desk.
"Because it's nothing-"
"Let me see," he said.
"See what?"
"Your art."
Zulema crossed her arms and shook her head, "no," she mumbled.
"No?" He asked.
"It's not good, okay? I'm not going to that stupid college anyway. It's too far and I have no money-"
"If they're reaching out to you like this, I'm sure they will be willing to give you a scholarship. And you have fafsa, other scholarships are available too-"
"I said no, Harry. This would never work, just leave it alone," she snapped and crossed her arms.
"I hate when you do this," he muttered and shook his head.
"Do what?"
"Not tell me anything!" Zulema flinched as he yelled, "you always keep your life or what's wrong, from me and I'm honestly tired of it. I tell you everything. I thought we were close enough for you to tell me everything," he said quietly. He didn't want to be harsh or even pick a fight, but he couldn't understand how she could be so quiet about everything.
"Don't compare me to you, you know I'm- I'm not used to telling anybody things-"
"So I'm just anybody?" He cut her off, causing a strain of silence.
Zulema didn't say anything. Instead she put her head down. She was so nervous and just.. weird. She didn't know what to do in situations like this and she just wished he would understand. Understand what it felt like to be raised in secret. Living with them and keeping them.
Harry realized he wasn't exactly being fair when she had other things to think about than going to college. It was why he was going to give her space for the night. Space for her to think as well as him. If he stood, they'd argue and that wasn't fair to anyone.
"I'm gonna go," he said, "I'm not mad at you," he looked her in the eye, "I just wish you trusted me." He said before setting the paper down gently onto the table before walking out of her room.
Zulema sat down and wiped a small tear off of her cheek.
I do trust you.
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