"I check my phone to see your face
Staring back as if to say
Don't worry, you won't be lonely ."
Lex
Luke and I had been what I like to call 'enamorados' for about a week, and that had been a GLORIOUS week, I must say. Not only I was spending time with the boy I liked and his friends, whom I loved, but my best friend was with me, so things were awesome.
Sometimes we went to the beach to take walks, but Luke and I, we were quickly to fall behind to have some alone time. Other times we went to the Santa Monica Pier; during those times the boys were recognize a lot; other days we went to the movies or arcades. Luke and I also made sure to have some quality time alone, so we would hang out at his room, my apartment when Juliet was gone or a poetry place, even though I wasn't performing.
Luke always ushered me to perform but after my failure that caused me to meet him, I wasn't going to do it anymore.
Of course most of our hang outs were after I was done with work, or they went to pick me up at the diner, so sometimes we had dinner there. It was one of those days, the Friday before Ash's birthday to be exact.
The boys sat in one of the booths as I served them. They always insisted on me taking a break and Ramona said it was totally fine, but since they were a lot around, I didn't want to leave my work behind.
"Have I told you that I love how you look in your uniform?" Luke asked me as his hand brushed against mine when I handed him his plate.
"Yes," I rolled my eyes smiling. "Like a thousand times. I mean, you say it every time you come here."
"I think I am going to get diabetes from all that sugar you are dripping," said Ashton. "Michael and Crystal were one thing, I can deal with one couple. But I CAN'T DEAL WITH TWO!" Ashton threw his hands up in the air and Calum laughed out loud. "Please Cal, stay forever single with me. Please."
Calum's face grew serious. "You can't tell me what to do," he exclaimed.
"Come on, Cal. You don't like anybody. Say it for now so he can calm down," Michael said cutting his quesadilla.
When Calum was about to open his mouth to reply Juliet entered the restaurant running. Her breathing was heavy and she had stop for a second, hands on her knees, to catch her breath. She was all flustered and her hair was a bit of a mess, as I she had been running. She had a green folder on her hand. My green folder, the one that contained all of my papers.
Panicking I ran up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"I saw ICE two blocks away when I was coming so I ran back home to get your papers just in case," she said in between breaths and then handing them to me.
"You'll think they will come?" I asked.
"Don't' worry about it. You've got your papers and I am the example of the perfect citizen. Plus, remember that daddy is a lawyer with a lot power."
I shook my head. "It's not me I am worried about. Ramona's husband," I paused. "He's illegal."
Freaking out was short to describe how I was feeling. I was shitting my pants. I actually went to puke before I could tell Ramona and the boys were just watching me pace around the empty diner. They didn't know what was happening until I told Juliet to check if they were still close. They were, and we had no back door.
"What's wrong?" Luke asked when Juliet was done detailing their position.
I went ahead and told them the story. Ramona and her husband's had tried to migrate legally to the U.S. after the American dream, like any other immigrant. Only Ramona got the work visa, her husband's petition was denied. He crossed the border illegally two months after she had done it legally, and they opened the diner. Things had been fine for the last twenty years, but when Trump's administrations came, everything changed.
"Didn't you try to legalize him? After all, he's been living here for twenty years," Ashton asked, biting his nails.
"Yeah, but it just became harder over the years. I can't let them take him, he's like my family. And if they discover Ramona has been covering him, they could revoke her visa too." I felt the vomit coming up once more and I took a hand to my mouth. Luke hug me from behind and it made its way back down. "Thanks."
"What are we going to do?" Juliet asked. Just as she said that we heard a truck's engine come to a stop. I had been so scared for three years. I knew that sound by heart, and she did too. "Fuck."
I turned to her quickly, liberating myself from Luke's arm. "The flour sacks. Hide them between the sour sacks."
"Lex," Juliet began saying.
I shook my head. "Do as I tell you. Make sure they can't be seen. I don't care if they covered in flour, you do as I tell you."
Juliet nodded and went to the kitchen with Ramona and her husband. I stayed there with the boys surrounding me, looks of worry on their faces.
"What about you?" Luke asked grabbing my hands.
I raised my head. "Somebody has to deal with them. One has to face their fears eventually."
He kissed my forehead. "Not this kind of fear, Lexie. Not this."
They were there for Ramona's husband, and from the moment they entered, I knew that if they could also take Ramona they would, and I was not going to allow that. They were the only family I had in the U.S. They had become my family, and I was not letting them go. Not that easily.
They walked into the diner, a woman and two men. They were all wearing their khaki pants, a long sleeved shirt under their police vest that read 'ICE' in big, bold, white lettering. It was a terrifying. At least, as an immigrant, it was for me.
All of them looked harsh. They held on to the Taser attached to their pants, leaving their guns alone at the moment. I couldn't stop staring at the gun because I had heard so many stories about innocent people being killed with them.
"We are searching for illegal people residing here in L.A. We are going to go through the whole place and make sure it is safe," one of the men said.
Calum had told me to keep my accent hidden. I looked Mexican enough to raise suspicions, so he told me to try and showcase a perfect American accent, or British accent or whatever; anything that wasn't Latin. I loved my accent but I couldn't love it with ICE present.
"I would like to see a warrant," I said, holding on to Luke's arm, part of me hiding behind me. My voice was shaking.
The blonde woman smirked. She knew I was hiding something. "I would like to see your papers," she said with an annoying, high pitched voice. Like the villain of a movie. She was the one in charge.
"She's not...she's not," Michael began rambling.
"Then I would like to see an I.D.," she said with a wicked voice.
I released Luke and went to one of the tables to grab the green folder and I handed it to her, I also got my passport and VISA out of my purse. She analyzed them carefully. Touching the papers with her long, skinny fingers, then getting them close to her face; I could swear she was also smelling them, sniffing them like a dog. She then handed them to their companions, who did exactly the same thing with them, but longer. They wanted to intimidate me.
She closed the folder and placed the passport and VISA on top of them and then handed them back to me. "You are clean, Miss Fernández. At least it seems that way. We are going to annotate your name and make a call to your school later. Confirm some things." I nodded as I went ahead to grab Luke's arms again. "Still, we need to check the place."
"Still," Luke began. "You need a warrant." He hadn't spoken since ICE entered the diner. When he spoke his voice was brave and deep, convinced that he needed to do that. He needed to help me.
She woman chuckled. "Don't make this hard, would you? We have a job to do."
"And that work that you should be doing," Luke said, anger within his voice. "Has to respect civilian and human rights."
The woman and her minions rolled their eyes in a synchronization that was terrifying, as if they were robots; for me it was a real life horror movie. Like in slow motion the three of them took a few steps forward in slow motion, and I took the same amount of steps backwards. Luke placed his arms in front of me, offering a useless protection, but still a reassuring one.
They kept walking, avoiding me in their way, but when I saw that they were headed to the kitchen I reacted. I jumped and pulled the woman by the arm backwards using all of my strength.
"No," I screamed.
When she turned around with a smirk in her face I knew I had made a mistake.
They were the hunters. I was the prey.
And I had fallen into their trap.
Luke
With a swift fast move they grabbed her arms and placed them behind her back. One of the two men took out a pair of handcuffs and used them on her. I began to worry because I knew that for the three scholarships she had, she couldn't have any criminal record. If she was arrested, even because of racism, her college career was over.
But there was something more that was breaking my heart: her eyes.
Her pupils dilated almost to the point of making her irises disappear. She was paralyzed in fear. I could see it. As if she was being hunted. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and her nose expanded and closed with each breath. But like I said, her eyes were the worst thing to watch. They were scared to death, searching from side to side for something, for someone.
They were searching for me, and when they did find me, they were pleading. Help me. Help me. Please, help me.
"Let her go," I demanded. "This is illegal." I took my phone out of back pocket and handed it to Calum, who was the closest to me. I unlocked it and opened Instagram. He took it knowingly and I saw him press the buttons I wanted him to press. He was my brother after all, and he knew like no other. "You don't want to do this."
"She assaulted a police officer," the woman said. "This is the legal thing to do."
"She did not," Ashton protested and then he noticed was Cal was doing. "She was trying to protect her right to the third amendment."
She laughed sarcastically. "Immigrants like her have no right in this country."
"I-I-I-I am-m le-le-legal," Lexie stuttered lowly. "Please." I saw the cop who was holding her twist her arm, he tried to hide it but I couldn't take my eyes away from my girl.
Lexie yelped in pain and I took a step forward. "How do you know I am not illegal? I am an immigrant just like her. Why don't you ask for my papers, why don't you arrest me?" I shouted to the woman. "That's right. We are right, we are not Latinos. You are taking this girl away because she is a Mexican trying to protect her dreams."
"This is my job. This is the law," the woman said.
We knew it was not. Lexie had explained it to me one day. Since Trump's administration began the migration policies had only gotten harder, and in many cases, dangerous. They deported perfectly legal immigrants, and they separated kids from their families. She told me she always donated part of her scholarships to help the children detained in camps at the border; she invited the guys and me to do so too.
Reading about it and watching it on the news was different from living it; it was different from watching the girl you liked suffer from it. I hadn't realize how important the situation was to the world until I met a hard working girl like Lexie, with the biggest heart and aspirations I knew, and until I watch her unfairly suffer from racism.
I was about to punch the man holding Lexie to set her free when suddenly Juliet bursted out of the kitchen, one hand on her hip and the other one pointing the woman.
"This is no low. I am a model citizen of this country," she began. "And my daddy is a very important lawyer," she pointed out with a grin on her face. "I have to so many strings I can pull, and I advise you to not mess up with my friend."
"Every girly like you says that," the woman laughed. "Who's your father, sweetie? Steve Jobs? 'Cause he's dead."
"Hiram Lewis," Juliet smirked crossing her arms over her chest. "Now are you letting my friend go?"
"She committed assault against a police officer."
"We know she didn't," Juliet said. "Are you letting her go?"
"We will detain her for a few hours."
"Luke," Lexie spoke for the first time in a while. "Please. Help me. Help me," she cried. She was a hot mess. Not a sexy mess. Literally a hot mess. Her legs were shaking, so it was only the cop that held her up. Her face was red and wet, and with mucus coming out of her nose. Girls who have break downs are not pretty, like the movie make you think. They are heartbreaking.
"Then, you will have to face the wrath of the internet, because we are live on Instagram with my 6 million followers," I said.
"That's illegal," the man holding Lexie said. He also softened his grip around her.
Calum stepped forward bravely. "So is what you are doing. I think we can keep each other's secrets."
The woman snapped her fingers and the man uncuffed Lexie and released her. She was shaking so badly that immediately she fell to the ground and took her hands to the back of her head and started rocking back and forth, crying hysterically. I ran up to her and try to hug her but it was impossible, so I just placed a hand on her back and signaled Cal to stop the transmission.
They started to leave but Juliet called them and asked for the piece of paper where her name was written. Annoyed the woman gave to her and finally left the building with her minions without saying a word.
When the doors closed. She started sobbing. I guess she didn't want to seem weaker and then she already appeared, more fragile and breakable. I knew for a fact that Lexie was a strong person, because she had survived so much alone, and she was surviving still, yet, she didn't have to do it alone.
"It's okay, Lexie. Everything will be okay."
Juliet moved fast and was already talking with her dad over the phone to help Ramona and her husband get a citizenship. I was thankful Lexie had a friend like her, but I felt she carried too much weight on her shoulders. I wasn't only there to help Lexie, but also Juliet didn't have to carry that much weight alone.
Lexie would later tell me that being arrested wasn't actually the problem, but what happened with it. Everything she had worked for during four years would be lost in five minutes because the university could kick her out; and it also meant being deported back to Mexico with no chance of entering legally another time. All the debts, sweat and tears would have been for nothing.
There was also the police brutality, the concentration camps at the border. You don't actually have a true conscious about it until you live it, or you watch someone you love go through it.
Juliet called me over and I told Calum to take care of Lexie for a moment.
Ramone walked out of her kitchen with her husband. Lexie was sitting ina chair, crying but trying to calm herself down.
"You chose us," Ramona said. "And we will never be able to pay it back."
"I am going to Pasadena for a day or two, I am going to talk to my dad, but she can't stay alone. Please, take her with you. I will pack her things and give them to you." Juliet was acting like a mother leaving her baby with a sitter. "She needs rest because this is the thing she fear the most. Let her eat junk food and watch romantic teen comedies."
"Is she going to be okay? She doesn't look like it." I glance at Lex who was still on the floor but was no longer rocking back and forth. Calum was whispering things into her ears and rubbing circles in her back.
"This times was just worse than the previous time," Juliet whispered.
"There was a previous time?" I asked to her completely shocked.
She placed a hand on my shoulder. "With this culture against immigrants from third world countries that we have around the globe, there will never be a last time."