I trembled in my seat—Justin was really pissed!
“Then don’t scream at her in a busy parking lot and then beat her!” Lorenza declared, her voice fearless.
Justin eyed her with disbelief. “Lady—”
“You’re a pig! You shouldn’t treat your wife like that! And to make it even worse, your wife is pregnant and you abuse her like this? What’s wrong with you?! Women should be treated with respect! You’re just a big bully!”
My mouth dropped open. No one had ever spoken to Justin like that. I mean, his father verbally attacked him but never tried to correct his son’s violent behavior.
The police got there at that point. Lorenza stepped out of her car and waived them over. While this was happening, Justin rushed into the car. Quickly turning on the ignition, he had to turn it off again when the police car parked behind us, blocking us from leaving.
“I’m the one who called you,” Lorenza announced. “This pig was mistreating this girl all over the parking lot and then he hit her—just look at her face!”
“Hands on the steering wheel,” the police officer told Justin when he had stepped over to Justin’s car. “Are you okay, ma’am?” he questioned me.
“My wife is fine,” Justin asserted crisply as he did what the police officer had told him to do—put his hands on the steering wheel.
The police officer’s eyebrows shot up. “Wife? You’re married to him?” he questioned me. I just nodded.
Lorenza’s voice exploded in the air, “But you should’ve seen the way he slapped her! He—”
“Ma’am,” the police officer burst firmly, “let me handle this. You can go home now.”
Lorenza eyed me. “But—”
“Go home now,” demanded the police officer. “All you’re doing here is obstructing justice. Leave before I have to take you in!”
“But—”
“NOW!” the officer burst, his face in a fierce growl. “Or I’m taking you in!!!”
The color drained from Lorenza’s face. She gave me a very apologetic look, started her car, and murmured a goodbye to me. “Remember what I told you,” she mumbled, her last words to me. My eyes stayed on her car until I couldn’t see it anymore. My heart ached. For some reason I felt all alone.
“So what happened?” the officer asked to neither one of us in particular.
Of course Justin jumped in before I could even open my mouth. “We were just having a little argument.” he explained.
“A lovers quarrel?” questioned the officer, chuckling. My stomach burned in fury. Couldn’t the jerk see the purple marks on my face?!
Justin nodded. “That lady should’ve minded her own business! I don’t know why there are so many interfering instigators out there! They must not have a life of their own and need to get in other people’s business! Jeez!!!”
The officer nodded. I turned the side of my bruised face to him. The jerk averted his eyes.
“Unfortunately, there are a lot of people like that wasting our valuable time,” the officer stated.
“Sorry, Mr. Officer. It’s just that my wife and I fight like all couples do and then we make up,” he announced squeezing my knee. “We really love one another.”
The officer chuckled as he started to step towards his car. “Just don’t fight so loud, or it invites meddlers.”
I heard a very heavy breath being let out of Justin. I stared out my window, upset. Maybe I should’ve spoken up, I said to myself. There’s still time! The officer was behind us, blocking us from leaving. As I was about to call back to him, I heard the words that stopped me dead in my tracks.
“It was nothing,” he talked back to dispatch. “Just a domestic disturbance. A spousal spat—not a big deal.”
The cop had taken Justin’s side. I was totally alone in my predicament. Escaping that monster is impossible, I told myself. He’ll kill me, my family, and himself before letting me go. I’m stuck with him.
Stuck that is until he finishes me off, beats me to death.
As I sit in my room at the Sanchez home, I try to stop my trembling by telling myself that I had in fact escaped the monster. Yet, I can’t help but be preoccupied about the near rape of Danila. I can’t tell you how relieved I am that she got out of that drunken party safe. Yet, I can’t help horrible images of my own life beating into me.
When will I be able to shut the door to my past? I wonder.
At school, it seems like the whole student body has seen Danila’s drunk video. Some students even warble with a slur to Let It Go as the Dynamic Trio and I pass by them in the hall. It’s really frustrating!
In the meantime, Anelina, Emily, and I tell Alfredo how much we appreciate what he did for Danila.
“It was nothing,” he murmurs modestly.
“No, Alfredo, it was a lot!” bursts Anelina with pure emotion. “I don’t know what would’ve happened to my sister if you hadn’t been around!”
“You’re a real hero!” I burst. I mean it. He had stopped violence against a girl. I wish he was around when Justin was pounding me. “Really a hero!”
“My hero,” Danila murmurs, her eyes smolder on him.
Alfredo nervously clears his throat. “I’m not a hero—I’m just some guy who was in the right place at the right time.”
“You’re wrong!” I burst. This time it’s my turn to be emotional. “You’re not just some guy! Not everyone would’ve done what you did. Stuff like this is happening at campuses all over, and other people just let it happen! It’s really gross to follow the crowd in something so disgusting!”
“But you didn’t follow,” declares Emily. “You’re our hero, Alfredo, whether you like it or not.”
Alfredo doesn’t seem to like us calling him a hero. It apparently embarrasses him. He appears to like Danila’s new crush on him even less. Every time she moons over him, he eyes me with a certain frustration. I shrug helplessly.
I’ve told him when we’re alone that maybe he ought to consider going out with Danila. She’s a great girl! But he says that he only considers her a good friend.
“It’s not her I have feelings for,” he tells me, carefully eyeing me. I nervously shift my eyes. This is an uncomfortable conversation for me.
Meanwhile, as Danila is trying to get Alfredo’s attention, she’s also becoming more and more fed up with all the snickers around her at school. Anelina, Emily, and I defend and protect her as much as we can, but it isn’t enough with so many jerks out there.
One day in the cafeteria, Danila shoots up from her seat, her face determined and her head high. “Make fun of me all you want!” she snaps. “If you want to go all hater and stuff then go ahead and laugh at me if you want! But if you want to make fun of my singing then here goes!” Then she belts out Let It Go.
I mean really belts it out!
Shocked, Anelina, Emily, and I just stare at her with wide open mouths. Danila sings awesome! Her vociferous, stunning voice reverberates from the walls. She really gives Idina Menzel some competition. As I look around the cafeteria, everyone is staring at her dumbfounded—including the teachers.
“Did you know your sister could sing like that?” I whisper to Anelina who promptly shakes her head. Apparently, Danila had kept her four octave voice a secret from everybody until now.
I chuckle. I’m really proud of my friend. Surprisingly, no teacher or administrator tells her to stop singing.
Chiffon stares at Danila furiously. She knows the joke she made of my friend is now crumbling.
When Danila stops singing, an explosion of applause erupts. Flushed, she slumps back into her seat. I smile at her and mouth, “Wow! Awesome!”
She smiles back at me.
Justin:
My stomach is a huge knot!
Ratchet is out of surgery! The freak didn’t bite the bullet! Grrrrr! He should’ve had the decency to croak!
Freak, freak, freak!
As you can see e shou;dve had the decency to croak! HHHHI’m pretty upset, but what
can I do?!
PATIENCE, PATIENCE, I keep telling myself. Lucette will be mine again.
Chapter 22
Lucette/Araceli:
Now it’s my turn to be frustrated and furious. Even though most students have stopped hating on Danila, Chiffon and her brainless admirers keep doing it. You should see the cyberbullying taking place. Danila decides to ignore it since she knows most of the student body is on her side. I, on the other hand, am at my patience limit. Nightmares have taken over my nights. I keep obsessing of what Justin had done to me with witnesses doing nothing to help me! I know I should be keeping low, but if I don’t speak up I’ll burst. The dam inside of me of unsaid words is busting open!
I know that clueless Chiffon princess-queen better than anybody—having been her.
How I dread saying that. I’m so ashamed.
One day when the Dynamic Trio and I are going to the library during lunch break, I see Chiffon at a picnic table outside of the cafeteria. Let me just tell you about the huge smirk she’s got on her face. She points at Danila who as usual is doing a great job of ignoring her, and the Queen Bee says some snarky statement that sends garish giggles amongst her worshipping cronies surrounding her. They gaze at Chiffon as if she came up with the cure for cancer or something. It’s disgusting when all she does is ridicule people and act all high and mighty!
I really can’t stand this anymore!
Telling the Dynamic Trio that I forgot something in my locker and that I’ll meet up with them a little later, the three girls step into the library. I march up to the sneering Chiffon and let her have it! “Stop bullying Danila,” I demand.
“What?” snaps Chiffon, obviously surprised that a wallflower like me had come up to her. You know how I pretty much try to blend into my surroundings so I don’t stand out. I’m standing out now for sure! Everyone in the schoolyard is staring.
“You heard me!” I shoot back.
Chiffon guffaws. “You and what army?”
“I don’t need an army,” I grunt, “but you need an audience to mess with other people, so you can play the popularity game. Believe me, I know who you are.”
“You’re just a nobody,” she spits out. “Why are you even talking to me?!”
“Your royal highness,” I mock with my voice full of sarcasm as I fake a bow in an exaggerated way, “I know I’m one of the little people and you have this lunch kingdom of lowly subjects, but may I have an audience with your regal high-uppityness?”
Belly chuckles reverberate in the air. I had made my point. As Chiffon’s furious sight scans her surroundings of snickering students, she becomes even more enraged, her lips shaking.
Chiffon’s eyes throw out fire. “Listen, insect, get out of my sight!”
“I’m not scared of you,” I snarl. “To your feet-kissing followers your word is law, but to me you’re just some snobby girl who thinks she’s better than everybody because she overpays for some designer crap that she’s brainwashed into thinking is magical and makes her better than everyone.”
Chiffon’s eyebrows shoot up. She sputters undecipherable language, not finding the right words to throw back at me.
“Clueless, silly girl,” I continue, “and silly followers thinking they need you to be somebodies.”
The Chiffon cronies all gasp in unison. “I decide to speak directly to them. “Come on, guys,” I implore, “Stop being someone’s puppet. Stop letting someone use you so they can be acting all superior. Just think about it! For goodness sakes, use the brain that was given to you and stop letting someone tell you what to think! Chiffon is only popular because of you. Don’t beg for her attention, don’t grovel for her approval, and don’t give away your power! The power is yours—all yours!”
“You don’t know what an enemy you’ve just made!” Chiffon snaps, having found her voice. “I’m going to destroy you, insect!”
I chuckle loudly. She’s now going to cyberbully me, but I haven’t had a Facebook since I was lucky Lucette. I eye her forcefully, without fear. That’s the only way to deal with a bully—it’s my experience that bullies are basically cowards.
As expected, she quickly shifts her eyes. I keep glaring at her, showing her how unafraid I am. Then suddenly she shifts her eyes back to me with a smirk on her face as if she realizes how to get me.
“I made a mistake,” she retorts. “You’re not an insect after all.”
I hold her smirk, my eyes unwavering.
“No not an insect,” she continues her snarky tone. “You’re really a cow or a pig but not a tiny, skinny insect.” Her hangers-on howl and guffaw.
I smile, actually grin. “Whatever.”
My answer infuriates her. She wants me to crumble. “You’re fat!” she blurts, her face in a type of snicker that fully expects to crush the opponent.
I start laughing so loud that all the students in the area eye me—completely startled. “Why should I care what you think of me?” I challenge nonchalantly.
There was a time when I would’ve been crushed with someone calling me fat. I would’ve eaten nothing but lettuce for at least a week even when the scale was telling me I didn’t weigh more and that my size two clothes didn’t fit tight. I was so influenced by what others thought that I was a slave to opinions. Now I’m not. They can insult me all they want.
I now know who I am!
I’m happy with my size and who I am. I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been. My period doesn’t suddenly disappear for months on end because I’m over-dieting. I enjoy food, am nourished by it, instead of being at war with it. Being at war with my own body. Being at war with myself.
The heck with that!
This is my life, my body, my thoughts. I’m in charge of myself!
“Fatty! Fatty! Fatty!” Chiffon chortles, obviously thinking this will upset me. It’s so horribly fixed in our society that being called fat is one of the worst insults. But I understand the mind game Chiffon’s playing and I choose not to play. Choose—my choice. As I said before, I don’t care what she thinks of me. Why should I? She’s a horrible, mean, small hearted person—unworthy of my attention to her beliefs. Unworthy of me giving her power over my feelings, over how I feel about myself. Her insults glide off of me because they mean nothing to the smart person I try to be.
I know who I am! Yeah, I keep saying it because it’s important I always remember so that clueless, ugly people don’t try to tell me who I am.
I grin even wider. “Fatty? Really?—that’s all you have for me?”
She stomps her foot. Can you believe it? “Fat slob! Fat pig! FAT, FAT, FAT!!!”
Laughing with all my might, I lift my hand and make a come hither gesture with my fingers. “Yeah, unload all you want, your royal high-uppityness. Go ahead. Give it all to me—every fat insult you have. I. DON’T. CARE what someone like you says about me. You mean nothing at all to me,” I sniff dismissively.
“Then why are you still in front of my face!” snaps Chiffon, her words tripping with one another.
The nightmarish memories of Justin taking me at will bursts inside my head. RAPE! Complicity! No one to help me! I want to vomit then and there. “I still have a few things to say to the likes of you!!!” I snap.
“What can someone like you have to say to someone like me?”
“That stupid party where you got Danila drunk,” I shoot back, “you were egging some guy to rape her and post pictures of her! How low can you go?!”
Chiffon stumbles up from her seat as if wanting to leave, still not meeting my enraged sight. “I’m not talking to you anymore, fat insect. You’re not worth my time.”
I stand in front of her, preventing her from stomping a way. I need to stand my ground! I can’t scrunch in a corner anymore, like I did with Justin. “How can you egg on rape?!!!”
“Get out of my way!” she spits out.
I cross my hands in front of my chest. Surprisingly, her cronies don’t make a movement towards me to get me out of the way. They seem to be sc
ared of me too. “I guess I can’t expect better from you. You think you’re so far above everyone that you don’t have feelings for other people!”
“Get out of my way!” she repeats, frustration in her voice.
I don’t move. “How can you not see how wrong that was?!” I snarl, heatedly glaring at her fan club as I furiously unload my speech. “What’s wrong with all of you?! How would you like it if someone did it to you or to someone you cared about?” They stare at the ground unable to meet me in the eye. I wish so much that I could take them inside my nightmare with Justin, so they could experience even a tiny bit of what happened to me. “Are you so in worship of this clueless Chiffon girl that you’d join in something so wrong and illegal to boot?!!! What’s. Wrong. With. You.” I let that sit in their ears for a few seconds as I push boiling tears back. Chiffon gnashes her teeth and glares to her side but says and does nothing.
“If Alfredo hadn’t gotten there, something really horrible would’ve happened!” I continue my soapbox tirade, my throat violently squeezes itself with frustration. “And all of you would’ve been accomplices! Guilty of being stupid! Guilty of pushing it on and even if you didn’t cheer it on that night you’d still be guilty of doing nothing!!! WHAT’S. WRONG. WITH. YOU?! Don’t tell me that you don’t know that rape is really wrong! What kind of human beings are you?” I stop to catch my breath and try to calm down but then the frustrated fury boils over the pot again. “YOU’RE MEGA-EVIL SOCIOPATHS!” The tears I had pushed back threaten to rush out, and I abruptly turn around and stride away without even glancing back. Hopefully my passionate tirade got to some students. I for sure feel better at having let some of my fury out, at having finally spoken up, even with the emotion violently shaking me. But I’m depleted. Exhausted. Emotionally drained.opefu
Alfredo goes up to me as I’m about to step into the library, startling me. I didn’t know he was outside listening to my scene with Chiffon. For some reason, I thought he was with the Dynamic Trio.
“Great job,” he states.
I smile weakly, forcing myself to get it together. “Thanks.”
“I’m overwhelmed with what you said,” he states.
“Not more than how overwhelmed I am by what you did.” I find that if I concentrate on him, my insides don’t tremble as much.
“You’re pretty awesome, Araceli.”