I can’t leave the apartment again because Amá decided to ransack my room to make sure I didn’t have anything else that might be considered scandalous or immoral. At first all she found were an old clove cigarette and a pair of shorts she didn’t like. But then she tried reading my journals, even though she doesn’t understand English. Unfortunately, she does recognize bad words, so she ripped out all the pages that contained fuck, bitch, shit, and even sex, which were incredibly common, of course. I screamed and begged for her to leave my journals alone, but she went through them anyway and left me with only a dozen pages or so. I was hysterical and tried to swipe them from her hands, but Apá held me back. I cried on the floor in the fetal position for hours after. I couldn’t find the motivation to get up, not even when a roach crawled near my head. Life without writing doesn’t feel worth living to me. I don’t know how I’m going to make it to graduation because I feel like a husk of a person these days. Some of the poems Amá destroyed I had worked on for years, and now they’re gone. Poof. Just like that. I’ll never see them again. The one thing I loved most in life has been taken away from me. What the hell do I do now? I’m still lugging Olga’s laptop in my backpack, so she doesn’t know I have it, but that doesn’t even seem to matter much anymore.
I don’t know if I’ll see Connor again. It’s been three weeks since our last phone call, and it feels like a lifetime. I miss him so much I can hardly stand it. I’ve almost called him many times, but when I get to the pay phone, I tense up and turn around. I have no idea what to say. I’m almost positive that I’ll just end up crying again because things are even shittier now. Besides, it’s obvious he
doesn’t want to be with me. Why would anyone want to put up with all my problems?
—
Christmas vacation was almost as bad as last year’s. I don’t know if it’s worse to spend all day in my room, or struggle through my classes and be forced to speak to other human beings. Sometimes I can’t make it through the day without losing it, so I have to take crying breaks in the bathroom, which makes me feel extra pathetic. Lorena keeps asking me if I’m okay and if she could do something to help me, and I say I’m fine, although I’m so far from fine that I don’t even remember what it is anymore. I feel like my heart is covered with spines.
Mr. Ingman keeps wondering why I’ve been missing our after- school college sessions. He’s excited that I got a 29 on my ACT. If I didn’t feel like absolute garbage, I would probably be excited, too. I try to avoid him, and when I do run into him, I tell him that I have to work with my mom in the evenings. My history teacher, Mr. Nguyen, often asks how I’m feeling. He looks worried, but what can I tell him? How can I begin to explain? I just keep relying on the trusty old period card.
In English class today, we discussed one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems, and it felt as if something were splintering inside me. When we got to the part about the bees, my eyes ached from holding back tears.
Instead of walking home after school today, I take the bus downtown. I’m not even sure where I’ll go or what I’ll do—I have no money or destination—but I can’t bear another evening locked up in my room. I don’t care about the repercussions. I give up.
I finally decide on Millennium Park because it’s the closest thing I can get to nature and because it’s free. It’s still freezing, so of course no one is around, only a few annoying tourists who, for some stupid reason, thought it was a good idea to come to Chicago in the winter. The cold here feels barbaric, inhumane. Why would anyone want to come to a place like this?
The snow is pretty when it falls, but it hasn’t snowed in about a week. All that’s left now is slushy and gray, or yellow from all the
dog pee. I wish winter would pack its bags and get the hell out already.
The amphitheater is completely deserted, so it’s almost peaceful. The silver architecture looks kind of ridiculous to me, like a spaceship and spiderweb fused together, but everyone always takes pictures of it like it’s some sort of masterpiece. I smile when I remember the time Lorena and I came to a summer concert here. We didn’t even like the music—some kind of folk band from Serbia or some shit—but it felt great to be outside under the moon and three sad city stars. I thought maybe Connor and I would come here in the summer, too.
I walk toward the ice-skating rink as the sky begins to darken. I wish I had a few dollars for a cup of hot chocolate, but I barely have enough to get back on the bus. I’m tired of being broke. I’m tired of feeling like the rest of the world always gets to decide what I can do. I know I should go back home, but I can’t seem to move. I can’t keep going like this anymore. What is the point of living if I can’t ever get what I want? This doesn’t feel like a life; it feels like a never-ending punishment. My body shivers, and the thoughts in my head become hot, confusing swirls. I can’t seem to breathe right.
“Go home, go home, go home,” I tell myself, but I just stand there, watching a blond boy with ruddy cheeks skate in a tiny circle until his mother yells that it’s time for them to leave.
