Fitting In (Is Hard to Do) Semester 1

MY MEDIUM COMPLEXION SKIN tone would have been perfect if it wasn’t for the 1001 darks spots that had taken over. I knew I wasn’t the finest thing on this earth but I also knew I wasn’t the ugliest. If I could get rid of some of these cosmetic defects, I might just be considered desirable to boys.

  I stand in front of the bathroom mirror fussing with my two-week old relaxed hair. It was broken off in some areas but those parts were easy to cover with the longer strands that adorned my head. I part my hair on the side and flat iron my ‘barely to the bottom of my ear’ length hair straight down and bump the ends, but not too much to give my hair the appearance of being longer than it really was.

  I thought about the girls at school and how they all seemed to have long, bouncy, silky hair. It might not have been theirs but they owned it in so many ways. “Their mothers take them to the shop.” I mumble aloud. I hate the way I look and having to get my relaxer from a Dark & Lovely box, done in Joi’s Kitchen & Kurls. My mother’s kitchen.

  The way my skin feels right now, I can’t wait to get out of these clothes. As I ran my bath water, I talked to my girl Willow on the phone. “What are you doing best friend?” Willow asked me.

  “Pouring vinegar, kosher salt, and olive oil in my bathwater.”

  “What? Are you trying to make yourself a salad?” Willow bust out laughing as if she’d made the funniest joke in the world. Willow and me, go way back to elementary and practically did everything together. Where you saw one, you would see the other.

  “Anyway, best friend you ready for tomorrow?” Willow asked me over the phone.

  “You know I am!” I looked into the bathroom mirror again, imagining the way I wanted to look tomorrow. From what I imagine makes me smile, but my smile quickly diminishes when I see my two front teeth staring back at me. Taunting me. It was as if they were laughing and making fun of me too. They were bigger than most and weren’t as straight as everyone else’s but if I smile just right, it wouldn’t be noticeable. A lot of times people think I’m mad because I don’t smile a lot. Whatever. If they had these things, they wouldn’t find much to smile about either.

  “Amber! Did you hear me?” Willow screams into the phone for the umpteenth time.

  “Nah, what you say?” I was too busy thinking about my imperfections and forgot all about my friend on the phone.

  “Never mind.” Willow said defeated.

  I turn off my almost overflowed bath water and thought of a way to console my best friend. “Aight best friend, go ahead. I couldn’t hear with this water running.” I lie.

  “I was saying-”

  “Hold that thought, my dad is beeping in,” I cut Willow off without waiting for her to respond. “Hey dad.”

  “Hey beautiful.” I roll my eyes to the thought of me being compared to beauty and scratch the rashes that had formed on my neck and my arm. “I was just calling to see how you guys were doing.”

  “Thanks dad.” I knew he wasn’t calling for just me. I was about to tell my father I’d call him back because Willow was on the other line but the phone click alerting me that Willow had already hung up.

  “So is your Mama still seeing that guy?”

  I hate when he confronted me about my mother’s business. He knew darn well my mom was still seeing Keith. “Yes, daddy.”

  I have to sit here and babysit all his humph’s and sighs over the phone as if this was the first time he’d heard all this. I could be taking my bath right now! I tilt my head and stare at the ceiling while tapping my foot because I know what’s coming next. “See, if it wasn’t for that dude, me and your Mama could have gotten back together. I’ve been sitting here waiting on your mom.” He sulks some more and says, “I-I ain’t seeing nobody!”

  “I know daddy.” I got so tired of hearing this stuff all the time. Every time I turn around… I’m always being put in the middle some kind of way. I walk into the kitchen near my mom because I knew what my father’s next question would be.

  “Where’s your-”

  “Right here.” I cut him off handing the phone to my mother who wore that, ‘What the hell you giving me the phone for look.’ She snatches the phone from my hand but I already knew the frustration wasn’t intended for me.

  “Stop scratching! You’re making it worse!” My mom says referring to me dang near mutilating the eczema off my skin. “Go take your bath and put your cream on!”

  ♥♥♥

  After taking my bath, I was going to give my hair another shot but Willow called me back and we got engrossed into deep conversation.

  “You ain’t find no cute dude that you want to hook-up with yet?” I ask her that because she rarely talks about any dudes, she might like.

  “Best friend, please! I got better things to do with my time than thinking about some Westbrook High boys.”

  “What! In a minute, I’m goin’ think you play for the other team.” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “So you saying you ain’t going to Winter Formal?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to Winter Formal! Why do I need a dude to take me to Winter Formal when I can take myself? If bad comes to worse, you and I can just roll up in there together. Plus Amber, that is so far off from now… we just started school and you already thinking about that.”

  Ugh! Can this chick get any lamer? I mean, who the heck goes to Winter Formal by themselves? I be damn if I go to my first or any High School function by myself or with another chick. “This ain’t no elementary or middle school dance, Willow. I suggest you start finding you a date because I know I’m gonna’ find one. So yeah, I’m thinking about it now ‘cause I need to find me a date.”

  “Yeah okay! Who? I know not Roman Davis?”

  “Why not Roman Davis?”

  “Well, a couple of reasons actually. For one, he’s not on your level. For two, I think he’s seeing Symphony Perkins.”

  “He is seeing Symphony Perkins… I’m in middle school and even I know that, Amber!”

  “Get off the phone Cam’Ron! Ugh!!!”

  “Hiiiii, Willoooow.” My brother sings into the phone ignoring anything I said.

  “Heeeey, Cam!” Willow sings back, “Now get off the phone… we girl-talkin’.”

  “Ok.” Just like that, he hangs up. Just to be 100% sure, he hung up, I click over to the other line to make sure I hear the 3-way dial tone. I continue on…

  “You know what? Your name should be Willow Killjoy Martin. You always gotta’ hate and put somebody down.” Even though she was my best friend, emotionally it seemed like she never had my back.

  “Amber please! You know they are on a different level than us. They’re sophomores and popular as heck. When have we ever hung out with a squad? Have you ever been friends with a cheerleader? Or dated someone that was on the basketball or football team? I’ll answer for you…. No! Because neither have I. It’s always been us three musketeers.”

  Willow was referring to her, me, and Ryder. We’ve been 3-deep since elementary. It wasn’t like we met and formed an unending bond, we were more or less thrown together from being outcast from the nerds and the popular group. We weren’t athletic enough to be popular or smart enough to be nerds. We were nothing! I’m tired of being nothing and a nobody. Willow and Ryder might be content with that, but not me!

  I even thought since we were all in the same church with different kids other than the ones we went to school with that it would be different. I thought at church, nobody would judge me or look down on me. That it would be an automatic common bond. I found out real quick that going to church was just as stressful as going to school. I still had to deal with funky attitudes, snobby-ness, judgment, and cliques. We “Three musketeers” will always be the outcast no matter where we were. That’s why it is so important for me to change the curse that’s plagued me all my life. I was more determined than ever to do whatever I had to do to be popular and accepted by the other side.

  Any smile I had when we first started this conversation had been long gone. Willow was definitely a fun-killer.
The least she could have done was to humor me and let me have some fun with my fantasies. I knew that most of the stuff I said and talked about was only wishful thinking. But dang, if she was supposed to be my best friend she should have joined in and had some fun right along with me. Willow’s mind-numbing attitude had me fuming.

  “Amber!” My mom yells for me.

  “Huh!” I answer back irritated placing my hand over the receiver so I wouldn’t scream in Willow’s ear.

  “Don’t huh me… You better come when I call you!” Ugh! I wish she would make up her mind on what she wants me to do. When I don’t say nothing and just come, she yells at me to say something.

  “All right best friend,” I said in my normal tone trying not to show Willow how annoyed she had made me. “I’m ‘bout to go see what my mom wants and finish my hair for tomorrow.

  Willow didn’t even notice how my mood had changed. “All right best friend, lata.”

  I was so annoyed I didn’t even say goodbye, I just hung up the phone.

  ♥♥♥

  BAM! BAM! BAM!

  “Who at the door?” My mom yells. She was in the kitchen trying to piece something together because it was the end of the month and food was scarce.

  My thirteen-year-old brother Cam’Ron wizzes past me, runs into his room, and slam the door behind him.

  “You could have gotten the door!” I holler at him but it bounces off his bedroom door and comes back to me void.

  I pull open the front door and it’s another angry mother holding the hand of her O-So-Precious child who could never do any wrong in her eyes. “Where’s your mother!” The slightly overweight woman throws at me along with a whiff of cigarette breath smelling like she brushed her teeth with a whole pack of cigarettes. Her hair is standing every which way on her head as if she had just gotten off the couch from watching her stories. She blows her cigarette smoke through the screen and it smacks me in the face.

  “Ma!” I summon my mother feeling sorry for the unsuspecting soul on the other end of the screen door.

  “What!”

  “Somebody wants you!”

  “Who the hell is it?”

  How the heck was I supposed to know? I look at the woman and she’s obviously fuming. I don’t know if she was blowing smoke from her nose or if it were coming from the top of her head. “I don’t know!” I yell back, never having seen this woman before in my life.

  Within a few seconds, my mother comes storming from the kitchen. She knew as well as I did what was up when she saw the lady and her son standing there with a bloody nose.

  “Your son punched my son in the nose and made it bleed!”

  My mom shifted her weight onto one foot and placed her hand on her hip. “Cam’Ron!” She yells without taking her eyes off the woman on the other side of the screen door.

  My brother opens his bedroom door and peer out. “Yes?” My mom turns around and looks at Cam’Ron as if he already knew what she wanted.

  “Is that him?” Mz. Ghetto Fab asked her son. He nods his head the best he could while holding the toilet paper to his nose.

  “Did you do that?” My mom turns around and questions my brother.

  “Okay… wait… see… what happened was-”

  WHOMP! My mom smacks Cam’Ron across the back of the head. “Mommy… wait… you didn’t let me explain…” Cam’Ron and the boy went back and forth about each other’s versions of what happened. Of course each version was to make each of them look like innocent bystanders.

  Having enough, my mom said, “Well we are getting nowhere. I’ll keep my son over this way and maybe you should do the same with yours.” My mother had had enough of the shenanigans.

  “Don’t tell me what to do with my child!”

  My mom throws her hand on her hip and cocks her head to the side, “Okay, then what do you suggest?” My mom asks sarcastically. “Would you like me to pop my son in the nose so he could bleed too?”

  “What I want is for someone to pay for this shirt!”

  “For what? You need me to wash it for you?”

  “This is a AKOO shirt!” My mom looks at the woman as if she’s speaking a foreign language. “I paid $80.00 for this damn shirt and you goin’ give me my money!”

  My mom gasps and no longer can she compose herself because she thought this lady was on drugs.

  “Trick please! You need to spend that money on fighting lesson because clearly your son just got his ass kicked in his “AKOO” shirt!” My mother slams the door in the woman’s face and leaves her out there screaming and yelling at the door.

  My mom raises her hands toward the ceiling, “Lord, Jesus give me patience because if you give me strength, I’m going to need bail money too!” She looks at Cam’Ron and says, “Get your butt in your room until I tell you to come out. You goin’ make sure they throw us out on the street. Everyday someone complaining about you! Don’t go back outside!”

  ♥♥♥

  I look at my hair in the mirror and compare it to Symphony and the other girls. “Ugh!” I pick up my pink Bristol brush and hit myself in the head. I pull and yank at each ugly strand on my head until it’s a big bushy mess. “I hate you!” I shriek at my hair in the mirror.

  “What’s wrong?” My mother, Joi, says as she peeks her head into the bathroom.

  “Nothing.” I still hold a frown with evil eyes and stare at my reflection in the mirror.

  “Awww baby, it’s all right. Here let me help you.” My mother grabs the comb and began to flat iron my hair. The more my mom touches my hair, the more enrage I become. When my mom finishes, she pats my hair to poof it with her hands. I hate when she does this, my hair now remained above my ears.

  “Stop!” I move my head so my mom couldn’t touch it anymore and run into my room to place a scarf over it to cover the bigger mess she made.

  “What is the matter with you?” My mom’s face bore worry and concern for me.

  Knowing my mom wouldn’t understand, I just say, “Nothing.” I know it’s a lie, but I didn’t want to hurt my mother’s feelings with the truth.

  Not letting up, she persists until I give her an answer.

  “Why can’t I get weave?”

  “Why would you want weave? You're only 15 years old and your hair is beautiful.”

  I jump up and run to my dresser mirror. “Where!” I rip the scarf from my head. “You tell me where?!”

  I knew I had gone too far, but it was too late to take it back now. My mom took a step back to readjust her thoughts because clearly this was not her daughter standing before her. “For one.” My mom paused holding up her index finger. “You need to slow ya roll because you are getting a little too fly at the mouth!” She folds her arms across her chest. “Where do you think you get off talking to me like that? Don’t think you’re too big for me to grab a belt and whoop yo ass, because I will!”

  I knew my mother spoke the truth so I put my attitude and mouth in check real quick. “Ma, I just can’t stand my hair. All the other girls at school go to the shop and wear weave.”

  “Since when have I raised you to be just like all the other girls?” I remain silent because I knew I was fighting a losing battle. “I know Willow don’t go to no shop, nor do she wear weave.”

  “Aw c’mon Ma! That’s different and you know it! Willow has nice hair.” I felt a twinge of jealousy tugging on my insides.

  Feeling agitated, my mom shook her head, “Unh uh… I’m not going to sit up here and do a roundabout when I already told you no!” My mom glares at me from above the rim of her glasses. “Now wash your hands and dust all that hair off you so we can eat.

  3 CHAPTER THREE

  Live your dream beneath your passion and stand with your team… Cheerleading may not be your life, but it’s mine!