Chapter 9 #3
Running my tongue across my teeth again, I felt a tingle in my veins.
I needed a hit. I couldn’t have a hit, though, so I thought about what it was Italian was asking me.
I didn’t understand why he was asking me this, but he was placed here to “watch” me, so the least I could do was engage in conversation.
“If you could get out today, no cravin’ drugs. What is it you wanna do?”
I could still feel Shio’s daughter’s head on my chest. The silkiness of her hair felt like it was still in my fingers.
The calm I felt from just holding her and having her in my presence centered me.
Grounded me. Satisfied me. I was the same way with my baby brothers; I loved caring for them and teaching them and protecting them—giving them what I never had.
“I partied a lot, but it was only because I was chasing the numbness. The high, Italian—it stops all the worry and doubt. I meet new people, and even if I’m never going to see them again, I almost live my life through theirs.
The newlyweds that are on honeymoon and are overly friendly because they are high on life.
The group of women who are on a girls’ trip and are sloppy drunk, leaving the stress of their day-to-day lives in their home countries.
It’s all fun for the moment. It helps me forget my future… My present.
“But, if I had my choice, I’d still be a wife.
Not only a wife, but a mother. Some days, I say I don’t want it, but deep down, I do.
I just would like it if I had my choice in who I chose to be the father to my children.
But since I do not, I can own a business, maybe.
I can go back to school to maybe care for children or become a teacher.
“I really do not know. Everything seems hard for me.”
I could hear Italian shift before his voice clearly spoke.
“As a woman, and shit… a man, too… But we ain’t talkin’ ’bout niggas right now.
But muthafuckas be sayin’ you supposed to have goals for yourself.
Goals that will help you live the life you deserve and desire.
But I believe women have options, so I believe you have options too.
“It’s like this… If you wanna be a professional with a fancy degree and booming career, you know you gonna have to put your all into schooling.
You gotta study. You gotta show up to class every day.
If you want to be a high-earning entrepreneur typa of bitch—my bad, typa girl—you gonna have to have a vision and hustle your ass off.
“You gotta push yo’ shit like crack in the eighties…
Awl damn! My bad, no pun or no slick shit.
But yeah, Mexi-Mami. If you want to be kept, be a rich nigga’s Barbie, then you gonna have to invest in your appearance and your mindset.
I ain’t saying you gotta have a slim, Coke bottle figure or a BBL or no shit like that.
It’s niggas out here that love BBWs and odd builts, just the same.
But you gonna have to keep yourself up to even attract that type of nigga that’s gonna keep you.
Looking good, smelling good, dressing well, even if the clothes and shit are from the clearance aisle…
You gonna have to be that man’s version of a walking dream.
“Now, what do all those women have in common, regardless of their goals being different? I’ll answer it for you—discipline. They have fuckin’ discipline. I ain’t here to judge you or no shit like that, but you lack discipline, Mexi-Mami.”
I swallowed the thick saliva that had built up in my mouth during his speech.
“Ain’t shit wrong goin’ either route. The men in my family have always provided for the women—that’s just how it is.
That’s how I was raised, and that’s the typa nigga I’ma be when the time comes.
If you wanna be a wife, you gonna have to walk like a wife and talk like a wife.
You gonna have to act like a wife, even before you’re officially a wife.
Especially if you’re tryna be a wife to a nigga that ain’t gone require you to do nothing but be his. ”
I’d said it already, but now, after listening to Italian’s words, I could not see myself having a job or owning a business.
I had never been led to believe that I could be that type of woman.
To me, being a wife was the easy way out—I just did not like having to be the wife of the man my father had chosen for me.
My father revealing that he did not purposely match me with Felipe was a short-lived relief.
It made me feel like my father had not gone too far off the deep end, and that he did love me in his own way.
But what was the use now? When a Rodríguez had their claws inside of you, there was no letting go.
As quickly as I’d praised my father, his name alone soured my stomach.
He did not think Shio was good enough for me.
He wanted me with my own kind or someone with fair skin.
My papa had some nerve. Shio was good enough to hide me until he got a plan together, but that was it.
My father had audacity. He was continuing to prove my thoughts about him to be factual.
“My cousin gone eventually have to marry. So you can sit in this bitch and sulk and rot. Or… You can fight back. You can fight that fuckin’ addiction. You can fight whatever is in your head saying shit that ain’t true. You can fight all them demons that’s up on you.
“Shit gonna be harder than a bitch. It’s gonna be painful too. It might damn near kill you. But seeing him walk another bitch down the aisle gone kill you for sure—no mights about that shit. You gonna be wishin’ you had of gotten your shit together so you can be the one. On foe ’nem.”
I heard a lighter flick, and then he pulled on what I assumed was marijuana, and seconds later, the potent funk confirmed it was.
“I looked up online that the best way to get a person off drugs was to not do drugs around them. But, shit… If you can’t handle a lil’ weed smoke, you ain’t gonna make it in this family anyway. We all get high as fuck, but on that green only.”
Weed didn’t bother me, nor did it make me crave cocaína (cocaine). I’d been craving it since before he slid open the door hatch, anyhow.
“You too young to be a powda head, Mexi-Mami.”
“I’m too young to be alone too,” I whispered.
“But you ain’t alone, though. Me and my cousins gonna be here with you every day, makin’ sure you straight. Ain’t nobody gonna violate you or mistreat you. We just want you to get better. We want you to get right. And when you get yo’ shit together, you just might have a chance to be with Shio.”
The burning of his weed sounded, and then the exhale of his lungs. “But sometimes, being alone ain’t a bad thing. It’s when you alone that you can truly hear your fuckin’ thoughts. Your wants. Your needs. Shit… God.”
“Si…” I choked as my eyes watered.
Closing them, I refused to let more tears fall. I was feeling so much and nothing at all. Lost, afraid, empty, craving, exhaustion, heartbroken—it was like feeling many terrible things at once and not being able to do anything about it.
“So, I’m in prison? I’m a… prisionera (prisoner).”
I could hear what sounded like him standing to his feet.
“We don’t fuck with twelve, Solana. Just think of this shit as a real nigga rehab.”
“Rehab?” I asked in a panicked tone.
I did not need rehab. I just needed to get one last hit and go back to only doing the drug when I partied. I only used it when I was stressed or when I felt that ache in my stomach. I was not addicted to the drugs.
“Don’t worry, our cousin Ezio had to go through this same shit. You gonna do better, though, cuz you got the younger generation watchin’ out for you. We gonna get you right, So-So. Eat up and get some rest. You in for a mean-ass rollercoaster.”
The door shut, and I stood up from the bed.
Something hit the floor with a thud, and seeing that it was Shio’s cell phone, I snatched it up.
My mouth went slack, and my head spun. They wouldn’t keep me in here, hoping I no longer craved the drug, would they?
I could get sick. I will get sick. They were not professionals.
He sounded younger than I. What if I coded?
I was locked in a room in a basement and could die if I coded!
Needing to feel something, I stumbled to the bathroom.
The tile, cold beneath my feet, grounded me the way the pillow had.
I flipped the light switch and stared at myself in the mirror.
My hair needed brushing, the lazy ball I’d knotted at the top of my head leaning to the side.
My eyes were puffy, my nose a reddish hue, and my lips cracked.
Turning the faucet knob, water flowed from the spigot.
Cupping my hands beneath, I filled them with water and splashed my face.
Shio thought I was an addict. He had said it, too, but locking me in a room to cleanse the drugs from me wasn’t going to do anything.
I was not an addict.
I liked to use drugs when I was feeling stressed and when I needed to relax. That was it. It was no different than a person having an occasional cigarette or the canabis (cannabis) they all smoked.
The water should have cooled my skin, but I was hot now. Feeling like I was suffocating, I removed the hoodie from my body and tossed it to the floor.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!”
Screaming did not help. Nothing would help. Removing my shirt didn’t make me feel any less warm. Pulling at my shorts, I plopped down on the toilet to relieve a bladder that was not full to begin with.
How long would he keep me here? A week? A month? A year?
Imposible. él no lo haría. (Impossible. He wouldn’t.)
Looking down, I saw something brown sticking out of the sweatshirt I had just removed.
Still planted on the toilet, I reached for the object.
A withered, worn leather notebook that did not belong to me sat in my hands.
I’d watched Shio write in the bound book many times.
I wondered what he wrote about on the days he said no more than two words to me.
Now with it in my hands, I could see how worn and old it truly was.
I flipped it, looking to see if a name was engraved or if the book was not bound to the leather covering.
When I had gone into Shio’s office to place the mail, the leather book called to me from his desk. I halted and thought quickly before leaving the office with the book and the mail. I did not know why I had put his notebook in my pocket, but I had, and now it was here, locked in the room with me.
Lifting the cover, I immediately slammed it back into place and tossed it back onto the floor.
I did not care what was in the old notebook anymore.
Shio’s thoughts no longer matter because I no longer matter to him.
Italian made a good argument, but he hadn’t seen the fury in Shio’s eyes when he dragged me here.
All I cared about was getting out of this room.
I would figure everything else out when I was free.
Grabbing the phone from the vanity, I went to the text messaging app. He had either cleared the phone or had never used the phone because it was bare. Typing my number into the sender box, I clicked to send a message.
You can’t keep me here!
Shio! Just let me go back to México! I’d rather be with Felipe than to be locked here!
Shio you can’t do this!
I knew he had viewed the texts because the read receipts were on. Instead of making myself look and feel worse than I already did, I tossed the phone in the same direction as the notebook and sat there, staring at the wall straight ahead.
Italian was right—this was going to be a montana rusa (rollercoaster).