After the service, Jeyla, Jerilis, and I found each other again. After church on Sundays, we always meet downstairs in front of the Pastor’s office, since we know our families talk a lot and we are going to be there for a while. Usually, on Sundays, no one would go down there unless there was a meeting. To our surprise, there was one that day. We heard footsteps coming from the stairs and we all jumped a little. It sounded like they had bricks on their feet. Each stomp is louder than the next. But that noise didn’t mask the bickering. As soon as Pastor came through the arched doorway I noticed his face. He looked like he was walking with wet socks or something. What shocked me the most was that the bickering was between his and my parents. They had never argued like this before, at least that’s what I thought. They noticed us and quickly stopped talking. They didn’t even want to acknowledge the fact that we were there, they just entered the office. As soon as they closed the door, the arguing commenced once again. Of course, us being chismosas we were, we held our ears to the door trying to listen to what they were saying. We couldn’t hear much more than mumbling. The thing we did hear before stepping back was “Nos vamos y no vamos a volver.” What struck me about that sentence was that my dad said it loudly, but it wasn’t yelling. He sounded angry, but he also sounded sad. My friends and I looked at each other confused, we didn’t even have a minute to process what was going on before my dad grabbed my wrist angrily and practically dragged me. I didn’t question him though because I knew I was going to be the one on the receiving end of his anger either way. I did turn back to look at my friends though. They say you shouldn’t look back on your past, but at the time I didn’t know that was the last time I was going to see them.

The amount of anxiety I had from even knowing my dad was mad grew during the car ride home. But that wasn’t the first time I was scared of what Papi was going to say. I didn’t even see him often honestly, but when I did it was never fun. He worked as a truck driver so he would leave early in the morning, and come back the next day to repeat the same cycle. The time he did spend at home, he was tired from work so he was always in a bad mood. The thing about him was that he would take out whatever stress, frustration,  or exhaustion he had on my mom, sister, and me. That made my sister and I grow scared of him, to be honest. I was scared to say a simple “Buenas tardes” to him sometimes, but I knew I had to because if I didn’t he would yell at me saying “No eres animal, tienes que saludar” or “I taught you better than this” in his thick Spanish accent. When in reality he had barely taught me anything.

A new journey commenced. We didn’t go to church for a while. We tried a couple of different ones, but none of them were the right fit. That all changed when we paid a visit to my mom’s aunt’s church. The pastors and my parents instantly clicked. Some of the people who attended that church had known me since I was younger, so it wasn’t like everyone was a stranger. Once I saw them, I already knew what was coming. “Como has crecido.” Partnered with a million hugs and kisses. I scoped around the church to see if there was anyone my age, and there was, but I was a bit hesitant. At the time, I was very shy, and I wasn’t the type to talk to people without being talked to first. There were a couple of kids my age, and I already knew three of them. Surprisingly, one of them came up to me and her name was also Daniela.

“Hey Daniela! Long time no see,” she said cheerfully.

I chuckled playfully. “Hi Daniela,” I said with a soft smile.

The other two girls I knew were sisters. Their names were Stephania and Sophia. We knew each other because of a church we attended for about a month during our search for the right one. For the time that my family and I were there, we had our little friend group. The two Danielas, Stephania, and Sophia.

“Hi, Daniela,” Stephania and Sophia said to me as they each took a turn hugging me. 

After we were all done catching up, Daniela told us to follow her. So, we did. We ended up in a room and Daniela pulled out her phone.

“Want to make a musically?”

“Sure!” I said. 

I already had a good feeling about this church. Since I already knew these girls, I didn’t have to start over completely, which is one of the hardest things when it comes to things like this. It’s like being the new kid at school, you don’t know anybody and if you don’t want to be alone, you have to make new friends and go through the “getting to know them” phase again. It gets tiring starting over, especially when you get comfortable somewhere, which I was in my other church.

It hadIt’s had been a couple of months there, and I started to like it. They had things here that they didn’t in my other church. Missions trips, Boys and girls -which were bible school classes for the kids- and the Pastors treated my sister and me so well. Our family began to love the church and everyone in it. My parents have serious trust issues, so it takes them a while to open up to new people and settle into new places, but this place was different. Everyone treated each other like family. I even made a new friend, Ashlee. She’s a couple of years older than me but she's nice, and we relate a lot. Unfortunately, Stephania and Sophia left the church, but now Daniela, Ashlee, and I are a trio. Don’t get me wrong, I have friends at school but it’s never the same as church friends. All three of us have grown up going to church so we have a connection that doesn’t compare to any with our school friends.

Everyone -including me- thought 2020 was going to be “their year” but that idea went straight out the window. In January 2020, my home was broken into. My mom, sister, and I were at our pastor's house in Middletown so it was a good 30-minute drive and we didn’t leave until like 11:30, so we got to my house around midnight. Once we arrived home, we realized the lights were on. My mom started yelling at my sister and me about how the light bill would go up because we had left the lights on for all those hours. We were unloading the car of all the groceries we had in the trunk from the Walmart trip we took earlier that day. My mom unlocked the door angrily, and the door flung open. When the door hit the wall, it made a thud. I thought it was the sound of my heart dropping to my stomach because before any of us took a step inside, I realized the glass was all over the living room floor. It took my mom a second to realize what had happened and yelled at us to run in the car. That had to be one of the scariest moments of my life. In February of that year, my uncle passed away from colon cancer. It was the first time in my life that someone I was close to passed away. He had been sick since June of 2019, and each time we went up to Connecticut you could see it. The color washed away from his face, his body deteriorating, and the weakness in his voice every time he spoke. He ended up ventilator because he couldn’t breathe on his own anymore. The cancer had spread throughout almost his entire body. There wasn’t anything the doctors could do anymore, so my aunt decided to have him unplugged. So his suffering could stop. His life on Earth ended on February 19th, 2020, but that same day, his life in a better place began. In March, COVID-19 started spreading worldwide. It started with a week off of school, which turned into a month, into the rest of the year, and the year after that. Quarantine started that month. When you are in your house 24/7 spending most of your time alone in your room, it gives you a lot of time to think. Time plus isolation. What once was looking at myself in the mirror, turned into pointing out insecurities. What was once looking back at the good memories, turned into unlocking the bad ones my brain had locked away. Laying down because I was tired turned into laying down because I couldn’t bring myself to do anything else. This was the year I started to realize what I had gone through when I was younger. I thought Jeyla was my best friend. I didn’t think she would do me any harm. I sure didn’t want to do her any harm. I felt like I could trust her with anything, so I did. With all my little crushes, what was going on in school, everything. It’s not like at 9 years old I was worrying about having my door closed and what was going to happen when I did. I shouldn’t have been worried about that anyway because it shouldn’t have happened. Now that it has happened, I can’t let my guard down. April we were supposed to go on a family vacation, but we had to cancel because of COVID. May, now we had to do school online until June when the start of summer vacation rolled around. We got an American bulldog and beagle mixed puppy, and we named her Mandy. Things were starting to look up, right? 

Wrong. I spoke too soon. The rain crashed down. It was so strong you could hear every drop as if it were hail. The wind howling, knocking down trash bins.

…

A couple of days, it was past noon when I woke up. Which was normal for a kid during the summer, but not for me. Mandy had been waking me up earlier nowadays since I had to get her fed. As soon as I realized the time, I shot out of bed quickly put on my Adidas slides, and walked downstairs. I ran into my mom, which was weird because normally, she would’ve been working.

“Buenos dias nena,” my mom said. Her voice was more saddened than usual, but I recognized this tone. My dad must’ve said something to her.

“Good morning Mami. Is everything ok?” I asked. I had seen my dad outside, frantic, walking back and forth on the porch. He wasn’t even supposed to be there, he was supposed to be at work.

Mami shook her head. “You remember the storm the other day? Pues tenemos que sacar todo lo que tenemos en el sotano porque se inundo. Mold grew on some of the stuff that was down there”

My face went blank. I already knew my dad was fuming, that we were going to be on the receiving end, and that my mom already got her share. “Ok,” I said to her and walked off into the sunroom and reached for the door that leads to the porch. As I opened the door, my dad’s head sharply turned back to face me. He looked so angry. On top of the fact he was probably tired from work the day before, now he was stressed because they had to clean out the entire basement. Nervously, I walked towards him, legs feeling weak.

“Buenos dias Papi,” I said giving him half a hug. 

“Patoja, que te pasa? It’s noon. I told you that if we got a dog it was going to be your responsibility,” He took a quick pause. Before I could get a word in he continued, raising his voice with each word. “Do you wake up this late every day? Do you have your mom do everything for you every day? Me mato todos los dias trabajando por esta familia y mis hijas son pinche bagas!”

I looked down because I felt the tears building up. I get this feeling of anger but also sadness. So many words running through my head, years of hurt built up but they don’t manage to come out of my mouth. Nothing does actually.

“You are good for nothing, you’re useless.”

The words were replaying in my head. Over and over.  The words came out of his mouth so easily, naturally even. I began to think they were true. Not being able to face him, I turned around and walked back into the house. I walked normally until I was out of my mom's sight, and I sped up to my room and closed the door. My dad had never talked to us in a good way, but never like this.

First day back to school from COVID. Ahhh 7th grade. Exciting, right? Well yes, but still very nerve-racking. My “best friend” at the time was Liani. We had received our schedules a week before we started school and we had no classes together except AVID, which was only 45 minutes long. I was pretty naive thinking we would stay best friends, but what I didn’t expect was for her to change the way she acted. During our year of online school, we would be on the phone all day during class, play ROBLOX afterward sometimes during, and go to bed late. We had the same friends, talked about the same things, thought the same things, everything, we did it together. We planned everything about our first day. Our outfits, hair, nails, shoes, you name it. We both woke up at 4, got on the bus, and met in the bathroom.

“Hey,” I said excitedly walking up to her and hugging her like we hadn’t seen each other. We hadn’t because my parents didn’t let me go to her house.

“Hey,” she said back in the same tone. 

We walked to the sinks and looked at ourselves in the mirror. We already knew what was going through both of our minds. I mean, this is all we had been talking about for the last couple of days. How we were excited to see everyone, and finally get back to normal.

“Everyone left, what time does class start,” she said.

“At 7:30,” I said with confidence.

She took her phone out of her bookbag and we both glanced at the time. It was 7:27. We both realized and hugged each other and went our separate ways. Her classroom was upstairs and mine was not too far from the bathrooms. The hallway was surprisingly empty. I knocked on the door and everyone looked at me through the glass. I was so embarrassed. As Mrs. Dixon opened the door, I realized everyone was seated. I could’ve sworn class started at 7:30. I didn’t even hear a bell. Embarrassed, I took the only seat left, in front of the class. Mrs. Dixon passed out name tags with questions on the inside so she could get to know us better. Honestly, I didn’t like her much. She didn’t seem very nice, but I shouldn’t have judged her from the get-go. 

…

It was time for 3rd period, of AVID. The only class we had together. I had a bit of trouble finding the class, but I did eventually. I walked in and she was there, but with a completely different group of people. She didn’t even acknowledge me when I sat down with them and right then and there I knew things were going to change. The thing about me is that change was the one thing I hated because of how attached I get to people. I’m not sure why, but I do. Once I got comfortable with someone, I didn’t to leave, or for them to leave, but what I didn’t want to happen ended up happening anyway. It's not like I had trouble making friends. The ones I did have, I cherished. I didn’t trust just anyone either, because I knew what it felt like to get betrayed.

It was Monday, the first day of the week. Meaning, school. Also means, time to put on the act again. 

“Good morning Miss. Mendez.” My first-period health teacher Mr. Kyle said calmly, greeting me as I walked in. 

“Good morning Mr. Kyle!” I said cheerfully with the most genuine smile I could manage. It’s funny because I have been doing this fake smile thing all my life without even noticing, yet when I did, it wasn’t as easy. 

I sat down in my normal seat and talked with my friends Ali and Moraa until he started the class. When he pulled the presentation up on the board, my heart sank. The presentation is titled, “Sexual Assault/Harassment.” It felt like my throat was closing up. This was a familiar feeling, a panic attack was starting to brew. So, I closed my eyes and tried to take a deep breath but before I could, it started playing back in my head. The memory is so clear. It was as if I hit rewind on a movie. And my best friend -or so I thought- in my room, with my sister, and the door closed. Our parents were in the living room, making jokes, laughing, filing into the whale house, and having a good time. She told me we were just playing house. I asked why she was touching and she told me it was ‘part of the game.’ Everyone did this I thought. How was the little 8-year-old Christian girl supposed to know that her supposed best friend was touching her and it wasn’t ok? After all, in Hispanic culture when people want to hug and kiss you, it is disrespectful to deny it, so how was this any different, right? Or so I thought.