Chapter 6

“I’M HOME!” I call from the front door. I slip my shoes off and set them aside next to the door. My parents don’t like people wearing their shoes in our house, they don’t want everything to get all dirty. It's an asian thing though. I take my backpack upstairs and change into my home clothes; Then I go back downstairs. Usually I’d do my homework right when I got home, but I was just too tired. But I was going to do it, just not right then.

“Oh you’re home now,” my mom walks into the room, carrying my baby sister (Alice) with her. “Now can you take your sister? I’m so tired and I have to work tonight.” She hands me Alice without even me responding with if I wanted to take her or not. I mean, its not like I don’t like my sister, I do, but I’m tired too. But I must always respect my parents. I don’t talk back to them, I always obey them, so I take Alice and my mom heads to sleep.

“You are so lucky…” I tell Alice. “You don’t have to do anything. You just sleep and eat and cry and poop.. Mom, dad, and I do everything.”

She just looks at me. Her face is so cute! You can’t stay mad at anything after looking at her.

“Yeah, and you don’t even know what I’m saying do you?”

Alice starts to laugh. “Hah, what’s wrong with you girl??”

            Suddenly it’s dinner time. Dad is home from work and mom is just about to leave for work. Aaron is playing outside like usual and Alice is asleep in my parent’s room. I knew maybe it wasn’t the best time to bring this up but I had to. I just had to.

“Hey mom, dad..” I gulp.

“What is it?” My dad says while swallowing some rice and flipping the next page in the classifieds.

“Well. I was wondering. How come I have to wait until AFTER college before I can date??”

Then there was a pause.

“Why are you asking us all of a sudden?” My mom asked hesitantly.

“I was just wondering… I mean, how come my friends can--”

“Because they’re white. And white people are raised differently than us Filipinos.”

There was another pause. I gave my dad a sour look. Sour and upset. That sounded pretty racist to me. Maybe it wasn’t, but it sure did sound like it.

“Dad, you ALWAYS say that. You ALWAYS DO!!!” I didn’t mean to shout.

“Aika, do NOT raise your voice to me. Now you listen--"

“No, YOU listen, dad!” Again, I didn’t mean to yell. “Every time I bring up something like dating or relationships you and mom always turn it away, like it’s not suppose to be discussed. Well we need to discuss it! I’m tired of just hearing ‘Because white people… Because white people.’ I really am SICK AND TIRED OF IT!!! It’s not just white, I mean, American people, there’s Asians, there’s Mexicans, there’s Africans, even other Filipinos!! So stop blaming it on all the white people! And sop using "Filipinos" as an excuse! How come you let Angelina have a boyfriend when she was 15? How come Aaron can have a girlfriend whenever he wants? Are you saying that I’m different? I understand that I’m a girl but really, what difference is there? I’m going to grow up, MOM and DAD, and I’m going to have a boyfriend some day, so why not now? Or better yet, what about 16? I get to drive by then, I’ll be a little older, and yet not too old, like college-aged.. So why not--!”

“ENOUGH!!” My dad interrupted. And I still couldn’t believe I said all of that. I felt like I was being very rude, and I bet to them I was. But in my point of view, I was just speaking the truth.

“Aika,” My dad said with a sigh. “you’re right, it’s not just the white, oh um, Americans, but we’re just worried about you. When your mom and I still lived in the Philippines, we worked all the time and I wasn’t able to be in your big sister’s life that much. When I found out she had a boyfriend I..”

There was another one of those awkward pauses.

“I thought she’d be fine. But when her boyfriend broke up with her, she cried and cried. Her heart was so broken I felt like I couldn’t put all the pieces back together.”

Then my mom added, “We just didn’t want you to feel like Angelina, all heart-broken. She didn’t talk for a whole month! And when she did it was usually just a whisper.”

I sat back in my chair. There were many more things that I would have loved to have responded to that. But I refrained. Instead I just said, “Well, that was her. Not me.” I hoped that I ended that conversation.

“When Angelina finally went to college,” That’s when I knew this conversation had not yet ended. “your mom and I started looking for places to live in America, so when you were born you could be born in a free country. Your sister just stayed with family back in the Philippines.”

I had no idea why that was important to the whole dating thing.

“Aika, honey..” My mom started. “You realize the big age gap between you and Angelina right? She’s 26, you’re 14. After the incident with her boyfriend, we wanted to have another baby so we could raise him or her better. So then we had you. This time we wanted to be in our new child’s life, unlike your sister. So we’re sorry for over-protecting you but--“

“It’s ok. I get it.” I interrupted. But I didn’t mean to.

We continued our dinner. Then it was fairly quiet the rest of the night, and when my dad checked our room to make sure we were asleep, he seemed out-of-place. In the head I mean.

“You should be asleep.”

“It’s only 10:17 dad.”

He chuckled. “That’s right.” He walked over to my bed and sat on the edge. “Aika, about the talk we had at dinner, I’m really sorry. Sorry for not letting you, date.”

“Yeah, well it doesn’t matter you saying sorry or not, I’m still not going to be with anyone until I’m freaking 25. No, you have to be in college for 11 years to be a nurse, make that 36.”

“Don’t talk like that, Aika. You’ll have plenty of admirers and"“

“Yes dad, but that’s all they will ever be!!!! ADMIRERES!!!! I’ll never have someone for my own, they will just pass on by, my YOUTH will pass on by without me experiencing a relationship, what a simple and BORING life!! No one for me to talk to when I cant talk to anyone else, no one to make me laugh when I’m feeling down, no one to give me hugs because they care not because they have to, I can go on but YOU don’t want to hear it, you NEVER want to!!”

Dad’s face dropped, then turned as red as red can get. And since we’re Asian, that means REALLY red.

“Goodnight.” I said, and flopped over to my side so I could face the wall. Dad just got up and left, which I thought was a good thing because I didn’t want to carry on this conversation.

            During the night I dreamed of Justin. We were at the community park by my school, eating ice cream. Bea was there, Nick was there, even Kaitlin and Issac where there. But Justin would only laugh and smile. He wouldn’t talk, I wonder why. Is this God telling me that Justin is a shy person? Or maybe this is a flash of the future! I don’t know, even now I still wonder.

            The next morning I woke up for a brief moment at 6:30, my dad was giving my brother and I a good-bye kiss before heading off to work. I remember him telling me ‘Don’t ever talk to me like that again, ok?’ and then I fell back asleep. When I finally woke up for real, I felt like I dreamt the whole thing up. I wanted to take back all that happened last night. I was just kind of mad, and a little distracted by Justin. I guess our families are even.

            I prepared myself as usual, took a quick shower, styled my hair, brushed my teeth, picked out my clothes and prepared my backpack. Then at 7:40 we marched out the door and headed off to school, where I would be able to see his face again.

 

 

            Something was wrong that day though. The moment I arrived to our usual spot, in front of the school where we would hang out until the bell rang, everyone left. I felt like I was pushed away. Bea gave me a sour look and said “Here she is, now off we go!” And they all left.

            At that moment I felt like crying, Issac turned back and looked at me, with pity in his eyes. I overheard him say, “Wait, I’ll catch up with you guys later.” And he ran back to me.

“Hey Aika! You look pretty today; pretty sad. Hahaha!” He smiled big. I knew he was trying to make me feel better.

“Yeah, what was up with that? Why did they leave me?”

“Oh, they’re just being jerks. They notice that Bea and you aren’t really on speaking terms, so they don’t want to get on Bea’s bad side either so they just listen to whatever she says.”

            Then I understood. Since middle school, we had always been a group. Bea, Nick, Issac, a few more people, and I. Then when Bea and Nick started going out, they somehow became the leaders and everyone started following them. If Bea or Nick wasn’t friends with a certain person, then neither where we, or that’s how it’s suppose to be. But I guess Issac broke that chain.