THD's: Monica, Day One, Prt. One

Day One, 
This morning was just as fucked up as can be, and you know what? This little assignment is just the icing on the cake. You want me to take time out of my life and my day to write down what I’m thinkin’ and feelin’, so, to appease you Mrs. Robyn Williams, I’ll tell you about my day. 
I knew today was destined to be a fucked up day the moment I walked into the kitchen and saw my older sister Hope eating the last of my Fruity Pebbles. My own personal box of cereal, which was paid for with my hard earned money. Adding insult to injury, she even had the nerve to do the word search on the back of the box. It’s not like big head didn’t know that it was my cereal, because there is no way in hell she couldn’t know. She was there when I bought it and it was the very same day that she bought a box of Lucky Charms. I was still mad that she was eating my cereal, so I went to the cabinet to get her cereal. While it’s true that I wasn’t exactly in the mood for hearts, stars and horseshoes and everything that comes with it, I knew that Hope wouldn’t exactly be thrilled if I were to eat her cereal. I should’ve realized that there was a reason that she had the audacity to eat the rest of my Fruity Pebbles because as soon as I opened the cabinet, I found that her box was missing. 
With a frustrated sigh because I found myself smack dab in the middle of a “What the fuck” moment, I grabbed the box of Raisin Bran Crunch and poured myself a bowl. 
From that depressing start, my day got worse by leaps and bounds. 
By the time I made it upstairs for my shower, all of the hot water was gone because mom and dad had been “washing each others backs” for about an hour, so I had to have a cold one. After I stood under a spray of water so cold that I swear it had chunks of ice in it, I hop out of the shower with my teeth chattering and dry off. As I stood wrapped in a towel trying to get warm, I attempted to brush my teeth and I made another little happy discovery. I had run out of my favorite flavor of gel toothpaste, so I was stuck using some nasty paste variety of the stuff. 
I finished getting ready with no further incidents, so then I left my house and set sail for another exciting day of academic torture at Jon Turner High School. 
As soon as I walked into the school, I (literally) ran into my ex boyfriend, Perry. Actually, I never really saw him as my boyfriend, I was just using him (yeah, I can admit it. Ain’t no shame in my game) to get someone’s attention. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t have the same goals in mind when we started our relationship and actually saw me as his girlfriend, now, he’s trying to get me back. Why he can’t understand that the only way I’d be stupid enough to go out with him again would be if the pour souls in hell had a frosty glass of lemonade hand squeezed by Old Scratch himself is beyond me. Then again, seeing as he is your stereotypical jock, he’s not what one could call the brightest crayon in the box. If you ask me, he’s more of a midnight blue. 
Or black. 
“Monica, baby, let me talk to you.”
Alright, I really wasn’t in the mood, so what I did next was admittedly mean.  Not that I care or whatever but yeah, I can admit that it wasn’t the nicest thing I’ve ever done. 
In a not so quiet voice I asked, “So Perry did you get rid of your crabs yet?” 
As every eye in the crowded foyer turned to stare, I walked past him, turned the corner and headed up to the third floor to my locker and my first class of the day.
Now, as I’m sure you know, the third floor at Turner is that of the math and science classrooms. Because I’m like uber-smart (I’m not bragging, I’m just stating fact ) the score I got on my math placement test has qualified me for pre-calculus. Damn my parents for passing on such good genes. 
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with the class. I can deal with being one of the only black people in the class that hour with the only other exceptions being Jay, Meg and my cousin Rayne. As for all the homework that we get? Yeah, I can deal with having fifty plus problems a night; I do most of those in class. I can even cope with all of the bogus, mind numbingly long tests that we have to take like the one we had on the first day of class to further gauge our mathematical skills. Nope, my only issue is with the teacher. 
Hey, give me a chance to tell my story before you write me off as yet another teenager bitchin’ and moanin’ about yet another authority figure. Please, it’s not even like that. Celia Wise hyphen Barrino is the one bitchin’ and moanin’ about me. Would you like to know why this is Robyn? It’s so classically bad and stereotypical, but here it is: 
She has a vendetta against my parents. 
Eons ago, when the earths crust cooled and dinosaurs began to roam the land, Barrino and my parents were students here at Turner. Many, many moons ago during this time in pre-history, my dad dated a young Celia Wise. As hard as it is to picture my parents as teenagers, it’s even harder to picture my dad with someone like Barrino. Maybe she was prettier way back when they had pterodactyls as classmates. I don’t know I just like to think of my dad as someone who has taste because damn, have you seen her lately? 
Barrino has got to have the most bizarre body type in the history of ever. The only way to describe it is as a pearpineato; she’s shaped like a pear, a pineapple and a tomato. How that happened is beyond me, but happened it did. When you add her outrageously fruity shape to the fact that she has a small scale replica of the great divide on her head and that she resembles Predator in the face? Uh yeah, either my dad was blind for a short period in his lifetime or someone let herself go. 
Back to the story. 
Barrino and dad used to date, but that all changed a month or so before their senior prom when she broke up with him. Apparently, someone spread a rumor that dad’s best friend Julian—Jay, Meg and Victory’s father—had a thing for her, but didn’t want to jeopardize his friendship with my dad by trying to get at her while they were still together. Essentially, she broke up with him because she wanted to be with Julian. Which I understand.
Don’t get me wrong, my dad is a handsome guy and all, ha has to be to go half on a daughter as sexy as me, but Julian Sr.? Have you seen Jay? Being six feet and five inches of cinnamon colored, muscle bound pure sexiness; he’s his fathers’ spitting image. Which isn’t to say that I find his dad to be sexy, I mean, I guess he is but a) he’s old enough to be my father and b) Eww, he’s my godfather. It’s bad enough that I find his son, my god brother to be irresistible, if I thought his dad was too, we would have a problem. 
And by we, I mean me. 
Or is it I? 
Whatever, back to what I was saying. 
Within three weeks of the break-up, Barrino found out that Julian wasn’t even remotely interested in her. After catching her trying to persuade Julian to leave Ana—his future wife and mother of his children—she got another rude awakening from the woman herself. 
“First of all, you were Justin’s girlfriend and Jay is his best friend. Secondly, why would he want you when Justin was just dating you out of pity, and thirdly, why would he want you when he has me?” 
After she cried her eyes out, Barrino tried to crawl back to dad three days before prom. Unfortunately for her (and rather fortunately for me because I share none of her fucked up genetic code) he flat out refused to take her back because he was already half way in love with mom. As the story goes, Barrino got pissed, threw a royal bitch fit and said, “But I’m a cheerleader—" 
Yes Robyn, you did read that correctly. Barrino was a cheerleader. The moment I heard that, I saw her as she is now in a Turner High cheerleader’s uniform… oh my god. I hope I didn’t mentally scar you with that one and I apologize if I did. Just tell your therapist to bill me. 
“But I’m a cheerleader and you’re a basketball player! We go together; we make sense as a couple, but you and a geek like Alicia? What does she have that I don’t?” 
Mom said that dad just looked Barrino straight in the eye and said, “She has a few things that you don’t Cee-cee. She has a good heart, my respect, and, she has me. That’s somethin’ you’ll never be able to say again.” 
Desperatly, Barrino cried out, “But I love you!” 
Dad didn't want to hear it and told her,“Ha, if you loved me, I doubt you would’ve tried to leave me for my boy.” 
“But Justin—" 
“But nothin’ Cee-cee, I’m through.” 
Thus ended my fathers’ relationship with the pearpineato, however, Barrino has continued to be a pain in my parents’ collective ass since that day. 
At the prom, she tried to lock mom in the janitors closet so she wouldn’t be able to dance with dad, but that one back fired on her when Ana and Julian went in there to… Um… well, I don’t even have to say it; I think you catch my drift. When she found out that they were both accepted at U of M, she gave up her full ride to MSU to follow them to Ann Arbor, and when she found out that they were getting married, she took it upon herself to try and crash the wedding. The bridesmaids, Ana and my aunts Alejandra, Luna and Raquel didn’t appreciate her showing up just as the preacher said “speak now or forever hold your peace” so they took the matter into their own hands and tackled Barrino after the ceremony. 
No, seriously they did, we have the pictures to prove it. 
After that day, Barrino didn’t have much contact with our family; in fact one of the last times she contacted us was when she sent dad a wedding invitation ten years ago. Attached to this invitation was a note that said, “You should come and see what you’re missing out on.” 
He probably didn’t go because he knew exactly what he was ‘missing out on’ and that was just fine with him. 
Our family having no contact with Barrino came to a screeching halt the day that Hope enrolled at Turner. Apparently, someone gave the pearpineato access to student records because after Hopes’ first day in school, that’s when the phone calls started. Every night at around 11:30, we would get a phone call from someone calling from a restricted number. If someone picked up the phone all you could hear was what sounded like someone about to die from an asthma attack breathing on the line. This continued for about a week straight until mom decided to *69 the number. The operator asks if mom would like to be connected with the number and after begrudgingly adding a seventy-five cent charge to our phone bill, she hears the voice of the last person in this world that she would want to speak too. 
“Justin, is that you?” 
“Celia?” 
At this point, I was on the phone trying to figure out who the hell was calling my house, so when I heard mom say her name, I let out a frustrated ‘what the fuck’ sigh. I had heard all about Barrino and her sick obsession with my father after she sent Hope home with a note requesting a parent teacher conference with dad on the first day of school. 
When she didn’t respond to her own name, mom let Barrino know exactly how she felt about her in rapid fire Spanish. I’m not even sure if she could understand all the evil things that mom was saying, but I know for sure that Barrino felt the as though her life was being threatened. 
Which it was. 
After that day, Barrino requested that Hope be transferred out of her class, which I’m now stuck in because of my amazingly high score on the placement test. 
And yes, that time I was bragging. 
This morning when I got to class a few moments before the bell rang, I noticed that Barrino wasn't in class. I didn’t really pay this fact much attention because sitting in the chair next to me at my table was Julian Dominique Laurence II and I was too busy thanking God for the fact that Barrino had sat him next to me on the first day of classes. This morning he was lookin’ oh so sexy in all black and just as I was about to begin an excursion into the gutter, he turned to me and smiled that bazillion watt smile of his at me, and it was all that I could do not to turn into a quivering mass of jelly at his feet. 
For some insanely odd reason, Jay has always had this weird effect on me. I’m usually not the type of girl who would even consider melting because some dude smiled at me, but Jay… well, its not necessarily all my fault. Have you seen those dimples recently Robyn? Honestly now, the fact that I can keep myself in check like this an amazing feat in itself because I swear to you that sometimes I just wanna drag him off to the nearest flat surface and… well, these aren’t exactly thoughts that I’m about to share with you, so I’m gonna just stop right there with that one. 
After I had a quick glance at his light brown eyes, I asked him if he knew whether or not Barrino was there. He told me that he didn’t know and didn’t really care if she was. Then he said somethin’ about not liking the way that she looks at him and Meg, who looks as much like their mother as Jay does their dad. I told him that I understood exactly what he was saying. 
My cousin Rayne showed up stuffing her motorcycle helmet into her backpack just as the bell rang, and there is still no sign of Barrino. Not that I was about to complain because it gave me a reason to talk to Jay for a little longer. The three of us—Rae sits on my other side in class—began discussing our plans for the weekend. After I told Rae that she already had plans and didn’t know it yet, Jay asked me if I wanted to chill on Saturday. After I ignored the fact that Rae was protesting the plans that I had made for her, I told him that I would love to come chill with him on Saturday after we go see Mike. He cocked an eyebrow and asked me who the hell Mike is, and just as I was about to tell him that he is your cousin from the UK and one of my friends that I met while I was there over the summer, Barrino walked in, looking a hot damn mess in this red shapeless shirt. Rae pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled the word ‘pearpineato’ on it. Unfortunately, that’s exactly when Barrino started to waddle around to collect homework. Seeing that as an opportunity to fuck up my day some more, she snatches the piece of paper, glanced at it, looked down at her body, turned a color that was reminiscent of puce mixed with scarlet and yelled at me to go down to the office. 
Because I’ve given up trying to talk to her, I just grabbed my stuff, and went to go visit my aunt—the principal—in her office. 
Now, if I thought that my morning was fucked up—and it was according to standards set by me, myself and I—the one that Raquel was having must’ve been FUBAR, fucked up beyond all recognition. When I walked into her office, she was yelling at someone on the phone in Spanish, there were bags under her eyes and her hair… oh, my God. It’s usually impeccably done but today, it looked like a crack head had made a nest and had some wild orgy with a gaggle of geese and two other crack heads. Yeah, it was that bad. 
As soon as she saw me, she told whoever she was on the phone with that she would call them back, then she took a long look at me and asked, “Shouldn’t you be in class mija?” 
“Yeah, I’m supposed to be, but lets not talk about that right now, let’s talk about your hair.”
She started to touch it but thought better of it and asked, “Is it really that bad?” 
I told her exactly what it looked like to me, then she took out a mirror and a comb. After muttering something about Mondays being outlawed in Spanish, she began to try to make something out of the mess that was her hair. I dropped my back pack and binder in one of the chairs in front of her desk, moved around said desk and took the comb from her. As I started to untangle the nest that the gaggle of geese and group of crack heads had made in my aunts hair, I told her, “You know, with the way that you speak Spanish, people may start to think that it’s your native language.” 
“Whatever querida, you know your abuela was from Puerto Rico, she always spoke the language at home. Doesn’t your dad speak Spanish at home?” 
With this cross between a laugh and a groan, I told her that dad does indeed speak the language at home to mom when they’re about to… ew, sorry, I just find it gross to think about my parents having sex with each other. It’s almost as disturbing as picturing dad and Barrino together, and you know that is downright sickening. 
Five minutes later, I had her hair untangled and pulled into a low ponytail. Following some admiration of herself and my handiwork in the mirror, Raquel turned to me and said, “Alright Mo, why aren’t you in class right now?” 
“I got kicked out," I told her as I dropped into one of the chairs across from her desk. 
“Kicked out? What did you do?” 
“Do? I didn’t do anything. Barrino kicked me out of class because she felt like it.” 
With a sigh, she rolled her eyes; leaned back in her chair and said, “Oh, Lord.” 
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking.”  
Muttering something again, this time in Japanese, Raquel reaches for the phone and dials Barrino’s room number. When the pearpineato picks up the phone, Raquel barked, “Barrino, my office, now,”into the phone then she slammed the receiver onto the cradle. 
Within three minutes, Barrino came huffing and puffing into the office and Raquel, as cool as the proverbial cucumber, sat back, steepled her fingers and just looked Barrino up and down and back again. After standing there looking every inch as scared as she had the right to be, Barrino cleared her throat and asked, “Is there a reason that you interrupted my class and called me down here?” 
Looking at me for the first time since the pearpineato stepped into the office, Raquel cocked an eyebrow and I could tell she was thinking ‘now just the who the hell does she think she is tryin’ to get loud with me?’ With that deceptively calm and non evil smile of hers, she asked Barrino if she would like to take a seat, and the way that she asked it, you knew that she was commanding her to do so. 
Probably fearing for her life, she did as she was ‘asked’. 
“Now, Mrs. Barrino, would you please tell me the reason why Monica is sitting in my office instead of your classroom?” 
I gave her my patented ‘don’t you dare fuckin’ lie to me look’ complete with the raised eyebrow, and as she gulped, I realized for the first time that she has a rather large Adams Apple. I must’ve let the look slip a bit as I took in the lump in her throat sliding up and down because for the first time since she stepped into the office, Barrino smiled (lets not get started on those teeth of hers) at me, looked Raquel straight in the eye and said, “Didn’t she tell you? I want her transferred out of my class, I will not tolerate cheaters.” 
I was sitting in that chair thinking to myself, “Now hold the fuck up here, are we serious?” I don’t cheat on my work; I haven’t since a spelling test in the third grade (and I only did it then because I didn’t want to tarnish my perfect score record. A ninety five percent would’ve done absolutely nothing for me) so her accusation of cheating was insane. 
Raquel looked at Barrino and said, “First of all, you take care of student transfers in the counseling center, secondly, do you have proof of Monica’s cheating?” 
“She must be cheating off of that Laurence boy, I always catch her looking at him during class and on every assignment, they seem to always have the exact same answers.” 
Rolling her eyes, Raquel asked, “Have you given any thought to the possibility that Monica can be caught staring at Julian because she might possibly have a thing for him—don’t deny it Mo, we all know about it. No, I think that the reason you sent her down here this morning has to do with some of your own personal issues Celia. Like the ones you have with her parents perhaps?” 
Knowing that she was caught, Barrino began to protest, but Raquel wasn’t hearin’ it, so she said, “You know what, I think that you do have a problem with her parents, and since that’s the case, now is as good a time as any to solve it.” 
That’s when she dialed moms’ private line at work, and that’s when things get more fucked up than they were before. 
Mom answered on the second ring, and after Raquel filled her in on the situation, she demanded to speak with Barrino. Having hit the speaker phone button, Raquel sat back in her chair and casually began to file her nails, all the while keeping close watch on the proceedings in front of her. 
Mom was still going on in Spanish, basically damning Barrino to hell and back with a whole bunch of other things thrown in that shocked even me, then after taking a breath, she switched back to English and really let Barrino have it. 
I would tell you exactly what she said, but the thing is I can’t. No matter how you imagine it being said in your head, it can still never capture the fire of mom’s words. Just think of it like this: imagine the most evil thing you’ve ever heard, multiply that by ten, add it to the second most evil thing you’ve ever heard and multiply that by five, then you add the third most evil thing you’ve ever heard or witnessed and you still have no clue what it was like in the office this morning. She made Barrino cry. I almost felt bad for the woman. 
Notice how I said almost .
By the time that mom got finished making Barrino cry, it was time for second hour, so, with a little wave to Raquel, I grabbed my backpack and binder and made my way to the second floor (the business and technology floor) for my Business class. I made a pit stop and stepped into one of the bathrooms that line the schools hallways, and came face to face with my archenemy and the ringleader of all the schools hoes, Jasmine, and let me tell you, this confrontation was something that I could’ve gone without. Isn’t it just typical how the one day I’m not down for any drama, I happen to walk right into some? 
Jasmine and I used to be cool with each other; in fact, she was like my best friend.
All that changed when she transferred to Turner and she started to hang out with a new group of girls, girls who weren’t… hmm, how can I put this? Jasmine used to be the Ms. Goodie-Two-Shoes of our group, but after she started hangin’ with them, she was gettin’ into a lot of shit we didn’t even fuck with. This is the same girl who refused to go to parties with us and had a fit if we tried to make her go see a rated R movie, so imagine our surprise when we found out that she was makin’ movies with guys who are twice her age. 
Now I’ve never been the type to turn my back on one of my friends, but damn, I was tempted to with her. She was involved in this situation where she found out she was pregnant, but when she told the man who she suspected was the father, he just laughed in her face and told her that she couldn’t prove that the baby was his. That night, she came over to my house crying her eyes out and asking me what to do. She said that at five months it was too late for her to have an abortion and if she told her parents they’d kill her. I told her that she had to tell them the truth because she wouldn’t be able to hide it forever, but then she did the scariest thing I’d ever seen at that point in my life. She got up, dried her eyes and touched her stomach once, then she smiled a malicious smile and said, “I know exactly what I’m going to do,” then she left my house while I chased after her demanding to know what she was planning. 
The next day at school, Jasmine had to be rushed to the hospital after her ass was handed to her by her child’s sisters. She went around runnin’ off at the mouth about how good their dad was in bed to anyone who would listen, so at lunch, they took care of the situation and fucked her up. By the time she had gotten to Sparrow, it was too late to save the baby. If I had known that’s what she was planning on doing the night before, there is no way that I would’ve let her leave my house, none whatsoever. 
That was the day that really changed everything for me, it made me realize that the girl that I once knew was gone, and in her place stood an evil, conniving bitch.
A few months after that, I heard this rumor going around school that she wanted to fight me, so I let it be known that if she were to run up, I would beat the breaks off her without a problem. When I said the words, I knew that I meant them, but it didn’t mean that it was something I wanted to do. Unfortunately, it was something that I ended up doing. 
Last Valentines Day, Jay asked me if I wanted to come and chill with him at his house, so when I told him that I would, I thought that my dating Perry for two months had finally paid off and that he saw me as more than just a friend. He asked me if I had any plans with Perry and I told him that Perry and I were through (even if he didn’t know it yet). 
Hey, don’t think that I was doing this solely because I wanted to be with Jay.  Please, it’s far simpler than that. I was breaking up with Perry because for one thing, I never really liked the guy and I thought that he knew back when we started dating that I was only using him to get Jays attention. He agreed to be my boyfriend in name only, but I guess somewhere over the course of eight and a half weeks he caught feelings. I almost wish that I could say the same thing happened to me, but that would be a lie. 
I had already agreed to meet Perry at his house that day because he said that we had to talk, and that coming from a guy is about ten times worse than a guy hearing it from a female, so at about one o’clock that day (we didn’t have school) I made my way over to his house to find out just what he wanted exactly. When I got there, his sister answered the door and told me to brace myself for what I might witness. I was confused as hell by that statement, so I asked her what she meant, that’s when she told me that Jasmine was there and she and Perry were upstairs in his room. 
“They’ve been up there for at least an hour and the door is locked.” 
I had braced myself for what I thought I was going to see, but what I actually witnessed was… I don’t even have a word for it, so I’ll just tell you what it is that I saw. 
When I made my way upstairs to his bedroom and picked the lock to open his door, I saw something that may just come up in a future therapy session, Perry and my ex best friend locked in a full sixty-nine. The first thing that went through my head was ew, Perry has braces. I never let him kiss me because of those things and she’s lettin’ him eat her out? And the second was, oh hell naw, I know this bitch didn’t go this far with this shit. 
I don’t know why, but I expected a little bit of loyalty from those two. I mean, sure, it was in name only, but Perry was still my boyfriend and Jasmine had once been my best friend. I had done so much for her, lying to her parents when they called to ask where she was, holding her hair when she puked guts out, and that was how she repaid me? Robyn, when I saw those two together, I almost lost it, as it is, I slammed open the door and left a hole in the wall getting their attention. 
“What the fuck is this shit Perry?” 
As expected, that caused a confrontation, but if you thought that it was between Perry and I then you’d be mistaken. 
Can you believe that bitch had the audacity to get in my face after she had crawled off of Perry like I was the one in the wrong? She was all, “If you’d been takin’ care of business then yo’ man wouldn’t have come to me.”
“Well bitch if you was really a good friend it wouldn’t matter if he came to you or not.”