Chapter Text
5th Grade.
CINNAMON SKIN AND BROKEN HEARTS
‘Que se quede el infinito sin estrellas, O que pierda el ancho mar su inmensidad, Pero el negro de tus ojos que no muera, Y el canela de tu piel se quede igual, Si perdiera el arcoíris su belleza, Y las flores su perfume y su color, No sería tan inmensa mi tristeza Como aquella de quedarme sin tu amor.’
||‘May the infinite be left without stars, Or may the wide sea lose its immenseness, But may the blackness of your eyes never die, And may the cinnamon of your skin stay the same. If the rainbow were to lose its beauty, And the flowers, their perfume and their color, My sadness wouldn't be as immense As that from being left without your love.’||
"Piel Canela" or “Cinnamon Skin” by Los Panchos.
✎ᝰ.MARIELLE🕮
I never really liked anything about myself, not really. I knew I wasn't a bad or boring person, and I was good at listening to people. But really, Mom and Dad? Couldn't you even have spiced it up a little bit? Straight dark brown hair, 'cinnamon-toned skin' as my dad calls it, and God! My eyes were like the most boring color, which was deep brown, seriously! It's whatever, really. I wasn't popular in school, and I wasn't the smartest either. It wasn't for lack of trying, either; it was just that there were better students than me. I was just so perfectly there in between, like a nobody, like a background character that literally had no lore or backstory to them but was just there to fill up the space. I was kind of quiet, the type that would rather take time to think of a response or a comeback. I sucked at being spontaneous; turns out that is very important! People liked authenticity and fun things.
I didn't have much going on other than that 'I follow orders very well, please let me walk behind you!' vibe that I always seemed to carry around. I was kind of 'double' like my mom used to say, which, to my surprise, made me very sought after for our school's cheer squad. "Chubby thighs! She'd be such a good addition to the team!", they'd tell my mom, but seriously, those dresses were so short! I could not do it. I do regret it a bit; maybe being part of the team would’ve made me more popular. I tried my best to fit in. I wasn't really bullied either, but I assumed that I was just not fun to even bother with. I had my friend group, of course: Raquel Estreda, Valeria Bonilla, Laura and Elena Cano, who were sisters, Anahi Toro, and Brisa Savala.
Of course, like any group of children, there would be a smaller group within the group; my main group was Anahi and Brisa. They were my girls. Anahi was more of a tomboy; she grew up mostly with her brothers, and she liked to cuss, joke, and play around roughly, unlike the other girls our age. I admired her because she was different! She wasn't scared of her body since she wasn't that skinny, just like me! Brisa was the mature one of the group most of the time. I think she was one of the few girls who went through puberty the earliest. She would carry around a handkerchief and dry her forehead whenever she sweated too much when we were on recess; that was a big deal back then. We were children, and we didn't care about a little bit of sweat. She was the mom of the group, always kept her beautiful, long hair in a long braid, was really funny, and her body looked pretty average, not fat nor skinny. Just perfectly in the middle. Unlike Angela Soza, who was skinny as a twig, all she had was wavy hair, light skin color, and the prettiest brown-greenish eyes ever. Again, thanks, Mom and Dad. Everybody had a crush on her, and truly, I don't get it! I'm not saying that people should've crushed on me instead. God, they'd need to look twice and MAYBE consider, but there were other prettier girls in my class. Just saying.
Although I had barely started to pay attention to my body and everybody else's, I really just left it at that. I hadn't crushed on anyone yet, let alone liked them for being cute. All of the boys in my class just looked like annoying little weird goblins to me, so I was very determined on something much more important: Being a teacher's pet. I know how that may sound, but can you blame a girl? I wasn't that good-looking, and I didn't have much charisma like everybody else to be funny, so I tried my best.
Math? Absolute failure, I despise math. Science was fun, but the teacher didn't care for 'going the extra mile.' Social Studies were alright, but I think Mr. Oscar, the teacher, had a screw a bit loose; he was fun though, and could draw quick examples on the white board; I really enjoyed that. Mostly because I had taken a liking to art, it was hereditary, really; my dad loved to paint, but it's too bad he stopped doing it as frequently. This failure after failure only left me with one more option: English. I took pride in the fact that my dad had gone to the United States and would teach me a word or two sometimes, so I really thought this would be my thing.
Too bad that my distant cousin, Vanya Tovar, had come up with the same plan as me, although her plan was more, so she didn't have to be alone, and she could have at least a teacher on her side, which made me feel really bad. I didn't dislike Vanya, not at all; she was actually really fun, but because she was on the chunkier side, my classmates disliked her. I was trying to get my reputation up, not down, so I couldn't hang out with her much without getting glares and stares from the rest, which sucked. This is what peer pressure will do. I still would go over to her house to hang out whenever I could after school.
My parents were really cool about it. They were nothing out of the ordinary, and I could see how much they cared about me and my stupid little brother Michael, who had started going to 1st grade already. He'd try to find me during recess, and my friends would just include him like nothing. That little brat was a headache to take care of, but it was whatever. I just tried to avoid him or tell him to go play with his friends, which thankfully worked pretty well. I just didn't really like having distractions around me. If he were around, I would just be the older sister, and I just wanted to be myself so people would like me for my personality.
🕷ESTEBANᯓ⚽︎
The beginning of the year was kind of weird; there were quiet talks at home, and suddenly, Mom packed all her things and left the house. Dad was kind of weird about it and would explain that Mom just wanted to have her time back, but I already knew what this meant; it meant that she didn't want to live with us anymore, and maybe that was my fault. I don't know if that's right to say, but maybe she just wanted it to be her and dad, so when I came along, she wasn't super excited. She had left the house, and it was pretty bad for my dad; he'd work but then would just go to sleep, and he didn't care about playing soccer with me for a while, so I just kept doing my thing: School, soccer, study, and sleep. I surprisingly had good grades during this time; I tried my best, so my dad didn’t worry about me at all.
I didn't like seeing Dad sad, so I asked him once why he was so sad, and he said something about "broken hearts take a bit of time to heal." I didn't really understand it fully, but I just knew it had to be about how much he missed Mom. He is a good dad, but I think good people are like battery toys that need to recharge sometimes, so I didn't really mind my dad taking his time to recharge. I thought that maybe once he recharged, he'd be able to play soccer with me again, and I would show him the cool trick Sebastian taught me at school.
This kept going for a while until there was something different about Dad one day. One night, he came back home with a Bible and a big smile on his face. He started talking to me more often, and I was happy for him; he was turning back into the dad I had before, and that was pretty promising. One day, though, he didn't show up alone but also brought a very nice woman home. She was wearing a long skirt and a modest shirt. She talked to me about God and how she thought God put my dad in her path to help him. The next thing I knew, my dad and I were spending Christmas at her house with her and her son Leonel, who was one year younger than me. He was fun to hang with, so I didn't complain, and we instantly became good friends.
There was only one problem, though. Since dad had pretty much gotten a new girlfriend, somehow that meant moving away to start a new 'chapter in life.' This was not that good for me since I would be leaving my friends and everything I knew behind. On the other hand, my dad had come back, and he was happy, so who cares if I had to make new friends? I’m good at soccer, so that wouldn’t be hard for me. I didn’t really mind it; additionally, the woman, Adrianna Vela, was super nice to me and treated me even better than my mom. She even bought me a pair of new soccer shoes for Christmas! They were sick!
I love soccer and mostly just that. I didn’t care for girls; they were all so cringe and weird, so I always just kept my distance from them. I didn’t really hate them, but they were just not as fun as playing soccer in the field or as cool as my stickers. One time, there was a rumour in my school saying that Marisela Solis had a crush on me. Much to my disdain, it was true, so for the longest time, I couldn’t have alone time in the classroom to look at my Spider-Man sticker book without her being there. The worst part of it was that she called my sticker book lame!
It’s just not pretty. There’s not even any glitter on them, it’s so lame and boring!
She had said as she pointed at the coolest page of my sticker book. I guess she didn’t really have a good eye for things, even if that hurt me a little since she did LIKE me, right? And I am pretty cool. Thankfully, after a while, she got bored, and I was able to have my peace sometimes.
About this moving thing, I really just hoped for the best. I knew it wouldn’t be that bad since Leonel would also be going to the same school, even though he was a grade behind me, we could still meet up during recess. I really just hoped there wasn’t any more Mariselas at the new school, although I had my own doubts since the school itself had a woman’s name in the title, “Santa Teresa De Avila Public School.” I really doubt my dad would make me go to an all-girl school, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t kind of nervous. I hoped and prayed the guys were cool and played soccer, then we’d have something in common. I prayed because Adrianna, my dad’s new girlfriend, told me that if I wanted something really bad, I could ask God to help me out with it.
We had started going to church even before my dad talked to me about the idea of moving in with Adrianna and Leonel, and surprisingly, I actually didn’t mind it. The Catholic church was pretty calm and quiet, which I really enjoyed because it gave me time to think about stuff I’d confess or ask God. I once felt really bad for ruining a plant at Adrianna’s house while playing soccer with Leonel; he even took the blame for me, so I confessed that to God and instantly felt better for telling the truth, even if it wasn’t towards Adrianna or my dad. I also asked God if He could help me learn new soccer tricks. I started practicing more, and I think it’s working. I’ll be the best soccer player at the new school, and who knows, maybe they even have a soccer team I could be the captain of!