It was a breezy sunny day in the spring of 2003, and I had stepped out of the courtyard of the Salem public library in that part of Massachusetts. I got the lively fragrance of the lilacs and gardenias, from their well kept grassy pasture. I had a relaxing break that a well to do alone time could do after dealing with a raging storm which is having a blowout verbal assault, with my very indifferent mother. I pretty much just had it with her shit, and only alone time allowed me to unwind. After waiting for like less than 10 minutes,the public bus finally arrived to whisk me away and get back to my "peaceful" abode I called home? Believe me I really wasn't looking forward to it. As I waited for the driver to hit the gas pedal, a feeling came over me. And that's a feeling of great dread. I couldn't figure it out, even with all of my failed attempts to harness my psychic development with meditation, on account of my then strict Jehovah's witness background that forbade me to practice it. But in spite of my doubts, I stayed sheepishly on the bus as if trying to play it safe. All the while it seemed to me that a bad destiny was waiting for me to make a last judgment call. And the reason why was that right beneath my window, standing right in front of the historical library's steps was none only but my old friend Amy and her douche bag boyfriend I who I later learned was Dan.

That decision to hop out of the bus would be the reason I lived and relived that trauma for at least 13 years of my young adult life. I was 19 at the time. But here goes:

I greeted Amy very enthusiastically; only to get a meager "oh hi" from her in return. She didn't look very happy to see me. With a slight sideways glance and a low tone, I wasn't feeling her vibration as too positive from my end. I told her I changed my name to chelsea with our occasional and not limited to exchanges of long time no see. And then she threw a slight curve ball in my direction. She said something like"I have a slight problem with Dominicans and Spanish people In general." And Dan said something I still didn't fully remember, just siding with her. Knowing that I am a Dominican girl, and they were white "mutts", I decided that instead of seeing her comments as a red flag, I chose to act like an ambassador to all Dominican people or Spanish people in general. As corny as that may sound, I probably gave them the impression of a mix between a Carmen San Diego and Geraldo Rivera (If that makes any sense).

Then fast forward to nearly the end of spring and finishing junior year of high school. I went to the junior prom with my older niece, got a class ring which wasn't cheap, (but don't get me started with the attempt to pawn it for cash after hs). And I was dropped from junior varsity softball for poor grades. And so were the grades through some of my electives courses I was failing. And I deeply missed my good and only friend lizzy who moved back to bronx, ny, her hometown. So I settled with my then new friend, who was a freshman in my integrated course, and from Kenya named Mo.

I started hanging out with Amy and that's when she started to tell me if I knew a kid named Mike. I said you mean that goth guy Mike? Well yes, and I had a major crush on him back in HS. But I moved on. (Trying to play it cool). She said, he called me and asked about you. My heart was pounding very fast, and I couldn't help but salivate with the fact that he even showed Interest in me. My mouth turned dry. Following her lead I said, really? And she was like really. I was torn. I couldn't figure out how to answer her very tempting offer. Then I remembered reading a story about an author named Andy Alisea. And played along with that idea that I had a better love interest in someone else. She was like okay so should I call him back and tell him that? Before I knew what she was doing, I took the bait and said, yes you can call him and say I am interested in getting to know him. She was like alright.

School was almost over, and I was getting ready to start the summer filled with love and new beginnings, and as I was getting ready, I once invited my friend Mo to her house. But she only stayed briefly and then took off, and she told me in private, away from Amy's listening ears, that she can't hang out with me and my friend Amy because she was smoking, and her dad doesn't allow her to hang out with people like that. But then I thought "what does she know about relationships? But knowing her shrewdness, I envied her. She had a very prim, sheltered life, and a loving, caring, father, I only dreamed of feeling protected to.

Hanging out at Amy's house, she explained to me how she knew Mike. That she met him through a mutual friend we knew as Jessica. that they once had gone out, and she was a low down slut who had a baby with some of the guys she hooked up with. That she and her mother fought each other, how crazy unstable she was. The flipping of the school homeroom desks, and her involvement with dss at the time. I was shocked that Mike even took interest in her plain ass! As time went by, the chase had started. I hanged out at Amy's house more times than I remembered having a moment with my mother. I started wearing a lacy red blouse and a denim skirt and a pair of my mother's black tennis shoes to look more gothic for Mike; which began to get worn out; (The gaping holes on the heels would say it all). And then came the rumors. Amy started saying that there was a rumor being spread about me, that I was a prostitute. Was it based on how I dressed? or how I'd leave the house to my mother's dread, only at to see her at night just to avoid Amy's abusive boyfriend, and his often combative words, cursed at me like as if he invented the urban dictionary? I'm not sure, but honestly, I already knew till this day that Dan must have been behind these rumors; not to mention getting the pervasive stares and finger pointing at me if I decided to go shopping at my local grocery store. So many rumors that soon enough, Amy's brother's then finance had been told that I tried to hit on her husband to be. And that happened after I supposedly sized her up while she was sitting on Amy's front steps of her home, being lured by Amy, and getting a backlash of her jealousy with those piercing menacing eyes, I could only compare it to the breakdown of Britney Spears and that time when I took a tour at his room while Amy was on the "phone." Even though Amy insists it was Jessica who spread those rumors, I was convinced that it was Amy ir Dan who orchestrated all of that in a very short period of time. To find out the reason why she went through all the trouble to ruin my life, could only explain how sly the devil plays on a young woman's envious heart.

I was talked down to, fooled and hoodwinked. I was talked into meeting this Mike who never even bothered to show his beautiful face to me; only to be met with insults from Dan at her front screen doorsteps, his words of skank, spic, slur, whore, nigger, and all of these grossest insults by the book. You name it, he probably called me that. And when he kept calling me a cunt, I noticed on little miss Amy's look on her face; that she took a disgusting pleasure out it. Something tells me that this rachet classless bitch would call Dan instead of my crush, just to have sex with Dan after his blasting me with a myriad of defamatory slurs.

I envied their reckless Caucasian abandon, that was frowned upon me to even adopt. A behavior only my Baptist aunt would be embarrassed of. The only Dominican American among these racist white youths, I only had to learn to live without. So the aftermath of it all was a call like many of those in my already broken home, ransacked over my mother's disdain over my rebelliousness, to her telling me that she was going out and getting ready to go clubbing with Mike. To wanting to talk to him and with her rebuffing me of any contact and with him, saying he's taking a shower.

The next morning, I get a call from Amy, then before I could even say hi, she tells me that he said it's over? And while she tried to make nice, the aftermath of her entire charade of chasing the wind with a cup of bs, I was listening to the grunge band, Hole's rendition to Stevie Knicks song Gold Dust Woman. And I told her our friendship is over. I could feel the violet in my soul, the betrayal, including all the bs that goes with it. After hanging up to that mother of all trolls, I listened to Hole's song, I languished at the guitar riffs, love's melodic sorrow and her signature angst giving bellow only she could pull off. Giving worry to the wind in her voice, as only she can. And letting her ease my numbness. The pain of Amy's betrayal is very real folks! I saw myself screaming behind that moonlit black and white background. Hole and not JWs was my calling. I sought revenge. But a little mischief could only take me so far...

I may have been treated like no special thing, but she's the worst kind of nobody.