A Book Nerd's Guide to Falling in Love

Chapter 18: Some Days were both Good and Bad

What did it mean to be a teenager? It was the most complex and confusing years of our lives, the stage where everyone was still figuring out what we were supposed to be—yet it was when we were at our most confident like we already knew everything. It was when we were at our most vulnerable state too, yet no longer as fragile as children.

I supposed that was the reason why we didn't tell our parents if things went wrong. We wanted to stop clinging to our mothers' skirts and face the world on our own. We would never tell if we got bullied at school. We would never tell if we got in trouble at our part-time summer jobs. And we would certainly never tell if we were discriminated against.

I agreed with that, having the primal desire to prove myself and be independent. But something inside me cried for help, and I wondered if every other teenager was hiding the same voice—secretly wanting to tell about all the wrong things in their lives.

I quietly sat down for breakfast at the dining table. My father played Wordscapes on his phone while enjoying his coffee, seeming so ready for retirement.

"Elsy, I made a sandwich por your lunch. Kumain ka ha," my mother said as she placed a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me. Kumain ka was an order for me to eat, and ha was an emphasis on the words that came before it, usually asking for a yes response.

"I will, Mom. Thanks." I gazed at her, grateful for always taking care of me. I wondered how she'd react if I told her about the incident last Saturday—not the part where Finn hugged me to make me better, but the part where a man told me to go back to China, a country I didn't come from and never visited.

Somehow, I kept playing that scene over and over in my head for the last two nights, and it ate me up inside—the man's glaring eyes as he registered my foreign face, the grimaced curve of his mouth, and the snarl he gave as he said those four words.

I wondered how much worse my mother had gone through in her lifetime.

"Are you okay?" my mother asked.

I was about to nod because that was the correct response. If someone asked if you were okay, you were supposed to say yes and move on. But I couldn't take it anymore. I had to ask. "Mom, did you..." I paused then tried again, "Have you ever experienced racism?

My father's head snapped up from his phone. "Did something happen?" His face turned grim as if he was about to pounce on something.

I knew they would get the hint once I asked, which would turn this into a cringe-worthy conversation, but I asked anyway. I nodded, not saying a word.

My mother took a deep breath and pulled out the chair across from me, sitting down and taking another deep breath.

I sensed the anger emanating from her and could already imagine her screaming in Filipino at the man who discriminated against her daughter. But when she spoke, her voice was calm. "Anak," my child, she started. "I hab receibed racist insults in my lipe. I won't deny dat. But I will neber let dose words bring me down because da people who do dat are eider unaware of deir actions or patetic because dey're not happy wid deir own libes and want to make oders peel da same."

My eyes glistened. I hated the thought that people said those kinds of things to my mother. "Thanks, Mom," I said.

"Who?" My father put his phone down, nose flaring and voice growing darkly deep.

"No one, Dad. Probably some tourist, already gone from town by now," I said to him.

"What did they tell you?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter. Mom's right." I tried to smile to make him calm down, but somehow his protective reaction made me feel good.

"If anyone says anything racist to you again, tell them your father is in the military, and he can hunt them down." He leaned over the table.