Everything Comes Naturally

"Do you hate yourself?" 

That's the question all of my African American classmates ask me since I don't have natural hair. Before, I never cared about having natural hair, but I didn't think other girls thought that I hated myself because I liked having my hair straight. Why was it a crime that I just didn't want to have to deal with tough hair all the time? I'm not going to lie, I have thought about going natural, but I don't want the other girls who make fun of me to think that they were the reason behind my decision. Also, it would take entirely too long, and I don't want to go through the "big chop".

"Beep. Beep. Beep." My alarm sounded off letting me know that it was time to get ready for school as my mother knocked on my door.

"Candace, it's time to get up for school," she said

 I lazily got out of my bed and began getting ready for another day. After I was finished, I had eaten breakfast and was on my way to my bus stop.

"There goes that wanna-be white girl," said a girl named Patricia.

I rolled my eyes in annoyance and ignored her comment. She was one of the main people who bothered me about my relaxed hair. Although she shouldn't have been worrying about me and my hair when she couldn't even take care of her own given the fact that she barely had any, but that was none of my business.

"See, Taylor? I told you. Black girls that don't have natural hair don't care when people talk about them. They don't have any pride about themselves," Patricia laughed.

She was making it really hard to ignore her but I kept my composure. Soon after, the bus came and we were getting on and heading to school since we were the last stop. I was about to put my headphones in until a guy came and sat next to me.

"Hey. Your name is Candace, right?"

I looked around to see if he could have been speaking to someone else. When I realized that he wasn't, I responded by saying, "Yeah. That would be me." I gave him a small smile.

"My name is Eric," he said holding his hand out for me to shake it. I looked at it and then turned to look out the window.

I knew who he was when he came and sat next to me and what I had heard about him weren't good things.

I heard him chuckle and I looked back at him.

"We got beef already?" he asked. "Guys like you don't usually talk to me. I feel like you have an ulterior motive," I said honestly.

He shook his head and didn't say anything else. The bus pulled up to the school and everyone started to walk into the building going to their lockers. When I got to my locker, there was a note on it telling me to look down. When I looked down, there was a basket filled with different combs and hair products for natural hair. I sighed and opened my locker getting my things for first period. I left the basket where it was and went on with my day. I didn't have the time to deal with childish people. You would think that 16-year-olds would be more mature.

Half of the day had gone by and I was getting ready to go to lunch. I brought my own lunch to school because I believed that the school served slop that was equivalent to prison food.

"Wow. You hate being black so much that you would pass up fried chicken for rabbit food?" a girl named Catherine asked.

She was Eric's twin sister and my biggest critic. I wouldn't be surprised if she was the one who had left that basket in front of my locker.

"I never said I hated being black," I responded to her previous question.

"You didn't have to say it. It's written all over you. You have straight hair like the white people, you eat rabbit food like the white people," she listed.