Simple Future

1: Rebecca's life

Rebecca

People say life is precious, like diamonds or gold. Just like gold and diamonds, lives can be ruined. It wasn't easy to be the adopted girl. The girl with the 'funny skin' or 'big lips.' Being called Blackie Becky because I'm Becky and I'm black was the worst. I was a grade schooler. Too young to tell myself I was beautiful or flawless or strong, and the three people I looked up to the most in the world, mom, dad and Jasper, were all white. I was always too white for the black crowd and too black for the white crowd. God knows what my life would be without my family. Probably nonexistent at this point.

It's easy to say depression is a phase a person grows out of, or just a passing feeling, when you haven't felt it before. It can be a lifelong experience, cross my heart and pray to die if that isn't true. Small words stuck to me like glue, and carrying them around just saps my energy every single day. It's just so damn hard to carry on when I mentally have to process everything I've been through. It weighs me down like cement shoes, and there's been times where it felt like I was tossed overboard in chains to drown. And once time I threw myself.

Even after everything, the attempt is my biggest regret, to put my family though finding me in my bedroom bleeding, unconscious and unresponsive, costing them thousands of dollars and countless hours waiting for me to come out on the other side of a coma. Even when I woke I wasn't allowed to leave the hospital until they convinced me that I wasn't horrible just for my skin tone and background. There was a black doctor, I think his name was Dr. Trindel, who helped me specifically. After seeing and hearing countless times how black people were dangerous thugs and video hoes, he helped showed me that being proud of your race doesn't make you a thug, and that I was more than a stereotype. Things have been better since, but not amazing. I noticed my childhood bullies didn't care to pick on me anymore, they had better things to do or just didn't have the mean spirit they used too, and for that I was able to let go of a lot of anger and start to move on.

I'm looking at myself in the mirror. I do this every morning to remind myself how far I have come, and much further I need to keep going. I pop my Prozac then walk downstairs to get a bowl of cereal. As I pour in the milk, I hear a one person stampede half fall, half run down the stairs.

"Hey sunshine!" Smiles Jasper

I roll my eyes sarcastically. "What do you want, egghead."

"I wanna see that smile!" He exclaims, making a smile so wide it looks painful, and causes his eyes to crease up.

"In the morning? In this economy?"

He responds to the comment by grabbing my cheeks, and pulling them up so my lips form something resembling of a smile.

"Happy?"

He smirks smugly, knowing he's annoyed me. "Yes."

"Do you even know what day it is?"

"Monday?"

"The day we find out if we made it past the first round of testing."

"You don't seriously think you wouldn't would you?" Demands Jasper "It was easier than the ACT and you got a perfect 36 on that."

I give what feels like my fourth eye roll this morning. "And? This was over survival skill and interpersonal relational abilities. Do I have either?"

"Well, you didn't die when you fell out of that tree when you were six." He shrugs out, as though his statement actually is relevant within the context. "Plus, only the bottom 50% get cut."

"You know that mean the bottom 50% of people between the ages of 6 and 30? In the nation? That represents several million people. And I think the girl who couldn't even kill herself right isn't probably the best survivalist."

Jaspers face drops from happy and joking to somber in a second. It's shocking to see him like this. "That's not funny, Becky."

"It's funny to me." I say as though I find nothing funny and shoving another spoonful of cereal into my mouth.

"Becky, why do you always wanna talk about it?"

"So I'm not allowed to talk about my own issues now?"

Jasper sighs. "I'm not trying to make it like that."

"What are you trying to make it?"  I snap

"What are you trying to make it? You stopped talking about it ages ago, and the last like, two weeks you talk about it like a fucking joke?"

"Can't I? You, mom and dad have all been staring at me like a hurt puppy for two years. TWO YEARS!!! Dear god, it's like you don't even see me as a human anymore."

I stand, flipping my bowl of cereal into myself. "Now I need to shower."

I walk back upstairs and sigh. I just want them to treat me like a normal person. It's been 2 years and they won't even let me joke about it? I'm so sick of my life being controlled. I step into my shower. The warm water washes away the heat of my anger. Jasper is great, but he really does not understand me. I'd trade his life for mine in a second.