The Girl from Santiago

The beginning

(Circa 1959)

"Because I was born to be the other woman · Who belonged to no one. Who belonged to everyone. Who had nothing. Who wanted everything" - Lana Del Rey

"Come with me right now" Tara said as I looked towards her. I had been roller skating all day that day, spending my hours in front of my house until it was beginning to get dark. "Where to?" I asked while running out of breath. "Justin's house silly. I want to see how his life is, what he's really like." She said as she cupped her hands together in excitement. I really didn't get it. Why all the gist over a guy she barely knew? I looked at her for a long-pausing minute. I really didn't want to just stop what I was doing to see a boy in its natural habitat. But Tara was my best-friend. Where she went, I sure did went with her too.

Justin was a boy that worked near her home, he made his living making shoes. There wasn't much a young teen could do at that time, other than shine or make shoes and do a lot of labor in manufacturing things. There was always, of course becoming a guard. We was living under a dictatorship rule. The more really was the merrier. Living under dictatorship wasn't so bad till it got bad. I was born when a dictator was in place, so I never really knew what democracy was at the time. All I knew was that my life was good and my feet were muddy; thats when I realized I had forgotten one of my roller skates.

"Are you sure that you can walk in there and just go in; unannounced?" I said looking at my feet. They were already dirty from the mud that lurked the sidewalks. I began to feel like coming here was a mistake. "It's not unannounced, he knows I'm coming. I told him, I'd be by earlier." She said as she confidently began walking up the steps and knocked very silently.  Fixing up her shirt, making sure nothing was too revealing; seems like first impressions really do matter. Soon, a woman in her early 30s had opened the door, she immediately set eyes on my muddy feet. "Yes, may I help you ladies?" She looked at us in disbelief. "Hi, I'm Tara Suarez and this is Helen. I am looking for Justin I told him that I would be by earlier. Is he around?" She said, keeping up with her confidence. Her eyes filled with hope as the woman started letting us through. "You'll stay in the porch, I can't even think about having mud in the house." The woman said to me as she pointed at a bench nearby. I looked at Tara with annoyance. "Go" I said as I sat down trying to clean some of the mud off of my feet.

I immediately began to regret coming over, there was so many things I could have been doing.
The sun was setting in, and all I could think about was how much I was missing out. With nothing to really do, I began to really focus on removing the dirt from my feet. I was focusing so much that I didn't take notice that I had an audience. Justin looked at me like I was some new species that had just been discovered. I stopped suddenly, I couldn't manage to say anything. I was already embarrassed to have muddy feet. But now I had someone thinking I was cleaning feces off of my feet. I was already over this whole fiasco, I picked up my one roller skate and got up quickly. My heart began pounding and I began to sweat. I could only look down and started heading towards the exit; passing him briefly. I looked back at his face while he held a cup of water in his hand. He looked so confused as to what was going on. I managed to look again and there was only one thing I could think of in that moment. I was beginning to have my first crush.