SIRENA ╱* spooky diaz.

DOS

DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE BEING BROKEN UP WITH DURING A COLLECT CALL FROM FUCKING PRISON? WELL IT'S NO FUN, I'LL TELL YOU THAT! However, that's what happened when Spooky got locked up. I went up to Chino to see him twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, when I wasn't working or attending my classes at UCLA and he apparently couldn't do it then. All I got was a shitty phone call.

We met in kindergarten and Spooky used to always say that's when he fell in love with me. I had my hair in pigtails, I wore pink Chucks, and I pushed this rude ass little boy down the slide for calling one my friends ugly. Back then, Spooky was still Oscar and we used to move our mats next to each other's for nap time. Then, he switched schools in second grade and my other best friend (Jocelyn would literally kill me if I didn't mention that she'd been around since we were born, our mothers being longtime friends as well) was gone.

We were beautifully reunited in sixth grade for middle school when he popped up in my class and we sat together at lunch. It took him a while, two years to be exact, but he eventually asked me out in eighth grade during a dance. It was cute. Back then, things were cute and we were just kids. I had no idea shit would go sour so damn fast.

He got jumped in at the end of our freshman year, when Cesar was still too young to even know his times tables and Oscar was far too young to have to become a fucking gang member. Still though, I stayed by his side. My uncles were obviously not the biggest fans and my dad had yelled at me through the phone after they told him. That conversation did not end well.

"He's some dumbass kid that got it in his head he's up for this shit and he wants to drag my daughter into this? Are you that damn stupid that you wanna do this shit, Carmen? You are gonna stop talking to this little pendejo, am I clear?"

"You know what Dad? It's a little hard for me to even listen to half of what you're yelling at me about when you can't even make the effort to leave Miami to come see us. You don't really care about me dating Oscar because if you did, you'd be here, not across the country. For a man that hasn't seen his kids in four years, you sure do enjoy making demands. I don't take orders over the fucking phone, I'm not Domino's."

Yeah, that had gone well. My mom had thrown a whole sneaker at my head in anger because she was of the firm belief that no matter how much she hated her ex-husband, us girls had to respect him.

Dad and I eventually made up but he still really hated Oscar, as well as my uncles. It seemed like the only Oscar Diaz fan in my house was me and Leya, of course. Only because he always brought her some kind of sugary treat from the corner store when he came to see me.

We stayed together through thick and thin. I helped him cook for Oscar, I tended to his wounds after his gazillion fights, I loved him. He was my first kiss, my first time, my first love. He was everything to me. Maybe that's where I went wrong — putting my whole heart into the hands of one person. Because that phone call? It broke me. 

I must've cried for weeks after that. Luckily, I was on summer break so I didn't miss my classes or anything. I just stayed in my room, crying or staring blankly at my wall. Jos would come over to comfort me, force me to get out of bed and drag my feet behind her as she took me all around Los Angeles to keep me out Freeridge and it's pretty much everything that reminded me of Spooky.

Soon, however, my sadness turned to anger. Anger because I'd already been hurting at the fact that he was gone and he just decided that he was going to dump me with no warning over a fucking prison call? What a goddamn bitch!

I refocused that energy into school and started my sophomore year strong all the way to senior year which is when I met Thad and that whole mess started. So here we are: 2018. Spooky is out of jail. I'm single, living in my childhood bedroom at my mom's house, filled to the brim with unreleased sexual tension, pissed off, and nearing the end of summer which meant I'd have no excuse to spend all of my off hours at the public pool with Jos.