I was in fourth Grade, Cecilia was her name, Cici for short. She was my best friend. In my eyes she was the coolest person to walk this earth. In a time when my life was so censored she was my gatekeeper to everything cool. She would let me wear her Adidas track jacket when we walked home from school, she showed me the backstreet boys, she showed me Selena, can you believe that? I was introduced to pop culture by her, but it was beyond that. Her family welcomed me into their home, I was never allowed to bring anyone over to my home. She would invite me to dinner, and I even helped her make cornbread, it was her daily dish she would make for dinner. Cici made the corn bread and a big pitcher of iced tea, her sister would make what I thought was spinach, her mom made chicken and when their dad got home everything would be ready and they would eat as a family. Dinner at my house was my mom and step dad arguing in the kitchen my little brother in his high chair and me alone at the table eating something I didn’t like but was forced to eat. Dinner at my house was me shoving as much food as I could in my mouth pretending to eat it, running to the bathroom to spit it out. I would only eat at school but no one noticed…. I was just a picky eater according to my mom. I wanted to be like her, I saw a healthy loving family and I wanted to be part of it. She was the only person who didn’t make fun of me for wearing huge glasses, or for wearing old clothes, she didn’t say anything about me having a super religious mom or for having a super strict dad. She never once made fun of anything I wore or liked. She never questioned anything about me, for the first time in my life I felt that someone accepted me. I wonder if her parents ever saw anything off with me, anything that wasn’t “right”.












