She didn’t know where to start.
The beginning was obvious, sure, but she was never the best at trying to say things in chronological order. But now that she had the chance to say it all in a place she knew, nothing seemed to drift to the surface.
As if noticing her conundrum, he asked. “Do you want to talk somewhere else? Perhaps outside?”
She glanced off to the side. “I’d rather not. I don’t want anyone to listen in. But at the same time, I don’t even know where I could talk with you about this.”
“Then what about my office?” Alastor offered. “There, you’ll have no worries about anyone listening in to our conversation. It’ll give you privacy. Would that be better?”
Elain remembered Alastor mentioning his office but never bothered to look inside because one, the door was closed, and two, she wasn’t about to go poking her nose in places she didn’t need to unless there was a reason for it.
She was slightly curious about why he had a lock on the door to the basement but figured that there were important things he didn’t want to be stolen, or was even a collector of sorts, given the wealth this man seemed to have, it wasn’t that far of a stretch. Hell, her Dad kept a safe where all of his essential drafts or finished projects for work were stored.
“Only if you’re okay with it.” She told him.
His smile grew, and when he stood, he led her up the stairs to his office. The door closed and locked, which he unlocked with an old-fashioned key. Elain wondered if it was a part of the house itself with how it seemed and looked to be made of brass. And as they stepped into his office, Elain suddenly felt as though she had gone back in time.
Alastor’s office looked as though it had a mix of Victorian with the wallpaper of dark greens and a floral pattern of roses, the hardwood flooring and a rug with such an intricate and woven design. The office was of a rather impressive size. It might have been initially another bedroom with how spacious it looked with a window allowing natural light. Two armchairs were facing across from one another at opposite ends of the room, with one grandfather clock near the window and one armchair. Along the opposite side with the other armchair, a few paintings hung up on the wall were small and looked to have been by very talented people, and a statue of a stag atop an end table. But what held the most attention was the desk, large and imposing with an equally imposing made of dark brown leather. Atop, the desk looked neatly organized with a radio positioned to the far left and organized pens to the right. There was even a bookshelf in either corner behind the desk with a fireplace lined with photographs of him, Amalie and a few others she didn’t know. And a large painting of a girl with a shadow of a stag behind her in a forest. And when she turned to face Alastor, who brought the door ajar, her eyes grew wide when she saw that the wall for the door was a built-in bookshelf. It even had a ladder.
“This is amazing,” Elain said as she looked at some of the times that were on the built-in bookshelf. With some other odds and ends.
“Thank you,” he then offered her to sit in one of the armchairs before taking a seat across from her. Crossing his legs as he reclined while she merely sat with her hands in her lap. The reality of what she was about to spill out came home to roost as she fell silent. “Whenever you’re ready.” He tells her.
She closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose. She opened her mouth and just allowed whatever came up first to leave her mouth. “I thought about killing myself when the trial ended—the people who assaulted me, who tried to take my eye. My blue eye, and skinned arm, were given no jail time, and I heard from others that their record would be expunged. Lawyers were saying that this was: “Just a mistake. They weren’t in the right frame of mind.” “Others around them pressured them to do it.” And “They regret what they did.” No, they don’t. They won’t regret it at all. Even the judge was baffled as to why but couldn’t do anything. But it clicked to me instantly. Why did they get away with what they did? Because of money, they bought the jury, or someone paid them off. Not the parents per se, because even they seemed surprised, but someone did. You don’t get off scot-free for skinning and gouging out someone’s eye because that person, because I, wasn’t black enough for them, even though they were black, just as much as Kaya or my Mom, or more than that, but not me. How stupid is that?”
“So they were racist towards you because they couldn’t identify you as one particular race? Because you didn’t look like they did?”
“It’s some real fucking hypocrisy. Sorry… I shouldn’t swear.”
“You can say whatever you want, Miss. Ortiz.” He says. “You can just vent however you feel, regardless of what comes out of your mouth. You’re safe here.”
She took another breath. “It made me question so many things. I know they hated me. They hated me because I didn’t care. I’d hang out with whomever I wanted, regardless of physical or mental abilities, regardless of gender, regardless of sex. They could be Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Jewish, or Mixed. It didn’t matter to me. Some might find this stupid, but as someone who has always, and I do mean always, have people guessing what the fuck I am, I just didn’t want to look at people like that. I didn’t care as long as you didn’t hurt or wish to hurt others because of how someone was born. We don’t get a choice, at least in some regard.”
“That’s very open-minded of you.”
She laughed. Some would probably disagree, saying that she was just pandering to some bullshit notion that they believed. She just didn’t care anymore.
“Thanks, but that didn’t stop those people from hurting me, or my thoughts from going to such a place. I wanted to die, to just… end it. All of it. I wanted to end the tirade of people’s pity, of people questioning me, of doubting my words, and of others saying I deserved it for pretending to be something I’m not when they don’t fucking know what I am, to begin with. I am Black. I am Cuban. And I’m probably a fucking ton of other things because I’ve never taken one of those DNA tests to find out. For all I know, I could also be White. Because I have Cuban ancestors who might be Black, Spanish, White, whatever-the-fuck there is. And that’s just on my Dad’s side of the family. When people look at him, they think he’s from Mexico. While my Mom’s side, who I have no connection to, because they’re some real pieces of work, at least from what I’ve gathered because she doesn’t speak about it, her ancestors were most definitely slaves, taken from their homelands against their will and probably by their own people. There’s a high chance there’s white in them too, given what those slave traders have done.”
She stopped, her left hand running over the part of her right arm where her graph lay. “I was just so tired… tired of trying to prove to people who I am. And I know that some are just as mixed as I am, if not more, that are just as tired of this whole thing. I was never ‘Blackfishing’. If people saw my Mom, they should get that, but nooooo. To them, I’m just pretending to be black. If my Dad was white and I still came out looking like this, people would probably assume I’m adopted or something else like it. I’ve seen it before. A friend of mine, Rebecca Jankins, is white. Her Mom is white, but her Dad is black, like my Mom. Rebecca came into this world like her mother, and people think her Dad’s her stepdad and not her bio-dad.” She let out another tired breath and scrubbed her face with her hands, pushing her hair out of her face.
Alastor scowled slightly as his very faint smile twitched. “What’s Blackfishing?”
“It’s similar to the term Catfishing. But it refers to someone who uses hair styling and makeup to create and enhance certain features to appear as if they have black heritage or are racially ambiguous. The thing is, I am racially ambiguous, have been since birth, and I can’t change that.”
“So, these individuals who took such offence to how you look, how you were born, decided to do what they had done to you.”
“Pretty much,” she ran her hands through her hair again. “My teachers didn’t do shit. They were afraid, too. Afraid to lose their jobs because of how much money those bastards have. The one who led this whole thing, Shantae Otieno, she’s rich, maybe as rich as you, or more, the stupid kind of rich. Her and her fucking group of true blacks. It’s ridiculous.”
He cocked his head. “It almost sounds like a gang.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“They might as well have been, except instead of coming from the rough part of the city, they come from the rich side, at least the main five of their group did. It all came down to money and what you could do with it. Not that we’re struggling by any means but we had no chance.” Her voice then grew quiet. “I could never understand it, the “them vs us” mentality. I still can’t. We’re all people, so what if we’re born with a different skin? The inside is still the same. What makes it all worse is that I’ve had strangers, both in the world and online, tell me I should have seen it coming. That I shouldn’t have to parade myself around as I am as if I were asking for it. That she was about a hairs breath from snapping and my sheer existence pissed her off. I mean, I was ambushed, crossing the soccer field to get to the bus stop to go home in late spring. Everything was warm and wet. I took off my jacket and had it stored in my backpack. I saw them like I always did, eyeing me with a “what bitch?” attitude. They wouldn’t come at me one on one, probably because they knew I could handle myself in a fight. Bunch of cowards…”
“Is that the only reason, do you think?”
“No,” Elain admitted. “I think Shante just used something like Blackfishing as an excuse to hurt me. To hide the real reason for why she did it, at least that’s what I think.”
“And what do you think?”
She looked Alastor dead in the eye. A slow build-up of anger started to form in her mismatched eyes. “I kicked her ass once. She was harassing this guy. He was the same age as us, Benjiman O’Brian; we call him Benny. He’s in a wheelchair and has trouble bit of movement in his arms. I think he has Cerebral Palsy. I didn’t ask or question it because it’s rude to assume that kind of stuff, plus it was never any of my business. But he’s always a kind guy, you know? And he’d paint, he loves art. The paintings he’d make, it was true art. The kind you could see in a gallery. He’s that good. I could never do what he can.” She smiled warmly despite how she felt. “I and a few others would hang out with him in the art room. Watch him paint, and make all these abstract works. Painting other people, scenery, of himself, and stuff like that. Like watching a speed paint video but in real-time.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
Her smile faded. “Shantae destroyed his work, took a knife to it, and laughed when he saw what she did. In response her parents paid for him to have all new art supplies and a bunch of canvases, mainly to keep others hushed up about it. Not that she cared. She just likes destroying others’ works. She did this to another girl named Kathrine but backed off when a lawyer came to their house. The lawyer was Kathrine’s Dad; after that, Shantae didn’t go for her again but went after those who couldn’t do anything, like Benny. So I did. I stood up to her, put her in a headlock and pinned her limbs so she couldn’t move like a viper squeezing a mouse to eat. I told her that if she even so much as went near Benny again, I’d break her limbs. And she listened, for the most part, still called him some real vial stuff that I don’t want to say…”
“You don’t have to.”
She looked away, looking aimlessly in the room as she leaned back in the armchair. “But she never touched his work again. I think her parents threatened her, and told her that if she did something like that again, she’d go to the military or boot camp or something like it. I just wished they shipped her off then and there. They even made a trust fund for Benny to go to art school at New York’s top university for the arts. Even though he’s slated to get a scholarship, this money can just help him and his family get a good full-time assistant for him if he needs it. Even have one up in place now.”
Elain then paused and frowned. “I could never understand what was with her, she has money, a good family, but she’s so… disturbing…”
“In what way?”
“Shantae made cracks about how she could murder someone, and no one could touch her. Thinking about it now, it should have been my clue that she was going to come after me. But there were so many others she looked at as if they were something that she could hurt and get away with it. Like we were bugs to be stepped on.”
“If that’s the case, then why does she have so many with her as you’ve described?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she states. “But a lot of people would hang out with those with money because they think they don’t need to pay if they have a rich friend.”
“Ah, similar to my wife’s parents.” When she gave him a questioning look, he elaborated. “Amalie’s grandparents on her mother’s side come from money. Old money, I’ve seen a few of the people you’ve described. Of those who try to take advantage of what they can get. I’ve also had my fair share of parasites, trying to leach off of what is rightfully mine.”
She immediately thought of Amalie and became concerned. The last thing she wanted was for Amalie to be dealing with that. “People don’t do that to Amalie, do they?”
Alastor shook his head. “No, thankfully not. However, I try not to be so outspoken about the amount of wealth we have. Save for a pen or a suite here or there.” He paused. “Actually, no, scratch that. I do spend a bit when it comes to cutlery, the finest of tools in the food I prepare.”
“Given the pie you made us, I can believe it.”
His smile became endearing. “Apologies for taking over. I didn’t mean to derail the conversation.”
Elain fell silent. Now she hesitated, didn’t know how to continue. “Well, because of that, Shantae could get others to follow her, though I think some ran away when they realized what she wanted to do to me when she took out the knife.” She scowled. “I… I don’t remember how it happened, but I somehow managed to get the two guys who held my arms off me. I wanted to make a break for it, to get back to the school and find help. Or at least lock myself in a room with a phone and call the police. But I didn’t get far. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground, Shantae straddling me and… tried to gouge out my blue eye. I managed to stop her, using my right arm, but… she…”
“Skinned you instead.” Alastor finished.
She nodded. It was all she could do. “Yeah…” her left hand shakily grasped the graph on her right arm. “It burned… like my arm was on fire. And when the skin peeled away, revealing what was underneath, seeing the inside of my arm, the muscle, blood and even bone, I think. But it was the sensation… the feeling it gave. Like she burned me rather than… cutting me. I… I don’t… it’s hard to describe…”
“It’s all right,” he says. “You don’t have to go into detail about the attack itself if you don’t want to.”
Elain pressed her lips into a thin line as she squeezed her eyes shut. “The only thing I could think, besides how hot it all felt, was that I thought she was a coward. That if this was something she wanted to do to me, then she should have faced me herself, by herself. Not with her group of money-hungry pricks…” She released her right arm and looked at her left hand. For the briefest of moments, she saw her hand coated in dark red blood that had yet to fully oxidize. “They ran away when a man came running over the soccer field shouting like a madman. He had a deep booming voice and it scared them shitless. I didn’t realize at the time but he was homeless. They scattered into a nearby van. They planned ahead they had a getaway car the whole time. But the man who helped me got me back to school. Others ran towards us to break up what they thought was a fight by the time Shantae and the others were long gone. The homeless guy was a Marine. He lost a foot in an accident.” She shook her head, that information wasn’t relevant to what happened, but she felt like it was to her.
“It was because of him that I’m… I’m mostly whole. This might sound kind of dumb, but we kept in touch. Email now and then, he’s doing okay, better than before and is no longer homeless.” She then glanced at the large painting that hung above the fireplace. “I can’t remember much after that, just that I was rushed to the hospital. I couldn’t even talk. But for some reason, I just started to think of a song. Singing the lyrics in my head. It just kept going on repeat. I’m not sure if it’s because of the shock or if I was just trying not to think about it after it just happened. You know?”
“What’s the name of the song?”
“The River by Blues Saraceno. Their music, which is like a mix of rock, country and blues, just seemed to click with me. But I think that song just hit what I felt, as though I was underwater, in a rushing river. And I couldn’t swim up to the surface. I felt like I was being pulled further down from what happened. It’s… how I felt to the point that I thought I should just… go to that river and not come back.”
Alastor said nothing, merely waiting in silence.
Tears began to well up in her eyes from just thing about it. “I think my Mom knew… I think she knew I thought about killing myself. It’s one of the reasons why we moved here to have a fresh start. Away from everything. But the thing is, as much as I just wanted it all to disappear, for me to disappear. Something else took over not long after. Something far darker than my despair and self-loathing.” Her hands gripped her knees tightly, so much to the point that the coloured left her knuckles. “I wanted them to die. For what they did to me, I wanted them to feel the same thing as I did before dying a slow, painful death.” Slowly her shoulders relaxed as she let out another breath. “But as much as that dark part of me wants it, I know that will never happen. Shantae and those five and the rest in her group who did this have gotten away without a care in the world. And I’m stuck here, left with the scares. I hate it. I hate it so much. Why do people like that get away with so much, yet people like me are left with what they’ve done?” Elain’s tears began to fall. “Why can’t they all just leave me alone? I didn’t ask for this… I just want to be me… is that too much to ask…? But I… I ran away… I ran away because of it…”
She lifted her head to see Alastor had moved from his seat to kneel in front of her, and in response, she wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders and hugged him tightly as they now sat on the floor. She could feel Alastor’s right hand along the back of her head while the other was lightly pressed on her back as she buried her face into his chest.
“I call her a coward, but I ran away! But what was I supposed to do? What could I do? Against someone like her, after what she did? I’m no better… I should have done something more! Something…”
“You’re wrong.” Alastor cuts her off. “You did all that you were able against those who used such underhanded means to best you because they were too afraid to face you head-on. You’re no coward, Elain Ortiz. Far from it.”
Her throat hitched as she broke down. She cried out all of her frustration, hate, and anger towards those who did this and to herself. All the while, Alastor merely remained where he was, holding her close to his chest, saying nothing more.