I am standing outside of the McDonald's. I didn't have a chance all day because college applications and studying consumed all of my time. Consumed like the lunch I wanted to look forward to. I do not want to go in there because I know what awaits me. As I look back at my father who is frantically looking for something in the car, my stomach grumbles with stubbornness. I look at the golden arch of the McDonald's sign and with a sigh of frustration, I enter the restaurant.
When I enter, I can instantly feel everyone's eyes shift to me and the chatter of conversation stop. While I look at the menu, I feel everyone's hues staring at me and burning holes through my body. I know I don't have anything on my clothes or my face. Which led me to believe they are staring at my charcoal black skin complexion.
Looking around the orphanage, watching all the light skin, white, and brown children be adopted. It was hard for me. I remembered looking into a distorted mirror with my arms bent at the elbow and palms up, wondering why I was not being adopted. Though, at the time of five years old, I did not quite understand the reasoning behind it. I just kept seeing child after child get adopted and carried out in the loving arms of a new family.
It was heading towards evening and there were seven of us left. We silently speak to each other or we would get beatings from the headmistress for being too loud. A few minutes later, we dwindled down to three. The room where children used to play was eerily silent. Just then, a family with a little girl about my age trailing behind them showed up. I heard them introduce themselves as the Winters' family. The little girl hobbled to the other children and then saw me, crammed between a large bookshelf and the wall. We stare at each other, her eyes sparkled and I gasped. The way she smiled at me told me something, it told me that this was my day. I was finally going to be adopted. The little girl took my hand and ambled along towards the front door with me following behind her.
That was the first time I smiled in a long time.
I continue to try to hold my head up on the outside, however on the inside I just want to seriously crawl under a rock and hide forever. I could not let anyone know how sensitive I am about my skin tone. I want to be treated like everyone else who is not dark skinned. I knew that deep down it wasn't going to happen anytime soon.
"Next!" The female cashier calls nonchalantly while popping the bubble gum.
It being my turn to order, I step up to the register, and order a bacon ranch salad with a sweet tea. My favorite thing, since the burgers here make my stomach hurt.
The cashier rings up the order, "$5.69."
I take out my debit card, swipe the card, it goes through. She hands me a medium-sized cup.
"Uh, I think something escaped from the zoo," Someone shouts out.
I told myself in a desperate attempt to make myself feel better, "Try to ignore the ignorance". I had thought of that motto myself and repeated it as if it was a mantra every time I got into a situation like this.
Sometimes, it works while other times, it just added to my depression. I take my cup to the drink fountain and fill it with the sweet tea I've been craving all morning.
"Naw, that's a human being, I think. However, she does look like that thing I saw at the fair last night. It was all chained up." Someone else jeers causing some of the customers in the fast food restaurant to chuckle.
Not understanding how people are so cruel to someone, they do not know and why the cruelty continues to spread to someone they do not know, tears begin to swell up in my eyes. I know it has something to do with me being adopted into the Winters' family. The more I listen, the more I realize their soft conversations have nothing to do with me being adopted but more towards my skin color.
"Really? Oh my God! It has escaped! Run for your lives!" Someone else says. Half the restaurant bursts into an uproar of laughter.
Some of them actually start running around in circles like fools, screaming and laughing with their arms flailing behind them. The cashiers don't do anything to stop the circus act from spiraling on. Of course, they didn't. I am a black girl and I'm what they consider as trash to them.
"Bacon ranch salad?" A McDonald's employee calls out my order while waving the bag.
"Sirrah?" My father calls entering the establishment and walking over to me. All of the racial slurs abruptly stop as heads turn and eyes follow my father to where I am standing. "Is everything okay?"
"Yes, daddy, I am just getting my food now. I will be out soon."
"Alright." He looks around the restaurant at some of the shocked look on the faces of the customers. He shrugs his shoulders and walks out.
"Wow, someone had an affair with the milkman," A joke comes from the back of the restaurant.
"Or the milkmaid," Another adds.
"No, they adopted the wrong color and now they can't take her back." As the laughs grow louder and louder, I take my food and drink and dart out of the restaurant.
The look on my face, which is of slight despair, disturbs him, "Sirrah, what's wrong? Did something happen in there?"
I click my seat belt, steady the bag of food on my lap, and place the cup in the holder.
"No, it's nothing. I'm okay, dad." I lie to my father and look out the window, not wanting to speak about what just happened.
He looks at me for a few seconds longer, and then he backs out of the parking lot instead of trying to fish for more answers from me and drives down the street. He knows when to leave me alone, but I think he knows when there is something going on with me. I am just glad that he does not push me into talking about the problem.
My father is a high-ranking official in the military. He always seems to ooze confidence and silently demands respect wherever he goes. I wish I could walk tall, strong, and with confidence. It is hard to do that when all I hear is endless gossip about me being adopted into a privileged while family by mistake. Not to mention the racial slurs that come with those whispers. It is difficult to hold my head up and stand strong with confidence while hearing those ignorant comments,
I, Sirrah Keyarra Toriella Winters, do not demand that at all. I just want people to see me beyond my skin tone. I want people to see what a great, smart, loyal, generous young woman I really am.
However, I do have one good friend that does not mind my skin tone and her name is Alchemy Angela White. Despite my dark skin, she had always been my friend and I trusted her. Plus, she had similar problems to mind. Her name was practically a call for being teased and some people heard that call. I had never asked her why she is named like that and she had never told me or spoke on it, it seemed to be a very delicate issue for her. The kind of delicate issue you don't want to talk about, not even with your best friend. I respected that. Even if she didn't have that weird name, she's still wonderful.
I guess that is where we have a lot in common, being teased and being bullied. I did ask the history behind her name, such as why her mother named her that. However, she would never say why her mother named her that; I just left that alone not wanting to get on Alchemy's bad side. She and I have been excellent friends since middle school, always hanging out and wanting to be accepted into our line of peers.
Once we hit high school together, I began to realize that she was being accepted into more and more clubs and being befriended by lots more teens than I was. I would try to make friends but they would never accept me for whatever reason. Once I asked and someone told me that I was a mistake and that I don't belong here. I am not sure what he meant by 'here', but I was hoping he meant at the school. After that, I felt like nobody actually liked me. Excluded. Dirty. I had to remind myself that I still had Alchemy. Even though I feel beaten down inside, I smile thinking of my best friend's kindness.
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