I Remember

Lots of Sugar

My aunt Yira had many boyfriends.
She had a banging body, she was a Barbie doll. 5'8 110lbs big butt, long legs, flat tummy, long hair, the works. Men loved her. She played sports so it made her body even the more fitter. She was dating this guy named Carlos Mariche. The most beautiful man alive, Yes Lord... handsome, redbone,muscular, wavy hair, I mean he was fine, sweet and.charming, he also smelled delicious. Anyways, she had started hanging on the next.street over where he stayed. She made friends with all the neighbors there and soon we were all hanging over there. We spent all day and night up that hill. We ate there and all. Our good friend Rilo, from confirmation class lived up there too. So we just hung there. It was a hot hill, I think Yira started hanging there after my confirmation. I can't recall.
It was a good distraction for me because all I ever was around was Alonso.
We used to hang with these folk at the end of our block then it was a police raid and we moved the hangout to Rilo's house. There I became friends with Maria Arias and her family. She also fed us. Rilo and us flirted a little, but he wasn't our type so we friend-zoned him, he became more like a brother to us. I would tell Maria about my broken heart and we would talk for a while. She thought highly of me, she knew I was hurting. She would say I was the best thing that came out of my grandma's house. We were great friends. Up there I met Carlos' brother Eric Mariche. He was also nice looking but very slim. He drove his dad's car and owned a motorcycle, he was a pizza hut delivery guy, he had a job. We were playing in the rain once, Yira and I would end up going up the hill and she would play street soccer in the rain. Every body would be out playing in the torrential rain though, those were the days though, no rules, no shame, no inhibitions. The rain stopped so Eric and I sat by Rilo's house sidewalk along with all the others who were playing soccer and begin to chat away. I was picking on the guys and making fun of their soccer skills. He always had a little boom box he carried everywhere he went, I had never noticed him prior to that day, After being almost dry, I got up and told him I was going home to take a bath and Yira suggested he come down the hill and hang with us outside the store where we usually hung out at nightly. This store was located directly across from our house we would hang there until they close the doors on us and some times way past that time.
That night he came, Yira just wanted him to be her buddy because she liked his brother and thought he may come around us if his brother was there. Carlos had a baby momma whom he lived with on and off. He had a kid with her, It was quiet complicated since they had been dating for a long time. This girl and Yira were enemies they were one of a kind. They both played sports and were great at it. This girl was more of a tomboy than Yira was but she was gorgeous. Yira was roo except this girl had hazel eyes, long silky hair and fair skin. The men in my country lean towards girls with long silky hair. Yira's hair was shoulder length, but she relaxed her's, Either way they was each other's competition, they fist fought many times.
Eric came down and hung with us that night I really enjoyed his company he was.funny and a great listener. He knew all the words to the songs so we would sing along the boom box. He couldn't dance worth a poop though. Alonso, however; was a great dancer, I liked that about a man. We started meeting at the store every night and I cannot remember how we started to date. It just happened. He would take me everywhere with him. We did so many romantic things, it was easy being with him. He had an innocence about him I hadn't experienced before, I wasn't experienced on the matter or anything like that, but every men I had encountered in my life thus far, were crooks. Alonso had some miles on him but Eric was pure, he was sweet, romantic, a pleaser, just a pleasure to be around, I enjoy every minute of my being with him. Eric had a girlfriend prior to me, but unlike every 19 year old around the town Eric was a virgin. His intentions were never to sleep with me, he was just hanging, trying to act grown, not wanted to tell his secret, I've been tampered with, I had the Apple and didn't even know it. Eric was perfect, a gentle man, he was simply the man of my dreams. Alonso.was.manifest conquest, he came with baggage, he was severely diabetic and violated his body severely as well. Never wanted to take his medicine, he drunk like a fish. He missed.meals.and.even.forgot to shoot his insulin some mornings. Often times he would flat line on me while driving and I had to.snatch the keys of a moving manual shift vehicle sensing us into a sudden jerking stop. He drove above the speed limits all the time, he knew all the short cuts and drive extremely fast every where he went. It was a rush to him. He even race sometimes, his mom was always near a heart attack, when it came to him. She gave him everything, because the doctors had already told her, that he wasn't going last long. So she was thankful and surprised thst he lasted as long as he did. She would get on him about life abd caring for himself, he never cared, he was going to find a new record so he could beat it. This was Alonso, living on the verge. Being that he was always in a hospital growing up he rebelled against it by being as normal as he wanted everyone to see it. Thst meant breaking every rule that kept him alive just to be normal. He became my patience because I didn't wanted to die behind his speed foolishness. Being with Alonso was often times hard. Eric was simple, easy, normal, less stressful, he managed to sweep me off my feet. After a while we were one. Alonso and I had broke up August 24th. In November came about and the country's celebration. November 3 is: Independence day and November 4th is Our Flag Day. Every school in the country come out and March and celebrate both of these days. We have battle of the bands and vendors. It's a day and night celebration. Every school take pride on their bands. It is major.
I remember not really wanting to be seen with Eric as an official couple because we lived so close to the same.people who saw me with Alonso, so up until then I was meeting Eric in odd places to get in his car and ride with him etc. I wasn't public with him, not just yet. I still had residual love for Alonso. 3 months wasn't long enough to heal my brokenness but I had a NICE DISTRACTION...
November the 3rd I declared my own independence and decided to boldly display my new boo. I held hands with him all the way to the bus stop and passed everyone I knew including Alonso. We did plenty of PDA. Kisses, hugs, the whole 9 yards. Alonso had turned cold on me and didn't like me sitting in his lap. I guess since he was looking elsewhere he had to maintain the lies he told that girl. Oh yeah, he told her and Otilia that I broke his heart and was cheating on him with several men. "That it was too painful to even get into details so to please don't make him have to recall all the pain I put him through..." I was wowed and hurt.
Eric and I had a wonderful month. Alonso mom and dad would see me every day sitting by the store with him. I still went to his mom's house to borrow the typewriter for my typing class. His mom never asked, she once told me that: "if people don't tell you their business, don't ask, wait til they are ready and they will, or they simply don't want you to know" these are word I live by.
One day I asked could I just bring the typewriter home with me because it was weird to be there calculating his getting off and me rushing to leave. She let me get it. Then Dito came to my house to tell me that Alonso said to send back his typewriter that I wasn't his girlfriend so why keep soliciting his services. I took it back. It was the end of the school year anyways. Bitter old snake... I thought to myself.
Eric and I was enjoying blissful love for a while. We had tons of fun while it lasted. Alonso got sicker.