I'm still waiting

Chapter 13

Cecelia Clark~
Would anyone believe me if I said a guy with a confederate flag just called me a darkie? No one even batted an eye and now I'm sitting in this dirty bathroom stall. I'm hiding from everyone since no one actually cared.

Is it such a sin to be born in the skin I'm in? if it is then maybe I shouldn't be here. God knows I use to try everything under the sun to get rid of my chocolate stained skin. From washing in bleach to staying inside the house when all the kids played outside. Even up to using my grandmother foundation and Claire's concealer. If there was anything else I thought would help I was searching for it in the catalogs.

I'm a lot better with acceptance but it's still taking some time. I'm just not messing with the grace Jones comments or the Patti Labelle references they are both beautiful but I don't look like them at all. People need to know that not all black people look alike.

After being deep in thought and just sitting on the bare floor I heard Donald voice echo through the bathroom.

"Cecelia are you in here?" I was quite a few moments not knowing if I should say something or not.
When I agreed to be friends with him I thought we would just be associates who would say hey when we see each other in the hallway nothing more and nothing less.

"Im in here." I answer breathlessly.
"What's wrong? Why you run off like that?" Of course he didn't know why. I'm sure he was use to the blatant disrespect of racist comments from the ones he called friends but let this be a valuable lesson to him.

" I don't wanna talk about it like this, everyone is probably listening."

"What do you think I could do about it? Your in the women's bathroom." He stated the obvious. There was no way I was coming out right now especially the embarrassment I just felt in the cafeteria.

"Y-you can come in here if you want."
He sucked his teeth and I could imagine his eyes rolling in the back of his head. It's very bold of me to ask him to come in.
"See now you tripping... I think the fishy bathroom fumes are getting to your head."
I don't know what it was but I had let out the most ugliest laugh I heard in a while.
"What kind o- how you know if it's fishy or not?"
"Cause if the same girls that were at the party use this bathroom then I know that smell gotta permeate the whole school."
"Wow Donald I can't even process what you just said. You are a whole mess."

"Mhm." He murmured.
"You gonna come out now? I look like I'm talking to myself out here."
"I ain't coming out Donald. Shouldn't you be in class anyways?"
"I should ask you the same thing. I'm failing my classes I have nothing to lose, but you, you have everything to lose. If you come out here we can talk about what happened and why your upset." To me he sounded too much
Like the school guidance counselor. Then again he was trying to help. He stuck the tip of his head in the bathroom looking for me. If he seen the tiniest bit of me I hid.

"You sound like a guidance counselor." I told him. "Learned from the best." He was referring to Ms. Houston. I told her some confidential things about myself and I'm sure other students have too.

"But seriously Cece why won't you tell me what he said?"
"You really wanna know why?" I sighed and got up brushing whatever was on the back of my jeans.
I could see that he nodded his head from the side.
"Tommy and his friends called me a Darkie, I mean I told Whitley I didn't wanna be apart of the contest but she kept on insisting."
"Oh Tommy I know him and his girl. I ain't gonna front I've heard some real racist out of the mouth stuff from him. I never checked him for it cause his dad is a minister friend of my dad."

"Well your dad should know that Tommy senior has junior running around here like a red neck." I verbalized in a sarcastic tone.