Upside Down

La Orientación

The Orientation

"Dad, I think I can go alone." Valeria said as she finished fixing her hair at her vanity in her room. "I can handle being alone with strangers for a few hours." Valeria reasoned not wanting to bother him. Her mother had never gone with her to orientation for her high school at a new school because she didn't want to wake up early despite her being terrified at the thought of being alone.

"But I want to go, I wanna be there for you. This is my way of being there for you. Come on muñeca." Martin said as he sat on the foot of her bed watching her. God she was so beautiful to him. How could a man as ugly as him create something as beautiful as her? Although she looked a lot like him, he would always believe it was as if God grabbed his flaws and erased them into a Martin 2.0.

"I don't want you to come with me if you have other things to do, papa." Valeria said spinning in her chair to face her dad.

"Me being involved in your life is not a bother. I want you to come to me about things, no matter how stupid you think they are. Tu no eres una a molestia, eres my hija." Martin said pleading to go with her. This was his first school year he would be with her and her last year of high school. It was a special year for them and he wanted to be as involved as he could and she would allow.

"Okay, only if you promise you have nothing else to do. I would like to have a familiar face with me." Valeria admitted, she always placed a brave face in front of others but in reality she was terrified of being alone.

"Okay, I'll go change." He said going to his room to change out of his basketball shorts and into actual clothing.

They had now been living with one another for a little under a month and they had an odd dynamic considering they were father and daughter. They had a roommate slash family relationship. He would put certain rules for her to follow but for the most part allowed her to do her own thing. But they did enjoy spending time with one another and being in each other's presence. The rules were simple, don't come home crazy late, to text him if she was going to stay out longer than usual, tell him where she was going, and to allow him to meet her boyfriends. It was simple, he didn't want to breath down her neck like his friend's parents did. The stricter the parent, the better of a liar your kids are. He wanted her to feel like he could trust her and not be afraid to tell him things. And in return he had to abide by those rules as well, including a new rule made this morning about him having to put the seat down because she almost hilariously fell in in the middle of the night. Not that he laughed . . . that would be mean.

It was odd for both of them because Valeria was used to having her mother wanting to know where exactly they were going, who she was going with, having her friends' phone numbers, what their parents worked in, what classes she had them in, basically everything possible. Her friend always joked and asked her if she needed to send her mom their social security number and a copy of their birth certificates as well every time they went out.

But her dad was much more cool with her going out even though she rarely did because she didn't know anyone other than Ignacio and Jaime. She had met some nice people at the party when she was dancing drunkenly but nothing that was huge enough to actually hang out or have their phone number.

"Let's hit the road." Martin said and Valeria came out of her room and followed her dad into this car and payed attention to the way to the school. Her dad pointed out specific landmarks to remember about when she was on her way there to know she was going the right way.

"This is the senior parking lot," Martin said pulling into a parking spot, remembering all the sales he made from his car at school. People sometimes asked how he could sell under the securities' noses but they wouldn't dare say anything because they bought weed from him as well. "You'll have to register your car and they'll give you a little card thingy to place on the rear-view mirror."