. ˚◞♡ ⃗ ❤️🩹 *ೃ༄ ↳ ❝ when you're not fed love on a silver spoon you learn to like it off knives ❞
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╰─➤ ✎ in which the spoiled,
rich teens of dupont
high try to survive their
...
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𝐀𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐀'𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐃𝐍'𝐓 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 why she had come home early from school. She had told them she got sick, but when she didn't leave her room for hours they started to get worried.
"Elaheh, dohktaram, please come out to eat." She heard her mother's voice at the door.
Ella slowly got up from her bed and opened the door. In her house she did not disobey her parents. She treated their rules like laws, and anything she did to break them was like doing something illegal.
"Speak English, mama, like everyone else's parents." She choked out, "I just want to be like everyone else."
Her mother shushed her and pulled her toward her in an embrace. Ella cried softly into her shoulder.
"I don't know what's wrong, Elah, but your friend is here and she says she knows what is." Her mother cupped her face, "Go downstairs and say hello, okay?" Ella nodded.
"Okay, mama."
"You're father and I have a banquet tonight, so don't expect us to be home."
"Yes, mama." Ella smiles and wipes her tears as she watched her mother walk down the hall.
"Wow, I didn't expect you to stoop so low... 'speak English'? Really?" Meili stood at the top of the stairs with her arms crossed, "The level of disrespect."
"What do you know?"
"I'm Chinese. You don't think there hasn't been anyone racist toward me? One time my mother brought me to America to meet her friends, and they had a daughter our age. Do you want to know what she said to me?"
"What..."
"I'm not going to be you're friend because I heard Chinese people eat dogs." She took a step closer to Ella, "She proceeded to call me Dog Eater the rest of the night behind our parent's backs."
"That's terrible-"
"One time someone asked, 'was it you guys who bombed Pearl Harbor?' You guys. I used to think about that phrase all the time. What did he mean? Was he saying that every Asian bombed Pearl Harbor? I'm not even Japanese." Meili scoffed, "I think it's kind of absurd that you're demeaning your own culture just because some people said it wasn't okay."
"I'm sorry-"
"You should be. You should be proud to be different. It's a reason to stand out. If they say something rude than it's on them. Karma will get them sooner or later in the future." Mei paused, "I'm proud to be Chinese. Because I have been through hardships, I now know better than to act like those arrogant people. Rúguǒ nín méiyǒu rènhé jīngyàn, jiù bù kěnéng huòdé zhīshì."
(If you do not experience anything, it's impossible to gain knowledge.)
"So be proud, Ella. Walk into school tomorrow and own it. In a week no one will even remember what happened and it'll be old news, and anyways, so what? You drank a little too much and smoked for the first time. So did half the school last night, except they just weren't caught on camera."
Ella began thinking about it for a second. Meili was oddly right. She was always stuck in her own problems and thinking about herself when she never thought of others. She wasn't the only one who had been cast from society because of the color of her skin, her race, and culture. Mei had suffered too, and she hadn't ever even thought about it that way.
Ella smiled and moved to give Mei a hug.
"It sounds weird to say this, but you're a good friend, Mei, even if you barely act like it."
"I'll take that as a compliment." She laughed in her ear then pulled away, "It's easy to live in the past and forget the present. You have trouble with that." She added and Ella rolled her eyes playfully.
"Jeez, when did you become so deep?" Ella joked, but Mei took it seriously, her smile dropping from her face.
