Get Me Back on Skates

“Mama! I don wanna go! I don need to go!” I pleaded into the phone. I could speak Russian to Mama, but it takes a while to get back to speaking English. My thick accent made it harder to speak, but practice makes perfect.
As I spoke, I plugged in the coffee maker and woke up Emma, my best friend who I practically shared the apartment with. She doesn’t help pay the bills, and she doesn’t have a bed in here, but she sleeps here at least a couple times a week. Her parents lived here in Boston, and they forced her to live with them.
“Em! Get off ze sofa, lazy butt! You need to show me ow to make ze coffee!” Barely concious, she stood up, rubbed her eyes, and made the coffee as I continued to discuss this delecate topic with my mother.
After countless arguing, I was beaten. I slung my backpack over one arm and grabbed my laptop before running out the door and down the streets to the university. I was wearing long, dark wash jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt, but I was no match for the hard rain. Em had yelled at me to get a jacket, but I thought it was merely an American slang term. Now I regretted not asking anything as I sprinted through the park, drenched.
I suppose it wasn’t the best idea to try to push my way through the crowd. I dodged swinging purses and backpacks and managed to get closer and closer to the university without anybody recognizing me. Many students that go to school with me make fun of me because of my accent and inability to speak fluent English. It never was that bad until last week when we had to give a speech on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Just about everything I said came out wrong because of my accent. I ended up getting a fairly decent grade, but it really let people know how unfarmiliar to this place I actually am. And when people know I’m not comfortable, they do everything in their power to make sure I have a terrible time here in America. Because of the constant taunting, I’ve become much more self aware. I’m afraid to mess up, because I know it will cost me socially.
I was pulled back to reality when an irritated buisnessman elbowed me off the sidewalk, into the wet grass. I knew my flip flops would never survive in the slippery lawn, so I took my time thinking over my plan. I could take off my shoes and hope for a lack of mud, or I could just walk slowly to the sidewalk. I took a deep breath and lifted my left foot. With my first step, I slipped and fell into the arms of a boy about my age, spilling my coffee all over his clean white shirt.