Snitch

“You won’t say anything, right Trizda?” Iggi asked in possibly the nicest voice anybody who wasn’t my friend had spoken to me with.
The look on her face seemed sincere, and almost pleading in a way. She knew she was caught and I could tell from the look in her eyes that spelled out a slight fear that the last thing she wanted was for her or Ciro to get into trouble. Both of them were graduating soon and wanted to move on to bigger and better things. The last thing either of them could afford was a write-up that would dampen their chances of that. Even though I knew it would be in my best interest to just say I won’t, I knew I would be lying about it. Even if I didn’t snitch, I was going to tell somebody what I saw. It was just too good of a scoop to pass up on. I didn’t know Iggi on any kind of personal level. I just often picked up on the fact that she was well liked on campus by almost everyone who came in contact with her. And I had to admit, from what I had seen myself, she was had the qualifications of being likable. She was very pretty, short, honey-skinned, and curvy like a race track with her bushy and wavy, black hair cut short in a way that was borderline boyish but still had a feminine style about it with her overgrown bangs that always fell over her eyes. From what I knew of her personality she was somewhere between “snarky black tomboy” and “dark and nerdy loner” who had many acquaintances but very few people she would call her friends. Being that she was legitimately one of the nicest looking girls on campus, she really had any pick of the guys but she was known for being something of a prude. Or more like, she was just very picky about who she decided to date, and just because you could say ya’ll were dating didn’t mean you instantly had unlimited access to her vagina. Something I wish I could get away with.
However, the one thing that I picked up the most from her was that in spite of being very mouthy and noting several instances where she showed signs of a much darker side to her, Iggi was often complimented on being a “good girl”. That’s why it came as a shock to most that her and Ciro Madrigal started to hang out as friends and eventually got caught on a few instances exchanging kisses and flirty looks. If she was such a “good girl” then why was she drinking illegally on the back of the center’s travel bus, a government issued vehicle mind you, with her criminal of a boyfriend? I knew Carrie and Aimee would get a kick out of theorizing with me on how much more Ciro was going to corrupt Iggi, especially seeing as how she always seemed to be talking shit about us and our exploits and turning up her nose.
“Trizda?!” she repeated more impatiently this time. She scrunched up her face and closed her eyes. When she opened them, I could tell that if I could separate her pupils from her raven colored irises of hers they would probably be big from the alcohol she just consumed, “You’re not gonna say anything about what you saw, right?”
This time her tone changed, it was annoyed but still desperate. What I happened to see was her sneaking off the back of the unattended bus with Ciro, who was carrying a twelve pack concealed in a white plastic bag. They must have drunk it all because he discarded it by placing the bag with the empty bottles in the back of some random person’s pick-up truck. He looked over and saw me standing there watching. He had stopped, causing her to. There was a brief exchanging of words between them and that’s when Iggi made her way over to me and started this conversation that is going on right now.
Finally deciding to go for what seemed to make this whole thing easier, I just nodded my head. At this, Iggi’s face relaxed as a small smile crept across her lips and she let out a small breath. She turned on her heels to face Ciro who seemed to be growing impatient with the whole thing.
“See, I told you she wouldn’t say anything.” She told him reassuringly, so confident in my word. Though I would never tell her now, it made me feel kind of bad that she was so ready to place her trust in me like that.
“C’mon, bring that ass on then.” Ciro whined irately from where he stood a few feet away.
Iggi made her way over, but not before letting Ciro know that she didn’t like being talked to like that and how she was tired of reminding him. After they had walked off to go back to the festival in the middle of the city square, I decided that since the bus was empty and clearly unlocked that I guess I would go spend some alone time in there. In spite of at least one of my so called friends being at the festival with me, I decided I had enough of people staring at me and pointing and enough of the other students making fun of me every time they happened to see me. I knew they would never really stop, but sometimes it would be comforting to see if they could just tone it down when there were other people around.
Unlike, Iggi I know that when it comes down to it I’m not what society would call beautiful. I’m at least a hundred pounds overweight with a body that was shaped like a duffel bag and skinny legs that looked like they could belong to a frog. My face is okay though, I know if I really tried, a few touches of make-up would make for a good close-up of me that would turn a few heads, and I was often told that my long, black, spiral curled hair was possibly my best feature. Yet I was often told by others that it wasn’t so much my looks, but my personality that made me unappealing. When I had first came to Morgenstern’s Educational Center for Young Adults, which was one of many facilities nation-wide that were all a part of the government funded and ran Young Adult Education Corps., I had a boyfriend who I was with for a long time. However, I always had a habit of cheating on him. Despite my looks if there’s one thing I have on girls like Iggi is that I have way more sex than them. Even if I know they’re only doing it because I, admittedly, make it easy for them and they would never tell anybody about it afterwards. So when I first got here (out of my own will mind you, not his), I had been faithful to him for a few months and stayed with him for a few days before I finally slipped up again and made out with some guy who would get kicked out the very next day. My relationship ended and though I felt bad, I hardly let it show that I cared about what happened. That’s when words like “slut”, “whore”, and “ho” started to get thrown my way as my ex was also a very much liked student on campus.
The other unattractive personality trait I seem to possess is that I slipped up one day and decide that I was going to start playing the game the way the girls on center were. Many a times they would talk shit about me, tease me, and make fun of me right in front of my face because they knew in a way I wouldn’t do anything about it. I recall many times where I had to keep getting switched from my rooms because I just could not get along with or make any of my roommates like me. One girl teased and bullied me like crazy because she didn’t like that I would open our room door without asking who was there first. So I decided I was going to fight back but in a sneaky way. Being that I’m half Latina, I know that a good portion of the school wasn’t as fluent in the language as me. When they talk shit, I would too but in Spanish so they couldn’t really tell if I was talking about them or not. That blew up in my face as one girl who was Latina too overheard what I had said about somebody else and let them in on my little game. Now every time I say something in Spanish I have a horde of people staring down my throat trying to see if they can pick up if I’m talking about them or in my face, confronting me about whether I was or not. It’s a total mess now.
However, the one thing that always got me in trouble, the thing that would change everything for the worst, was the fact I could never keep a secret. I silently call myself “a compulsive snitch.” Ever since I was little, everything I saw, everything I heard, I had to run back and tell somebody. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. The minute I saw something I felt as if I possibly couldn’t be the only person to know about it. I know that somewhere down the line that every one of us has come across one of the golden rules in life. Snitches get stitches. “Don’t be a tattletale.” Many of our parents probably uttered to us. However, I never got that memo. I had to tell, just like whether if I had meant it or not, somebody was going to know about Iggi and Ciro drinking on the bus.
I sat at the front of the bus now, with my forehead buried into the cushioned partition in front of me when I caught out the corner of my eye someone was moving. Turning my head I looked to see the tall boy with bouncy, super-curly brown hair, pulled back into a low ponytail, approach the same white pick-up truck that Ciro had threw the bottles away in. He reached inside, retrieved the bag holding the empty bottles, and walked off again. My heart started to pound a little as I knew very well who that was. It was none other than Barto Crihan, the guy who I had the biggest fucking crush on. He must have seen what had happened with Iggi and Ciro too. A few moments later, he came back into view, the bag was gone. He must have put them away somewhere, probably looking out for his friend no doubt. Actually, Barto is the only reason I know anything about Iggi at all. Whenever she’s not making a blossoming love story with Ciro, she’s usually seen being the only girl in the group that consisted of her, Barto, four other guys of Latino descent, and a small Asian boy. They were often seen sitting somewhere around campus talking and laughing, sat together at all the meal times, and hung out with each other whenever we went on our outings and trips. Though there were a prominent seven in the group, I noticed that out of all of them some were closer than others and it seemed that Barto and Iggi were a lot closer with each other than the others. It looked like tonight she ditched him for Ciro and he had ditched the others. I wondered why.
He started coming over to the bus. I instantly cast my head down and pulled out my phone, pretending to fiddle with it. There wasn’t much I could do with this piece of junk. It was the sorriest phone if there ever was one but it was all I had. It was a thick, yellow, and black thing that looked more like a walkie-talkie than a cell. I heard him open the bus door, close it, and stomp his way up the steps. I couldn’t help myself but that’s when I looked up and met his eyes with mine. I felt the earth stop for a moment, just a split second in time where there was nobody else but us on this bus. He nodded acknowledgement towards me and then made his way to the back. That’s when a fire of jealousy rose in me for a moment. It was hardly fair, why did Iggi have to be his best friend, while I was stuck admiring him from afar. There was a point in time where Iggi and Barto were practically inseparable and everyone was pretty sure that they were going to be a couple. Then she came out of left field by fooling around with Ciro.
A big part of me felt that maybe Barto wanted to have something more with Iggi, but like the prude she is, she probably just friend zoned him and started chasing after the bad boy. Good girls always wanted bad boys. That’s why he’s probably sitting back there all alone. Probably thinking about why did he just go out his way to help her and the guy she prancing around with. He didn’t deserve that at all.
“Hey Trizda,” I heard him call to from the back.
I instantly bolted up and looked behind me, at him. Did he just call me?
“Yeah?” I asked shakily, wondering where the hell this was going.
“Have I ever told you that I find you very beautiful?”
Pinch me, because God I must have fallen asleep and this was the start of a dream.