Underneath It All Read Online Free Page B

heart but having a child that young changes you. When she met Pedro she was finally able to breathe. While Jason’s father did provide for him here and there he wasn’t very supportive and Pedro was able to give her the things that her and Jason were lacking. Pedro would often take us to the Bronx Zoo, on hayrides, the movies, and we would go and see him at his job at Planet Earth, which was on Fordham Road in the Bronx. He used to give Jason and I money to run down to the corner store and we would get this Power Ranger looking candy.
                  I think my mother instilled in all her girls the same hustling spirit that she had without even knowing it. Linda would work really hard to be able to provide us with summer clothes and then she would take us to Children’s Place to go shopping. I blame her for making me brand conscious. I always loved the way that she dressed. She had every pair of high-top Reeboks in every color and she would wear them with tight jeans and a button down shirt. Linda was and still is very beautiful so she wore little to no makeup.
                  Linda also acted as the disciplinarian as well as my sister so I guess it was only right that since I began to cling to her and Pedro that he became a dominate male figure in my life. Just like I had done with Lisa and Darryl, I began to pretend as if Linda and Pedro were my parents.
                  Pedro was the first person to tell me not to let a man touch my private areas. I instantly wanted to tell him about what had happened to me at the Wicked Witches house. I wanted to tell him how her son had come into my room and rubbed on my vagina, I wanted to tell him that eventually he began to put his fingers inside of me and that I didn’t know that it was wrong. Talking about it would mean I would have to think about it and I didn’t want to do that.
                  As I said before, I never knew how to talk about my molestation, I didn’t even know that’s what it was called until I got older. I wanted to open up and tell Pedro what happened to me but I didn’t know how. In that one conversation he had been more of a father to me than Brian was. Don’t get me wrong, Brian was a good stepfather but Pedro was more hand’s on and strict when it came to raising me and making sure I was on the right path. From that day on I looked at Pedro as my best friend. I was always comfortable talking to him and I felt that as long as he was a part of the family, we would be okay.

Chapter Four
                  I
    couldn’t sit still in school. I was always all over the place, into everything and full of life. I remember my Pre K teacher at P8, Ms. Livingston, as this beautiful black lady with a very nurturing spirit. I was tested for ADD and autism and it was later confirmed that I had a developmental reading disorder, better known as dyslexia.
                  Once we had a name for my disease we were able to understand why I was the way I was when it came to my studies and inability to focus. I would be taken out of my regular class and Ms. Livingston and I would sit in a different room so she could work with me one on one.
                  I would get picked on and teased because the other students thought I was the teacher’s pet, or that for whatever reason I was special. They would tease me and call me stupid or a giraffe because of my height and at first I didn’t pay it any attention but little kids can be so cruel and as I got older the bullying became harsher. I would get my hair pulled by other girls, tripped, and when I would go into the bathroom they would wet toilet tissue and throw it at me.
                  I hated school. Eventually I was sent to special classes so I could be around other students with learning disabilities and not feel as though I was an outcast amongst those that were seen as “regular”. I felt like I was once again back in