All about Skin by Jina Ortiz

Author:Jina Ortiz [Jina Ortiz and Rochelle Spencer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Since then, Osniel messes with me every day at school about Hialeah’s Finest. He makes this bad joke about me doing my Civic duty every morning in homeroom—he’s not even in my homeroom, he just comes by to tell me before showing up late to his. The only class I have with him is Spanish. We’re actually in Spanish II, which is where they put people who already speak Spanish but are stuck because the county requires you to take a language to graduate, but our school only offers Spanish. We sit next to each other and ignore Mrs. Gomez hardcore. She’s super old and yells all the time about us speaking Spanglish and that everything’s being lost. But she’s got enough kids in there that are right off the boat to keep her happy—I swear most of them got here like last week, their Spanish is so perfect.

Today, during Mrs. Gomez’s class, I super casually asked Osniel to grab food with me, just us two (though my del Sol only fits two people, so I don’t know if he knows that I want it to be just us, or if that’s just the way it is because it’s not like there’s options). But once we were in my car, he started up with the same noise about Hialeah’s Finest. The car did look amazing—my dad had detailed it himself. He’d even cleaned parts of the display and the ridges on the stereo’s volume knob with a toothbrush, all before I woke last Sunday.

“Damn, Mercy,” Osniel said, running his hand across the black ArmorAlled dash. “When are you gonna hook up with us?”

I felt my hands get really sweaty on the steering wheel because he said hook up but I had a decent joke ready that time.

“Why do I have to hook up with anyone? Why can’t I just be independent, like in politics?”

He blinked. Then he said, “What?”

“Like the parties—political ones—when you register? To vote? The Democrats and Republicans—because there’s sides—not that there’s sides with car clubs, but I mean, you gotta pick—you gotta register as something, but you can be independent, too—or, I mean, instead.”

As I said this, explained this, I wanted him out of the car so I could whack my head against the steering wheel until I blacked out and forgot how to speak. He looked at me with his eyebrows scrunched up and his head tilted sideways, like either I’m the biggest idiot in the world, or he’s the biggest idiot in the world. His mouth kind of opened a little and I’m thinking, Please just don’t say anything please don’t please.

“Oh. Kay,” he said. He was trying not to laugh.

He turned completely in the seat, looked at me. He had the longest eyelashes. I was so close to his face I could see the dark brown dots of hair growing in thick all around his mouth and on his broad cheeks and I had to clutch the steering wheel so tight to keep my

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