Ctrl + B

by Ctrl B (retail) (epub)

  That girlfriend’s son works on a fishing boat now. He’s tall and tan and smokes an honest-to-God tobacco pipe. He’s got the most dangerous job in the world, and he comes home every time. Three years ago, I stood in my own bathroom, breathing, pretending to be a better mother than I was, and two awful men took my boy.

  JANEIN BROOKES

  YEARS AS MENTEE: 3

  GRADE: Junior

  HIGH SCHOOL: Success Academy High School of the Liberal Arts

  BORN: New York, NY

  LIVES: New York, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Scholastic Art & Writing Award: Silver Key in Poetry

  MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: Exploring unknown territories has become something Emily has taught me to do, especially as we explored our own surroundings: trying new food, reading new books, and seeing new pictures. Even though I was nervous about switching mentors, the instant bond Emily and I formed made it easier to transition through getting advice and learning from an amazing new source.

  EMILY MORRIS

  YEARS AS MENTOR: 2

  OCCUPATION: Strategic Planner, Zeno Group

  BORN: Stamford, CT

  LIVES: Brooklyn, NY

  MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: On the day Janein and I were paired up, we did an exercise to describe each other at first glance, and Janein read me like a book. We instantly clicked—she reminds me of myself at her age, except Janein has an A average in AP Physics, so she surpasses me already. I am continuously impressed and inspired by her thoughtful, hardworking, and prolific nature. I can’t wait to see what kind of mark she makes on the world.

  Persephone of High School

  JANEIN BROOKES

  Writing this poem was entertaining because I wrote about something I had no experience with. In exploring Ctrl + B, I focused more on the first word, and how my generation alternately takes control and is out of control of their own lives.

  Warning: Don’t eat anything offered to you

  in high school.

  Not because you don’t trust your friends,

  but because in high school people only seem to want to get high

  and with that notion in mind,

  your friends won’t hesitate to offer you a laced

  pomegranate with a smile,

  praising its sweet sickness

  and you love pomegranates like the old tale goes

  so you won’t hesitate to trust.

  But trust was an old folklore too,

  an unhappy ending undisclosed to you,

  so you savor their lies, because truth is sometimes

  it’s just easier to be high.

  Not that I would ever know,

  as the only one on Hades court who knows not to

  take what is offered to me with a blind eye.

  Hearing the Underworld queen’s tale made me

  hesitate, slow as a snail,

  but at least I’ve got my freedom.

  Don’t eat anything before coming to high school.

  Walk into Hell hungry

  and copy the way the ghosts eat like they have no place to be

  for the rest of their lives,

  ’cause truth is,

  they don’t. So when they come before the court they are full

  of memories, but not life,

  regret, but not grief,

  hunger, but not ravenous.

  A mother protects her child with her stomach

  so eat like a Queen when you’re done.

  I don’t believe that Persephone is finished with her meal,

  there are still bones on her plate, the meat is torn into,

  the potatoes are licked clean,

  vegetables gone without the promise of a treat after,

  ’cause she treated herself and now she’s queen

  and the moral of the story was to never eat anything offered to you

  by a stranger.

  But there is so much choice in a simple bite

  She treated herself and now she’s Queen.

  Glory

  EMILY MORRIS

  I went on my first solo international trip recently, where I had no choice but to reflect on myself and the way I process my emotions, which I tend to feel in Ctrl + B bold emphasis. Bold in the face of the unknown, bold in the expression of my passions and depth of my flaws. They are all a cycle; I am in control of them.

  On the final morning of the trip I would awake entangled in his nest, thinking with every incredulous atom in my body, I love you, I love you, how can it be? I would say farewell at the airport to this magic man with whom I stayed up all night. At home I would speak to him every day, fall asleep flush with excitement. Two weeks later, I would call in sick and board a plane. He would fail to greet me the way I wanted. The seal of the original rush, the original wonder coursing through me, would break. But I would remain hopeful. I would remember the way I felt that morning, like I was witnessing the first pulse of the rest of my life. I would decide, again, to return. The feeling did not. Instead I would grow weak from giving in to his distorted perception of myself. When he declared that I got desperate easily it would sting me in the same place I thought he could heal. I would marvel that these circumstances had formed a perfect circle.

  But right now it is before I ever knew him. I am at my hotel, drinking coffee in the sun. I am drinking my coffee and thinking about how glorious it is to be alone, how my fear has crossed over into gratitude. I am reveling in the brightness when a fellow lone traveler offers me a guava. The fruit fits so perfectly in her cupped hands, and for a moment, its skin and her skin are the same golden chartreuse. I think about making conversation but decide not to spoil the omen the morning has given me. I am considering my plans. Today, like the day before it, and like all the days that will unravel from this day forward, I can do whatever it is that I want.

  NATHALIE CABRERA

  YEARS AS MENTEE: 2

  GRADE: Senior

  HIGH SCHOOL: A. Philip Randolph Campus High School

  BORN: New York, NY

  LIVES: New York, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Girls Write Now Anthology Committee, National Honor Society Vice President

  MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: Sometimes the creativity I have is stifled. I’m unable to put thoughts on paper. When I tell my mentor this, she encourages me to just write from the heart. Most of the time, I struggle to do so. But it’s true, the pieces that I have written from my heart are the ones I have the most faith and pride in, because they are genuine. Writing is frustrating at first, but writing with my mentor reminds me why I love it so much and why it’s a passion I should keep pursuing.

  DEBORAH HEILIGMAN

  YEARS AS MENTOR: 4

  OCCUPATION: Author of Books for Children and Teens

  BORN: Allentown, PA

  LIVES: New York, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers; Horn Book Award, YALSA Award for Excellence, and a Michael L. Printz Award Honor

  MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: Often I arrive at my meetings with Nathalie stressed from my own writing and work life. She arrives stressed from school, life, and, this year, from college applications. But when we sit together and write, we both feel joyful. Nathalie said at the beginning of this year she didn’t want to spend much time working on the college stuff, but she wanted our sessions to be an oasis from “real life.” Our hours together have been just that for me, and I am grateful to her for this gift. Writing + Nathalie = Joy.

  In This Moment

  NATHALIE CABRERA

  This piece was inspired by a photo of a boy and girl dancing that my mentor brought as a prompt. In my story I explore a girl attempting to boldly live in the moment.

  Felicia grabbed her strappy black pumps and threw them across the stone dance floor. Sweat was trickling down her back, her head buzzing with adrenaline and too much cheap beer.

  “You know we gon’ have fun tonight,” Felicia said, her smile stretching so wide that it could break her face in two.


  Her dance partner, Agustin, was handsome as hell, his caramel skin glistening with the heat the night was bringing them.

  Agustin leaned close into her, his powerful scent of pine and musk overwhelming her. He whispered into her ear, “What type of fun?” He smirked, and that quickly turned into a sly grin.

  Felicia’s eyes turned into slits and she twisted her face into a grimace.

  “Don’t get the wrong idea, because you know that’s not what I meant.”

  “All right. At least not for tonight.”

  Felicia rolled her eyes. “What do you want me to say? Boy, you’re such a tease or Good Lord, aren’t you smooth?”

  “Yes, exactly that, and gush over of how handsome I am.”

  They danced and danced, the energy crackled in the abandoned warehouse, reaching their veins and their feet as the feet did all the thinking as to what the body could do.

  Felicia wished this moment of happiness could last forever.

  After many dances and cans of beer, Felicia was hot and tired.

  “Do you need a breath of fresh air?” Agustin asked her. “I think that we need to get away from the hot mess of this party.”

  “I agree,” Felicia said. She tried to say more, but words failed her. It seemed as if her whole body were going through a slo-mo film.

  “Are you cold?”

  Felicia nodded. In her light floral dress, even the summer breeze made her shiver. Agustin wasn’t hesitant to wrap his jacket around her.

  “Thanks.” Felicia looked down at her bare feet and felt butterflies. Maybe it was the hormones. Maybe it was the alcohol. She didn’t know why she felt like this all of a sudden. Why was she scared?

  Agustin and Felicia had known each other since forever. Agustin had been her friend for so long—from the traumatic experience of her mother’s death to her stories about her short-termed crushes.

  But tonight, in this moment, she realized she saw him as someone more than her best friend.

  “Felicia, are you okay? You look like you’re about to barf anytime soon.”

  “Wow. It’s good to know that I can count on you for honesty.”

  Agustin tucked a lock of Felicia’s chestnut-brown coils behind her ear, and his lips slick with whiskey hovered above her collarbone.

  “Felicia, I really like you, not just as my best friend, but as something more.”

  Now she knew he felt the same way.

  Felicia closed her eye and moaned when his mouth traveled from her neck to her shoulders and her ears. Then she panicked.

  She wanted to be touched by him, but she wasn’t ready. Her feelings were a jumbled mess. She did not know why she was afraid of being something more with Agustin, because she had always been open with him, but it was the first time that she thought of him in a sexual way. And she didn’t know if she wanted to risk losing her best friend.

  “Stop,” she said.

  And Agustin stepped back from her.

  “You don’t want to do this?” Agustin looked so disappointed. “You don’t like this?”

  “No, I mean, I actually enjoyed it. It’s just that it’s my first time realizing that I have these feelings for you.”

  What she couldn’t say—yet—was that she was afraid to lose him. Feelings are so shaky, unstable and unpredictable. Was this feeling for him only in this moment? What if it was only confusion and raging hormones? Would she lose him as a friend?

  Agustin looked down at his feet and then looked directly at her eyes. “I shouldn’t have been so sudden about kissing you like that. I was in the wrong.”

  Felicia nodded and then leaned her forehead on his shoulders, “It’s okay,” she said. “But I think it’s been enough for one night.”

  “I’ll wait for you until you’re ready.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Let me take you home,” he said, voice raspy with emotion, as he softly planted a kiss on her forehead.

  Felicia interweaved her fingers with Agustin’s. Even though she didn’t feel ready for everything, she knew that Agustin understood her. And that was enough for this moment.

  Dance Steps

  DEBORAH HEILIGMAN

  Nathalie and I love to write from photos. One photo, by Malick Sidibé, from 1963, is of two young people on a patio dancing happily, the girl barefoot. I explore her frustration with having to choose between love and her own goals.

  “Dance with me, Del,” Quinn said in that easy way he had.

  Those eyes, that smile. His handsome darkness against his white suit. How could I resist?

  But my shoes were pinching so tight I could hardly walk, let alone dance. I couldn’t tell Quinn the truth: We had only enough money to buy one pair of dress shoes. And Mama and Seely have those dainty, delicate, girly-girl feet. I have my father’s feet, big and strong, good for the running I love to do. In the last months, my feet have shot up two sizes. I crammed them into these shoes for the last time.

  “Del?” Quinn said, his voice raspy from a just-ending cold, sexy as hell, pinning my heart like a butterfly under glass.

  “My shoes …” I said, wobbling.

  “Take those darn things off!” he said and laughed. “You’ve been mincing around in them like a little old lady walking on burning coals.”

  I tried not to laugh, but—I failed. Quinn always knew how to get me.

  I pried off those alligator traps. The cold stones felt like balm on my feet. And when Quinn took my hand, his heat shot right through me.

  Hot and cold, already a mess, and we hadn’t even started.

  Truth was, I’d started a long time ago, ever since he was the new boy in fifth grade. Now we were seniors. Dancing.

  Quinn’s head kept lightly touching mine. Without talking we were saying everything, song after song.

  Close to midnight, Quinn went to get us sodas.

  I dreamed. I knew there were obstacles. He was going in the Navy, then college and medical school. I had my own course set—running, all the way to the Olympics. I could hear Coach saying, “No time for love, Del, no time for anything but running, and keeping your grades up.”

  Still.

  The way I felt when I ran, that soaring, cheetah power, I had that same feeling with Quinn. I wanted both. Why couldn’t I have both?

  I watched Quinn walking toward me, that confident face, his born-and-bred knowledge that he could have it all. He loved me, and he knew it would all work out.

  I loved him, too. But I didn’t know that. It’s always the woman who is forced to choose.

  I didn’t know how I could.

  But I knew if I had to I would …

  I picked up my shoes.

  “Del, honey—”

  I ran.

  SAONY CASTILLO

  YEARS AS MENTEE: 2

  GRADE: Junior

  HIGH SCHOOL: Art and Design High School

  BORN: Dominican Republic

  LIVES: New York, NY

  MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: When I first met Lauren, we bonded over how tired we were and how neither of us are morning people. I was really nervous to have a new mentor this year because I didn’t know what to expect. Lauren is really cool, though, and I’m glad it was her. My favorite moments with Lauren are when we’re drinking coffee together and laughing about the most random stuff, like how sometimes it’s hard to function when you’re so sleep-deprived. That hinders my ability to speak English sometimes, which she finds amusing.

  LAUREN KIEL

  YEARS AS MENTOR: 1

  OCCUPATION: Editorial Strategy Director, Bloomberg

  BORN: Wilmington, NC

  LIVES: New York, NY

  MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: As a new mentor, I had no idea what to expect when I met my mentee. But Saony and I connected immediately. Our first activity together was to write the opening line of our autobiographies, and we wrote almost the exact same sentence (about our dislike of mornings and love for coffee). Over the numerous cups of coffee we’ve had since, I’ve been consistently inspired by her insights a
nd creativity.

  Guy Problems

  SAONY CASTILLO

  I was going to write something creepy for the anthology, but I decided to take a lighter approach. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. If just one person reads this and finds enjoyment or relates to it in any way, that’s enough. I hope that person enjoys it.

  INT. COFFEE SHOP, NEW YORK CITY—AFTERNOON

  Barb: “Ugh, I’m so tired of these stupid city guys … they’re just jerks.”

  Jess: “What do you mean?”

  Barb: “They never call you back.”

  Jess: “People don’t make phone calls in general.”

  Barb: “You also catch them with other girls …”

  Jess: “Their sisters don’t count …”

  Barb: “That’s not the point!”

  Jess: “That’s not true anyway, like I’ve been with Gary for three years …”

  Barb: “It’s not about you, Jess! We get it, you’re happy and have a cute fiancé. Give me a break …”

  Jess: “You don’t need a guy to make you happy.”

  Barb: “PahLEEZ, that’s something all the single people say to make themselves feel better about being single!”

  Barb: (Trying to sound angry) “Besides, Gary doesn’t count; he’s not from here. He’s a fucking alien with his stupid hot English accent … and good goddamn morals … Good job on locking that down, by the way.”

  Barb gives Jess a brief high five, then resumes her tantrum.

  Barb: “Is one decent person so much to ask for? How much lower can my standards get at this point?!”

  She says as she proceeds to bang the table with both arms while standing up.