Ctrl + B

by Ctrl B (retail) (epub)

  Tears on my mother’s freckled cheeks trickled down quickly, one after the other. Her face flushed pink as I tapped my finger against the window switch on the passenger side of our car. Seeing Mami in a state of confusion felt like staring into a mirror. My fingertips tingled and as I looked down at my hands, my vision blurred. I closed my eyes and continued to replay my confession to her.

  After a string of painfully quiet days, I’d received a longdistance phone call from my family’s priest back in Colombia. “You must know that the decisions you make now are essential to your future. They have consequences and you wouldn’t want them to hurt you, would you?” I remember the way the priest’s soft voice had echoed through the receiver. As we spoke, my mother stood in front of me with her hands folded together tightly, as if she was praying that I had not just told her that I was bisexual.

  “Yeah,” I reluctantly mumbled, eager to get off the phone. After that conversation with the priest, loud dinner table talks turned into silent ones. At thirteen, I felt entirely alone.

  Growing up in the Catholic faith, religion class taught me that men and women are created to only be attracted to each other. According to the Catholic interpretation of the Bible, the pure thought of falling in love with someone of the same gender is sinful. Members of the church community bad-mouthed the LBGTQ+ community. Openly gay women and men would not dare to walk into Our Lady of Fatima Church. I doubted my own presence as I sang “Hallelujah” on Sundays, relentlessly questioning if my feelings were just a phase. I questioned the unconditional love that God supposedly promised while feeling great judgment by my mother. Her plan did not consist of processing my sexual orientation.

  Mami grew up in the small town of Tuluá, Colombia, where everyone knows everyone, and being different makes you the subject of the juicy gossip swapped between women who stay home to cook and clean for their families. Growing up in a traditional Colombian Catholic household, Mami was never exposed to an openly gay community. On her eighth day after arriving to the United States as a twenty-year-old, she stood in shock when she saw two men kiss in public. My upbringing was different; being raised in New York City, where queer couples openly expressed their affection for each other in the streets, encouraged me to love without shame. I remember feeling similar butterflies from excitement as she did when she had her first kiss with a boy. Mine was with a girl.

  After four years of living in silence about my sexuality, I finally spoke up.

  Messages in Candy

  JULIA LYNN RUBIN

  I wrote this piece in my phone with my mentee as we sat in a coffee shop, both of us feeling stuck, until we said, “Screw it, here’s a prompt: candy hearts and a mystery.”

  The candy hearts are trying to tell me something.

  I know. It sounds crazy. It sounds like I’ve inhaled too many highlighters and Magic Markers, sitting here at my desk writing and rewriting the same paragraph over and over and again. The candy hearts are a little stale, left over from Valentine’s Day over a month ago. Downstairs, I hear Dad making dinner. The microwave goes SLAM beep beep beep and starts its rotation. Having a bedroom right above the kitchen has always been a detriment to my study habits. But the hearts. Let me focus on the candy hearts. I roll one around in my palm, staring at the seemingly innocuous message stamped on its candy center: GO.

  Weird, right? Most of the ones from my box—or at least the ones I didn’t scarf down immediately without reading—had the usual cutesy captions like KISS ME and YOU + ME = FOREVER. But then I got a weird one, one that just said TIME, and I thought okay, someone messed up the lettering at the factory. But there were stranger non-sequiturs, all in pastel pinks and nursing home greens: TIME. LISTEN. GO.

  Stop. Go. I see headlights behind my eyes, hear the sirens, feel the bump of the road beneath me as the car kicks into high gear and we speed off past the traffic lights …

  It has to be a coincidence. A fluke. The ghost of Willy fucking Wonka messing with my mind. He would do that when I have an essay on Italian Neorealism due. Sneaky asshole.

  But I can’t shake that prickling sensation that starts up in my throat and needles its way down to my stomach. I can’t stop that strange little thought from floating through my head.

  The candy hearts are trying to tell me something.

  And I know exactly what they’re trying to say.

  EMILY RINALDI

  YEARS AS MENTEE: 3

  GRADE: Senior

  HIGH SCHOOL: Susan E. Wagner High School

  BORN: Staten Island, NY

  LIVES: Staten Island, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Stranger Sagas Short Story Series

  MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: There has been no moment sweeter this year than when Molly texted me a selfie in one of the three viciously guarded, luxurious booths in the Beaver Street Starbucks. After months of loathing those who scored a booth, our opportunity for one seemed like a distant goal. Then, suddenly, no more communal table cramming or achy backs from hard wooden chairs—we had cushions! Truly the greatest accomplishment of this year. I suppose getting into every college was pretty cool, too.

  MOLLY McARDLE

  YEARS AS MENTOR: 3

  OCCUPATION: Freelance Writer and Associate Editor of Increment magazine

  BORN: Washington, D.C.

  LIVES: Queens, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Contributing Writer to Amtrak’s The National magazine

  MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: There has been no moment sweeter than when Emily told me the news that she had gotten into every single college to which she’d applied. Though it doesn’t really come close, my second favorite was when—after months of visiting the Beaver Street Starbucks in the Financial District—we finally, finally, nabbed one of the location’s three luxurious booths, which are jealously guarded and always occupied. Booth life was everything I dreamed of—and more.

  One in a Melon

  EMILY RINALDI

  As a high school senior applying to college, I have written a lot of personal essays. Not only was this piece incredibly fun to write, but I believe it also represents me both as a writer and as a person.

  Melon: large round fruit in the gourd family with sweet pulpy flesh and many seeds. Around the world, melons vary in shape, size, and texture—some with absurd price tags and others, world records. Nonetheless, they’re still fruit. For my family and friends, however, “melon” means something a bit more unconventional. Instead of a fruit, they think of a talkative, quirky, Irish “Italirican” girl always with a trombone in hand, pair of swim goggles in sight, and mediocre puns up her sleeve. Aka Emily Rinaldi. No, I neither have pulpy flesh nor am I filled with seeds. (Besides the ones I may have swallowed.) I’m also not round or large, and I’m a proud member of the Rinaldi, not the “gourd,” family.

  Instead, I almost sat on a piece of watermelon in the sixth grade. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve muttered those twelve words since then, I could afford a college cafeteria named after me. It all began during a barbaric, week-long rampage of petty sixth-grade pranks. One of those pranks was to put cafeteria food on the lunch room seats, and I made the poor decision to not check my chair before sitting. As I lowered myself down, I saw my friend mischievously staring at me as her golden locks performed pirouettes between her fingers. Something was off—I jolted up and checked beneath me: a slice of watermelon.

  Little did I know the significance of that stale, out of season cafeteria fruit. Although I didn’t sit on it, my whole sixth grade class witnessed me almost do it. My watermelon-planting, goldilocks-twirling friend proposed the nickname “Melon” and it stuck. It spread like wildfire from classmates and teachers all the way to lane lines and locker rooms at swim practice. It felt as if I was both a spectator and participant, watching the identity I spent my entire life building metamorphize into a piece of fruit. I had already been a weird, clumsy, brace-faced sixth-grader, but now I was a weird, clumsy, brace-faced sixth-grader with a fruit nickname. I hated “Melon” even more than
the things I loathed most as a sixth-grader, more than Abby Lee Miller from Dance Moms, more than dividing fractions.

  During the early days of “Melon,” I’d beg my friends to ditch the nickname. On numerous occasions they made (failed) attempts to justify it. My least favorite reason? “It simply suits you.” That only made me feel worse.

  One night, coming home from swim practice perfumed in chlorine and confusion, I went to my mom for advice. This nickname felt like the end of the world. After an extensive venting session, she responded.

  “Fighting it isn’t making it go away. Go with it. See what happens.”

  Swallowing my pride, I conceded to “Melon.” I realized it wasn’t actually as apocalyptic as I thought. In fact, it made my life more fun, interesting and … fruitful. That day forward, everything became a “Melon moment.” My friends launching a “Melon for President 2020” campaign, which entailed them hand-making buttons and posters with my face: a melon moment. Me giving up my lunch period so I could fit band, physics and law into my class schedule: typical Melon. Falling over a tuba case in front of a 150-person marching band: pure Melon. Being in water more than out of water: so WATERmelon. Responding to condolences at my dog Sandy’s death with, “Thank you for being there for my ruff day,” Melon.

  For a long time, Melon was a separate entity apart from myself. She was a security blanket, the one with all the qualities I didn’t like about myself. As I matured, I eventually realized those qualities were really my own. If I could accept melonesque qualities—quirks and all—within her, I could accept them within me. So deep: classic Melon.

  State of the Nation

  MOLLY McARDLE

  This is from a travel story about my hometown, Washington, D.C. While writing, I revisited many of the places where I spent my high school years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was reminded of Emily.

  You can see my old bedroom window from the sidewalk outside of Florida Avenue Grill. I point it out before we head inside the dinerstyle eatery, although it’s been a decade since that window belonged to me—since I moved away from the city where I was born. Regardless, Washington, D.C., is still home to me—its gently rising hills and thick canopy of trees, broad avenues and brick-row houses, heavy summer air and unselfconscious cosmopolitanism.

  As world capitals go, however, few are as overshadowed by their governments as D.C. It’s not that people don’t go—indeed, most Americans visit Washington D.C. on school or family trips—but their focus is usually federal. Think government buildings, national monuments and the city’s enviable array of free museums. It’s easy to get lost in this marble-clad core and forget the existence of the surrounding neighborhoods, much less venture into them. But those who neglect the rest of D.C. are missing out on a great American city—one that hides in plain sight.

  “I really like D.C. so much,” the Grammy-nominated hip-hop artist Christylez Bacon confesses to me. He breaks down the charms of the city he’s lived in his whole life. “It’s a blend of fast-paced New York and also a chill, southern type of vibe. I always say it’s ‘too South for the North, too North for the South.’ It’s in between, a Goldilocks zone.” Bacon’s critically acclaimed concert series, Washington Sound Museum, combines progressive hiphop with world music traditions from India to Brazil and Ireland to Senegal. When he and I were in high school together I watched him learn to play guitar on the bus to and from various field trips, a homemade slide on one finger as he teased out the intricacies of his instrument. Now he carries it with him on stage across the world, crisp in his signature suits and ascots. (He was recently named one of Washingtonian magazine’s most stylish people.) Yet even here he encounters people who are surprised he’s from the city. “I catch that,” he says, laughing. “Someone’s like, ‘What, a native?’ ” Bacon isn’t angry, exactly, but he is a little incredulous. “Of course there are going to be people who are from here.”

  DANIA RODRIGUEZ

  YEARS AS MENTEE: 1

  GRADE: Senior

  HIGH SCHOOL: Mott Hall V

  BORN: Puebla, Mexico

  LIVES: Bronx, NY

  MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: I was used to having my writing limited to what teachers would assign in school. Girls Write Now provided me with the space to help me explore other genres of writing, and with an amazing mentor, Shannon, to join me on the journey. Shannon has been extremely supportive and attentive throughout the months that we have worked together. We’ve had so much fun talking about our fashion choices and movies while drinking matcha lattes, coffee, and eating chocolate-chip cookies. Shannon has been such an amazing mentor and I’m so lucky to have met such a talented woman.

  SHANNON CARLIN

  YEARS AS MENTOR: 4

  OCCUPATION: Freelance Culture Writer

  BORN: Ronkonkoma, NY

  LIVES: Brooklyn, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Published in Bustle, Refinery29, Vulture

  MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: I wish I had met Dania sooner. In our first year together—and, unfortunately, our last, since she’s a senior—I’ve gotten to know this kind, thoughtful, extremely smart young woman. Dania does it all with poise and passion. And, honestly, how she does it all I’ll never know. I’ll also never know how she always miraculously lands a seat at the crowded coffee shop where we meet. She’s magic, I tell you. It’s why I wish I’d met her sooner, like when I was a teen and needed someone to look up to. Luckily, I found her now.

  The Elements of Fashion

  DANIA RODRIGUEZ

  This poem is an ode to fashion design and social justice, both of which hold a special place in my heart. Both have positively impacted me and continue to shape my perspective on life.

  First a fabric, then a color, followed by a silhouette.

  An image comes to mind and with it,

  The urge to design and create

  Something durable and sturdy,

  The resistance against what is unjust

  But flexible enough to adapt to change.

  Silk’s soft flow, but strong force

  Is worthy of taking on this task.

  A touch of feminism and progress

  Will revamp the runway at last.

  What will give life to this creation?

  Why color of course! But not black or white

  This design is too complex for colors so simple.

  We need a fusion of colors

  A beautiful explosion of expression

  A dash of gold or silver for luxury

  For we are worth more than numbers

  The top is structured and defined

  To outline the strength of its wearer

  It curves and stops at the waist

  Falling at the hip, beginning its elegant drape.

  It’s pulled by confidence

  And flows with the winds of change

  This dress does not shape you

  You must twist it, bend it,

  Morph it into your best self

  A piece of art that can be worn

  The Secret Life of Bee Sting Therapy: An Excerpt

  SHANNON CARLIN

  Dania and I’ve talked about revisiting our earlier work to learn from it. I wrote this piece on bee sting therapy years ago, never got it published. Now seemed like the right time to reconsider it.

  Lorenzo didn’t look like any medical practitioner Marie had ever seen. He looked more like an accountant or maybe a Best Buy manager. He wore khaki pants and a flannel button-down. He carried a small black leather duffel bag, like one you would take to the gym. Instead of an extra pair of socks, this bag held what Marie hoped would be her miracle cure.

  On a small table, Lorenzo unpacked his bag and stacked each item next to one another. He had brought a thermos of coffee, an apple (just in case his blood sugar ran low), two large pairs of tweezers, an EpiPen, a spray bottle filled with water and a small plastic jar that one might keep on their kitchen counter filled with flour or sugar.

  Lorenzo slowly unscrewed the top off of the plastic containe
r and sprayed a small amount of water inside. A gentle buzz filled the room. “You ready?” he asked one last time. Marie nodded faster than she had before. Lorenzo grabbed the tweezers off the table and stuck them slowly into the box. With the gentle care of someone taking a splinter out of a child’s hand, he spent a few seconds finding the perfect place to squeeze. Finally, he lifted the tweezers, calmly gripping a honeybee by its tiny abdomen. The six or seven bees left in the box became more agitated and the buzzing in the room got a little louder. He placed the bee down on a piece of paper and spritzed it one more time with a little water to stun the little guy and make it stop squirming. This would make it much easier to hold. He then grabbed the other pair of tweezers and gripped the bee by its head. He checked his chart one last time and sat on the right side of the hotel bed next to Marie.

  Though Marie was ready, she kept flinching, sensing that Lorenzo’s hand was getting closer. “Hold still,” he said. “You don’t want to upset the bee.” Marie laughed and Lorenzo placed the bee’s belly on her back. Within seconds Marie felt a sharp prick that seemed to radiate along her whole spine. Lorenzo quickly pulled the bee away, leaving only the stinger behind.

  ROSHNIE RUPNARAIN

  YEARS AS MENTEE: 1

  GRADE: Senior

  HIGH SCHOOL: Stuyvesant High School

  BORN: Queens, NY

  LIVES: Queens, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Scholastic Art & Writing Award: Gold Key

  MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: It’s hard for me to click with someone during an initial meeting, but with Marissa, I had the most comfortable first meeting ever. I’ve never been genuinely confident in my writing, so when I had to show Marissa a piece of mine, I held the moment off for as long as possible. Inevitably, she read it and truly loved it! In that moment, I felt accomplished. She has given me some of the best advice for my writing and has helped me through my toughest moments. I’m incredibly grateful for Marissa and her guidance toward a better me.