FORBIDDEN TO LOVE

MAYO, 2008

SCARLETTE JONHSON’S POV

I was only eight years old when I saw my father and mother tapping their feet on the floor as we waited for a response from one of the people dressed in white here. I didn't know if it had taken me long, all I was aware of was that I hadn't eaten good these days. And I was hungry.

"Why will the doctor take so long?” I heard my mother say.

"Don't worry, honey, not much has happened since the time of the appointment.”

"I just want to know what's happening with my daughter.”

"Scarlette is fine, it was just some tests to check anything she had, you'll see, honey.”

At that moment I saw the doctor who had seen us the last few times since I fainted at school. He smiled at me and turned to my parents.

“Mr. and Mrs. Johnson?”

"Yes, we are! Do you already have the results?” My mother said.

"Please come to my office.”

My dad took me in his arms and we continued walking behind the doctor. I didn't understand anything that was happening, I just knew that whatever it was my parents didn't like it.

"Where are we going, dad?” I asked. "I'm hungry.”

"Yeah, we're almost out of here.”

Then we entered the doctor's office. He didn't seem to smile this time.

"Please, sit down.”

My dad sat me on his lap while my mother took the other seat. Suddenly I started to get very sleepy. I didn't know what we were doing here.

The doctor sighed.

"Please, doctor, speak now!” My mother demanded.

"What I have to tell you is not easy, please, I beg you to stay calm, okay?”

My mother was already crying and my dad seemed to just blink, as if he didn't want me to see his eyes.

"What's wrong, doctor? Speak now!" My father said.

"I'm very sorry, the analyzes I have in my hands have confirmed what I feared. Her little girl, Scarlette Johnson, has leukemia. I am very sorry indeed.”

At that moment I saw my mother crying and crying while my dad couldn't seem to believe what the doctor was telling them right now.

There was only one question in my mind; what was leukemia? It must be something bad if my parents cried like that. I had leukemia, what was that? Was I going to die? Even if it was like that, what was death?

Among all the things that remain marked in the mind, I think that is the most vivid memory I have had since I lived it.

From that day on I saw my parents cry and always cry a little more. Sometimes they argued, sometimes they scolded me, other times they hugged me and other times they simply spoiled me like they had never done before.

From that moment on I didn't go to the hospital anymore, sometimes it hurt, sometimes it didn't, other times my mom came out with a smile on her face and other times she really cried. Little by little I began to understand what was happening to me until that day arrived. Suddenly the house that was ours ceased to be ours.

SEPTEMBER 2008

"Don't let Scarlette get close, those boxes are my work documents!" My dad shouted excitedly as he headed to the exit.

Clad in my blue dress that matched my pigtails, my mom came up to me in a hurry, holding my hand.

"What are we doing here, mom?" I asked, looking at everything around me.

And the more I tried to recognize this place I realized that we had never really been here. It was a new place, a place that was nothing like the previous house.

"Mmmm, so my little girl wants to know what we do here, well, well, you'll know. How can I tell you that... this will be our new house?”

Then I felt as much emotion as my mother felt. I couldn't remember the last time my mom had laughed like that with my dad, he was so excited. All I wanted was for them to be as happy as I was.

"Mom, are we coming to live here because the hospital is closer?”

The smile was gone from my mother's face. It wasn't my intention to make her feel that way but I still didn't understand that part of my life.

"My darling, will you make me a very big promise?”

I nodded.

"It turns out that I just want us to stop thinking about the hospital for at least these two weeks. I want you to promise me that you will eat well, that you will do everything I tell you and that you will keep going. Tell me, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

The question my mother had just asked me was the same one she had asked me at school recently, and the same one I couldn't answer yet. I didn't know what I really wanted to do. All my classmates wanted to be doctors, models, singers but I… I didn't know what I wanted to be. I was only aware that I wanted to dance, I wanted to compete with other people, I wanted to belong to those dances that you see on TV while they make perfectly coordinated and surprising movements.

I shrugged. The smile left my mother's face.

"How does my little girl not know what she wants to do?”

"I don't know, mom. I only know that I want to dance like that dance on TV that I told you about.”

"Oh! Like in high school and college competitions?”

I nodded. My mother smiled again.

"Well, well, I like it, so promise me something.”

I nodded.

"I want you to make an effort, I want you to do everything in your power to be on one of those teams, okay? I want to see you there, and it doesn't matter if you win or lose, I want you to be there, I want you to have many friends, I want all of your friends to make that dream possible, do you promise it? Do you promise that you will always live a little longer?”

I nodded. Of course I could promise my mother that because in the end, I had a long life to live, right?

Without further ado, I hugged my mother as tightly as she always did when we were in the hospital. I also wanted that dream to come true.

"I promise you, mommy, I swear.”

SIX MONTHS LATER

The truth is that I didn't remember much about what that time had been like. Since we got home, I just remember that our life changed a lot. From one moment to the next I stopped going to the hospital often, my mother seemed happier and happier, she didn't cry as much, and just as things had changed for the better, there was also something that hadn't exactly changed for the better. Since we had arrived at this place, my father was no longer home as much. He said that he had a lot of work and that he had to do it for my treatments.

And in the time that passed I learned one thing. Everything that goes away ends up bringing something.

Arriving here had brought the presence of that boy who lived next to our house. He arrived two months after us. He said that that house belonged to his grandmother but she died and left it to him and his mother.

Sitting on the wooden bench that was in our small garden while I was doing one of my math homework, I was thinking and thinking about the solution to my math problems when suddenly I felt myself being pulled by the ponytail that my mother made me every day.

"Ahhh!" I screamed, grabbing my ponytail with both hands. Tears stung my eyes.

When I got up and turned to see who had done that, I saw the same kid from next door laughing as hard as ever. His name was Abdon.

"I'm going to tell my mom what you've done to me!". I said approaching home. "Mother! Mommy!" I screamed.

I don't know why Abdon treated me so badly sometimes but at school he was a different boy. We had entered the same classroom and there he always defended me from the other children who bothered me.

"Hey, Scarlett! Scarlett, wait!" Abdon was calling me but I didn't stop, I continued on my way. "Scarlette, wait!”

When I got home, I ran to the kitchen since I knew my mom had to be preparing lunch at that moment.

"Mother!”

“This way, my love!" She said, surely smiling as she always does. "What happened dear? Are you hungry?” She asked, turning her back to me.

I know that Abdon's mother was not there and that is why I did not go with her to accuse him so I had to come with my mother. My head hurt from the strong hair pulling.

"Mother?”

"Yes my love?" Finally my mother looked at me.

Her smile faded as soon as she saw that I was crying.

"But what happened? Why are you crying, darling?" She knelt down to reach my gaze. "Tell me, my love!”

Abdon was going to regret it. Then I pointed out the entrance to my mother while with my other hand I tried to dry my tears.

"It was Abdon. I was doing my Math homework when he pulled my ponytail!”

My mother sighed in annoyance. It wasn't the first time Abdon did this to me. "Come with me, sweety!" She said, taking my hand.

And it was precisely the moment we left the house, she started looking for Abdon. I knew he was hiding from my mother. But Abdon's mother was already home from work.

"Oh, Mrs. Nancy!" My mother said.

"Hello, Mrs. Ava," she greeted gently.

"Excuse me, can I speak to your son?”

Mrs. Nancy's expression changed.

"Why, what is happening with my son?”

"Abdon, come here right now or I will tell your mother what you have done to my daughter!” My mother raised her voice.

"Let's see, let's see, what is happening here?" Mrs. Nancy said.

"Let your son tell you.”

"Abdon!" His mother shouted.

In less than ten seconds I saw Abdon coming towards us with his hands behind him, as if he had already been scolded.

"Yes, mom?" he asked innocently. I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Didn't your parents teach you to respect ladies? Why have you pulled my daughter's hair?” My mother began to complain.

Abdon looked at me and then laughed. My mother opened her eyes wide. Maybe my mother certainly didn't expect it.

"I'm not going to allow you to talk to my son like that!" Mrs. Nancy said.

"Don't you see what your son just did to my daughter?”

"She is ugly!” he continued.

"Mother!" I whimpered.

"Abdon, enough  "said his mother. “I don't want you to mess with this squeaky girl again…”

"This what?" My mother raised her voice.

"Girl," Mrs. Nancy answered. “Understood?”

"Understood!" Abdon said.

"Come on, come on, daughter, I don't want you to get together with him again!" My mother said as we went into the house.

I didn't know why but I felt the need to turn back. He looked at me, he didn't want things to have ended like this either.

Suddenly our mothers had made us cut off any friendship. Suddenly things were no longer the same. Suddenly... I started thinking about him until I wanted to talk to him, but every time I tried, either his mother or my mother appeared. I wonder, if I hadn't said anything, would we have always been friends?

Maybe that's something I'll never know because just the day I turned 14, my gift from him was his departure.

What if something else had happened that day that our mothers didn’t have to force us to cut off our friendship? Yes, something else happened without anyone knowing! What was that? Why don't you stay to find out?

AUGUST 2017

SCARLETTE’S POV

"On the count of three we say our first class," said my friend Sapphire.

"Ok. Come on. One Two Three!" I screamed.

"Literature.”

“Health care,” we shouted in unison.

Saphiiro and I couldn't help but sigh full of heaviness because this year, like the previous two since we met, we had started off on the wrong foot. Strangely we coincided in our classes.

"See you here in 50 minutes," Sapphire said.

"Pray that we have the next class together.

"That's how it will be, Scarlette, have a little faith. You're so negative" we laugh "anyway, I'll see you in 50 minutes.”

"Hey, Sapphi.”

"Yeah?”

"Do you think Ruth has signed up this year? He said he had a lot of problems with his family and didn't answer my messages."

Sapphi smiled. "Maybe he wants to give us a surprise. Anyway, see you in a bit.”

I smiled at her. That done, she went first