Hello. My name is Minna Betancourt and this is a Memoir

Roses Are Red and My Parents Are Blue

I am like a red, red rose and the thorns hide beautifully beneath my petals. Though I bruise easily due to my borderline anemia, I do not bleed. I cry only because it feels good to drain sadness from my eyes, but the pain remains in my fingertips –it makes for good writing. I am a "bitch" they say, heartless and cold. But this arctic soul has one weakness, one beautifully drawn out insecurity forever engraved on my right wrist.

It began sophomore year of high school. I am part of a typical, traditional Hispanic family. My father (stern about table manners and clean presentation) wore Louis Vouitton, my football playing, baseball batting, wrestling jock of a brother liked Lacoste, and my patient, passive, PTA-involved mother settled for Liz Claiborne.
I am in a pair of paint splattered Converse, faded ripped jeans, and a t-shirt that smells of the Goodwill at Flamingo Plaza- the preferred shopping center of "hipsters" and "scenesters" of my kind. Occasionally, and reluctantly, I was in my cheerleading uniform promoting the game of the week. The navy blue polyester skirt and matching shirt stuck itchy and stiff on my body. Big white letters spelling PHS and corresponding white stripes strategically printed on selective parts of the uniform made me feel uncomfortable and out of place. I did not belong in such a thing, but how proud my mother stood when I was out on that field pretending to cheer for the football team I couldn’t have cared any less about, while thinking “get me the fuck out of here!” It was late September of my sophomore year in high school –the end of my cheerleading career, and the start of my decay.

In order to understand my evolution, I must confess the failures and disappointments that came before the final catastrophe. I was suspended from school that infamous sophomore year and kicked off the cheerleading team for smoking pot on a trip to competition –disappointment number one. My mother was devastated, my father (a former hippie turned conservative father) understood, but I was still grounded for what felt like eternity.
No longer having the responsibility of cheerleading practice after school, I was left with too much free time on my hands, and those hands quickly found new hobbies and new friends. I attended local bands' shows more often, along with every other Converse-wearing kid; kids with tattoos to their ears, piercings on their arms and necks and every strange place one can find to penetrate with jewelry; kids with squinty, blood red eyes from smoking too much weed and drug addicted high school drop outs. Slowly, I adapted.

It was around my 17th birthday early April when I decided I needed a piercing –an eyebrow ring –disappointment number two. I thought I was the badest, coolest looking girl around –my parents disagreed and if I didn't take it out before my birthday, I wouldn't be celebrating one. "What's next? Tattoos? Are you going to come home pregnant tomorrow?" they asked. What does sex have anything to do with it? I thought. Sex, drugs and rock and roll right? I mocked them. They forbade me from going anywhere until I took the ring out; they wouldn't even let me go to school. Two days after getting pierced, I took it out. We didn't celebrate my birthday that year.

I let some time pass before my next surprise. It was early June when I became friends with Lauren after landing my first real job at Hollister (a "hip" clothing store). She was three years older, cool and confident. I looked up to her. She new about music and art and fashion, and anyone who was someone in the city.
We spent most afternoons at Tattoo Circus getting high with the artists, admiring their fully painted bodies, wishing for some of our own. Vinny and Eric Thrice were there almost every day working, and every day that I spent with them at the shop, the itch for ink grew stronger. They each had a different version of the logo for Turbonegro (a popular hardcore band, and their favorite). Vinny’s was on his shin. Gordy’s (a common regular who loitered around the shop as much as we did) had it on his calf. And Eric Thrice, having no room left for new work, had it on his left hand. Though Vinny wasn't as experienced as Eric Thrice, I let him design my tattoo.
"I don't know what I want. I want stars, or flowers; something pretty on my wrist. Something that can easily be covered by bracelets" I told him. I knew I wanted it on my wrist. I figure, what is the point of art on your body if you can't even see it? My parents don't have to find out, I'll wear a bracelet around them for the rest of my life I reasoned.
Foolish girl.

It was mid June when Vinny showed me what he had drawn. A simple traditional rose the size of an egg; I couldn't resist. "How much?" I asked him, assuming I would have to come back another time with more money. "Thirty bucks" he said.
Thirty little dollars. I paid thirty dollars to stab my parents in the back.
I don't really remember how I felt after the two and a half hours of painful needles drilling color through thick layers of my skin; I must admit, I was stoned numb and kind of drunk. I slept at Lauren's house that night after making an appearance at a local show to parade around the new addition.
The next morning I went home with an awkwardly big piece of fabric I cut from an old band t-shirt loosely wrapped around my wrist -loosely because it hurt like hell. My brother asked me why I was wearing such a thing and I could not come up with a good enough excuse. When he reached for my arm, I screeched and pulled away. He dragged me outside, and as we stood on the front lawn of my one-story, brick red house I peeled back the blue fabric to reveal the bloody swollen rose that broke my father's heart.
"Tell me it's not real" he prayed.
"It is very real Mike". I got in my car and drove away.
Within fifteen minutes, my mother let out three angry monotone words through her clenched teeth and into my cell phone.
"Come home now".

When I got home she made me undress down to my skin. I stood completely naked, utterly humiliated as she checked for more tattoos. There weren't any more. There would never be anymore. I pulled up my pants, buttoned my shirt, and my parents sat their three children down for a "family conference" in the living room. My dad cried, my mom smoked, my sister stared blankly at the walls too young to understand the damage I had caused, and my brother hung his head low in utter disappointment -he didn't look at me once. My mother cried, my father smoked and I have never been more ashamed in my life.

It's been four years since that miserable day in June and this wilted rose has slowly recovered.
"At least it's pretty", my mom tried to convince herself a few years ago, and just recently she began to justify my untraditional appearance with my enrollment at a prestigious art university. "You look like the ideal artist Minna –ripped jeans, paint stained t-shirt, dirty sneakers and tattooed," she laughs.

Though I bruise easily due to my borderline anemia, I do not bleed, but that day in June I did; and the blood came as tears and those tears I shared with my parents. I am still a red, red rose because the thorns that hide beautifully beneath my petals, will forever prick my parent's hearts.

Roses are red, my parents were blue, now they're indifferent and I still love my tattoo.