Free Life Ain't A Fairy Tale by Miguel Rivera Page B

miss you so much. God bless you. Always pray to
God."
    "Thank you, me too. I will. Okay.
Goorbyes."
    "Okay, Goorbyes." My mother passes the phone
to my father.
    "Hello, son."
    "Hi, dad."
    "How is it going?"
    "I am fine, dad. Thank you."
    "Are you going to watch prowrestling
tonight?"
    "Yes, dad. It's going to be fun. I will watch
it." I lie to my father. My father is a very old school type of
man. He still thinks the man should call the shots in the house. It
is probable Sara will not want to watch prowrestling.
    "I am going to miss you tonight. I am so used
to watching prowrestling together."
    "Yes, dad. I will miss watching TV together
too."
    "Is everything going well over there?"
    "Yes, everything is fine with Sara."
    "Son, you make sure that you are the man of
the house. You can't let a woman stomp over you like a
doormat."
    "Oh, no. I will not be a doormat. Don't
worry." I lie to my father again. He is stuck in the past thinking
men are in charge and tell women what to do. I will not be like
that. I am a big advocate of women's equality.
    "Yes. You can't do the dishes or clean the
house. That's a woman's job."
    "Don't worry. I won't do that. I will do what
I am supposed to do." I continue to lie. I will probably end up
doing the dishes or cleaning the house many times.
    "Okay. Son, I am so proud of you for having a
beautiful girlfriend."
    "Thank you father. I have to finish eating my
food to start to tutor again. Is everything fine at the house?"
    "Yes, son. Everything is fine, but we miss
you very much. We love you."
    "Thank you, me too."
    "Okay, it was nice talking to you. Have a
great day, son."
    "Thank you. You too. Bye."
    "Okay, bye."
    After I finish eating my chicken sandwich,
meatballs, and drinking my soda for lunch, I will tutor students in
Algebra the rest of the afternoon. This is a simpler topic for me.
Many of the questions I will help students with are finding the x and y values based on two different " x + y = number " equations. The key to solving these
equations is canceling out the x from the two equations so
you can solve for y . Once you know what y is, you can
plug in y into any of the two equations to find the value of x . The complication occurs because, for example, one
equation has 3x and the other has plain x . In order
to cancel out the x variables, you have to multiply the
entire equation with x by -3. After multiplying by 3, when
you add the equations together on top of each other, the 3x and -3x cancel out. This makes it easy to solve for y .
    By the end of my afternoon tutoring session,
I did this explanation for many groups of students, but one group
of students made me envious of what they have. They were three
white guys wearing hoodies and baggy jeans. Their names are Alex,
Bruce, and Clark. Their bond to each other makes me think they are
brothers. When one of them understood what my explanation
concerning algebraic equations, he spent the entire time trying to
make the other guys understand. I became a spectator, looking at
the camaraderie between them.
    Later in the session with these three guys, I
discover they are just best friends since elementary school. In my
entire life, I never had someone who I could call my best friend. I
never really clicked with anybody. Luis, Juan, and Justin were
friends of mine because we lived on the same block. I never felt
that I could fully trust them enough to share my personal worries
or concerns. None of them are best friend material. I could be
wrong about them, but it was a risk I wasn't willing to take. They
always were too crazy for me. On the contrary, these guys were
different. They truly trusted each other and are very mature for
their age.
    "Look, guys. I am having a hard time with my
girlfriend, now." Alex commented his problem to the other two
guys.
    "Really? What's up?" Bruce asked.
    "Her mother passed away, and she has been in
this deep sadness that I just can't get her out of."
    "You got to understand that a mother is a
very important