Jean C. Ortiz Calderón

INGL3238 M25

Alopecia areata

I forcibly stepped out of my dad’s old and beat up pick-up and soon got struck by the

warm breeze of Lakewood’s (Colorado). I could barely see my dad under the shadow of the

tinted crystal but I knew he must have been tearing up ‘cause he only waved goodbye, then

closed the door from the inside and slowly ran off, the old truck motor revving up more than it

should. No one was around; it was way too early for anyone to show up at the steps of Lakewood

High School. I resented being awakened so darn early. “Knock… knock… knock…” I reached

for my phone and saw the hour: 4:15 in the morning. Another loudly knock startled me: “I’m

awake, I’m coming”, my voice sounded incredibly hoarse, tired, and mostly irritated.

I started climbing up the stairs towards the school lobby in a slow motion, I took every

single breath: in and out, resisting the urge to nibble my nails. I held to the straps of my

backpack until my knuckles became white and sweat streamed down my grey beany and

swarmed my forehead. ”Good morning young man, you’re here very early. Are you excited for

the first day of class too?”, a high pitch voice interrupted my cadence; I swept the sweat and

glanced below to my right to see a tiny woman in her fifties wearing a red suit. “Yeah, I guess

so.” She looked strangely at me and with genuine concern asked me if I was ok, sighting I

replied, “Everything’s good, I’m kinda new here and was just taking it all slowly.” Her worried

look reminded me of the doctors when I was a little kid. “…alopecia areata, an autoimmune

response of the body that happens to affect the scalp. Although it is considered an illness there is

no serious threat other than, well… just loss of hair…” The doctor’s cold voice trailed off as my

mother broke down into tears and held me closer to her, through her sobbing I could feel the

warmness and tenderness of her broken heart shielding me from everything.

I fumbled inside my backpack and got a fat envelope out and gave it to the women in

red, who introduced herself as Mrs. Smith, the school counselor. “Ah, you are the new student,

you never been to school before, haven’t you?” Soon after my diagnosis and tons of hair patches

in my bed sheets, over the floors and clogging the bathtub my parents decided to go see a

psychologist just before I went to school. “After conducting several tests I assent that your five

years old Henry has an IQ higher than average, and therefore will excel in school; however know

that kids can be cruel…” And after the advice from Mr. Crazy, as I used to call him, my parents

settled that I would be homeschooled by my grandmother, who lived some streets down from

where we lived, near a small Lutheran church. Grandma was a retired elementary teacher and

schooled me just until last month; she told me that she could call some of her colleagues to help

her understand some of the high school material she wasn’t completely sure of how to tackle.

Without really thinking I told her that I could just go to an actual school…

I handed the documents that certified my homeschooling sessions and that I was as able

as anyone who got educated regularly to take high school classes. She carefully read every one

of the documents, when reaching at the GPA paper she took a glance at me before telling me

everything was in order. I felt alleviated, usually most professional, and especially those who

work at schools were adamant about homeschooling but Mrs. Smith waved a crooked smile at

me with utmost pity, as if proud an abhorrent monster such as me was capable of that much. She

must’ve tell me at least ten times that she would be delighted to help me in anything, and that she

would watch over how I integrated with the other students. At first I was bitter that I had to wake

up early to make it to school but then I felt grateful, because the whole process with Mrs. Smith

took a little over an hour and students were now starting to arrive at the campus.

Mrs. Smith’s high pitched voiced never ceased but that was only background noise, from

her office to the door of my soon to be classroom I counted twenty seven steps. I wanted no more

than to be a normal high school kid, hair or not. At the twenty-eight step I was inside the already

filled classroom. I was soon petrified and it hurt to walk, my eyes were securely fixed to the

floor. Mrs. Smith uttered something and I was momentarily standing in front of twenty some

other students that any moment would start laughing at me, calling me a freak in hateful and

demeaning ways. I slowly looked up and at the very first row was a girl the color of my skin with

fiery red locks and with big round emerald eyes trembling as much as I was. Then the guy to her

left was a languished black teenager who was way too big to fit in the small chair and was

pounding the floor with his feet in an orderly pattern. I quickly realized that they were all new

high school students that didn’t know each other and were as much as freaks or “abnormal” as I

was; and for the first time in my life I felt part of the human species I thought despised my

baldness so much.