Forget Us

There are a total of four days before my sister's wedding, two of which will be spent driving across the country and past the Mexican and Canadian borders to the home she shares with her fiancé, Lukas, and his friend, Chris. It is a large wooden lodge, with six bedrooms, located in a forest in the middle of nowhere. It is impractical though- shops are thirty minutes away, phones don't work and there is limited internet access, what am I supposed to do for the three weeks we are going to be there, and what happens if there is a fire or we are burgled? Do we just let it happen and hope no one gets hurt?

We are two hours into our journey. The Mexican border is only three hours away, by far the worst part of our journey. If you've never been through border security in Mexico, don't... trust me, just don't. Being someone native to Mexico but with extended family in Texas, I travel through there a lot and every time, without fail, I am x-rayed to check I am not storing drugs inside me. I'm questioned, about my history and my family's. it's so long and so boring. They even tell me to pull my hair out to check there is nothing tied within it. Do you know how long it takes me to put my hair in a bun? I hate it so much but I have no choice. My skin colour takes my choice away and I do as I'm told.

One hour from the border check and my phone is twenty minutes from dying. I am genuinely going to die of boredom if I have no phone for this whole journey. I genuinely don't know how my sister does it. She must get really bored or just go on lots of snow walks through the forest. That reminds me, the current temperature in Canada is negative twenty-three degrees which means the literal tears shed at this wedding will freeze on their faces. Who does that? Schedule a wedding for the middle of winter when even four layers of thermals aren't enough to leave the house. Locked in a house with six adults and a baby for three weeks, is it too late to jump out of the car?

The doors just locked. My father thinks he is funny...

"You're not funny dad!" My dad turned from the traffic jam we were stuck in and looked at me, raising his eyebrows as if he could read my mind.

"Last time you fiddled with the door like that, you opened it and ran off. I am not taking any chances..."

The border is up ahead. I can see the building and hear the metal detectors they use to search you, which may I point out are more racist than the people controlling them. Like, what are the chances they turn red every time I go through them, considering I travel around once or twice a month? The queue is ever-growing and never moving. It makes me restless being in traffic jams; I hate being stationary.

The beeps have started now, by far the most cancerous thing a person can do. Just a message to all drivers, when you hear someone beeping at someone else, if you join in, you are a royal prick and should go home now. Why is that a thing people do? Get angry about something that no one has any control over? Now, I'm going deaf; I cannot hear myself think over the top of these horns. There is literally no way I am going to be able to stay sane for this entire trip.

We are now third in place for the border and so far, of the seventy-five cars that have been searched, one had someone carted off in a police van. And let me place this bet, that will be the only person they cart away today; no one smuggling drugs goes through the drive section, they jump the fence and run. They aren't idiots!

As we drive up to the identity booth, I undo my seatbelt, pre-emptively preparing for the 'pullover and step out of the car' comment. It really is truly horrendous. Luckily enough, I have some self-control; I dread to think of how many years I would be facing in prison if I acted on all the anger the checks boiled inside me. They don't even look at our passports; they just see 'Mexican national' and direct us to the cavity search and x-ray building.

"Can you pull over to the left please sir?" I called it! I FUCKING called it! It was begrudgingly but my dad still went along with it and drove to the left. We left the car and filed in through a metal detector which as predicted went off on me and my family but none of the other white people who looked dodgier than us. Life is genuinely fucking dumb.

The woman who searched me was butch and scary but the man who searched my dad and older brother would have had me running back home. The guy was over six feet tall and as muscular as any wrestler I'd ever seen. This was why I wasn't shocked when Tio started crying. He's only three and the guy was at least four to five times his size. No thank you, sir!

"Miss and Mrs if you would follow my colleague to the left while Sirs if you would come with me to the right?" it was always the same bullshit with these people. First, they search us from head to toe. Then, we're filed singly through an x-ray and then, finally, we are separated into separate interrogation rooms where they hook us up to a lie detector and ask us questions about the car and our reasons for traveling. They must think I'm the dumbest person on the planet, even if there was something in the car, why would I say something?

When I saw my father after the three-hour interrogation, I couldn't help but run into his arms. I had always hated the pressure they put us under and never felt comfortable enough to say anything more than 'My name is Jaime Hernandez' and 'We are going to see family in Texas/Canada' which never made any of the interviewers very happy. I did take a small amount of joy when our family lawyer- Chris, my future brother-in-law's best friend- told them what they were doing was illegal. It was the only part of traveling that actually made me smile.

Chris was an interesting person. Picking apart the brain of the man who won two of the most impossible cases was the only thing I was looking forward to, apart from the wedding of course. Take it from someone who just graduated law school and is trying to work up to being a barrister, Chris is a god in the eyes of any law student.

Back on the road and the drive is even more boring. My phone died while we were in the interrogation room and now the only entertainment I have is the book in my bag which is sure to make me feel very sick, even if I read for ten minutes. My dad is singing along to nursery rhymes with Tio and I genuinely think my brain may explode from the repetitive tunes and over-the-top lyrics. Please help me...