One night with the Alpha

“Enough Abuela!” She hadn’t meant to shout but as the rest of the family suddenly became quiet she realized how loud she’d been.

Shock was clear on her abuela’s face as was that hardness she knew so well. The outrage that Cress had dared to disrespect her, the matriarch of their family. She could see the same look on the faces of most members of her family, at least the elders.

Those her age and younger looked at her with wide disbelieving eyes. None of them would let her forget she’d done this but what was new? Cress would take advantage and say her piece, something that’d been bubbling inside her for years that she couldn’t hold back anymore.

“This’ why I don’t want to come to the family gatherings but either you, mama or my tias guilt me into coming. Only so that at least one of you can tell me how ugly I am.”

Her abuela was incensed, her hand going to her chest in that dramatic way latinas were good at, at least in her family. “I have never told you you were ugly.”

It was the same as always, an accusation of unfairness and maybe even shaming her, but Cress had already come so far she might as well take the plunge. “You just told me my dark skin makes me ugly!” she cried out, tears threatening to spill over her full eyes but she blinked them back as she tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

“What do you think it means when you say ‘you could be beautiful if only your skin was lighter’? It’s just you telling me being lighter would mask how ugly I am since light skin automatically makes someone beautiful.”

Sorrow replaced the anger in her abuela’s eyes. ”Mija...” her grandmother started to say but she cut her off.

“No abuela!” she stabbed a finger towards the door. “Out there I get told how I have the full lips and figure everyone is aiming for, how my curls are perfect if only I wasn’t so dark. I’m fetishized by white people, my hair’s too fine for black people to accept me as one of them and I’m too dark for the latinos to even believe I’m latina. You’re where I’m supposed to find acceptance but all you do is let me know how different I am, how I should change to fit you.”

“We don’t want you to change mija.” her abuela pleaded.

The smile that bloomed on Cress’ face was painful even for her and she saw some of her family wince. “You gave me a skin lightening soap that burned my skin when I was thirteen.” She reminded in that soft voice people used when they were telling a loved one hard truths. “Everyone made fun of me and the few friends I had deserted me, even AnnaMarie and Rosa pretended I wasn’t family.”

“We were young and foolish Cress.” Her cousin Rosa admitted, a sad smile also gracing her face. “And I know our relationship with you was never the same even after we came to our senses. You don’t trust us to have your back.”

Her abuela seemed more pained, her eyes searching their three faces with defeat. “Reese and I became close because of that. We might never have been.” Cress comforted, though why she was now in that role when they should be comforting her she had no idea.

“I was on the other end of her treatment so I understood.” Her cousin Theresa ‘Reese’ explained with a rueful smile. “She resented me at first but I knew she’d be the only one to understand how I felt.”

"Mija?” abuela questioned Reese, her eyes even more pained.

Reese smiled again with the same pain that had graced Cress’ own smile. “I’m the white passing Latina in the family, what you all seem to think is the best thing to be, even the telenovelas give that impression.

You all treated me like I was fragile, a Barbie doll to parade out at times but put on a shelf most times. Everyone seemed to act like I was perfect and if I showed my emotions like every female in our family, you looked at me like I’d grown a second head.”

She shook her head and laughed without humor. “Like Cress I don’t fit in anywhere. The white people I know have never let me forget I have latino blood in me and the latinos like me because I’m white passing and not because of who I am. I could never be myself with any of you.”

"Dios mio,” her abuela cried. “What have I done?”

Did it make her a bad person that she resented it when her tias rushed to comfort her abuela? She and Reese were the ones who’d been taken for granted all their lives but no one, not even their mothers had come to comfort them. Abulea though, clutching her chest as she’d done as long as Cress had known her, had everyone’s attention.

While her female relatives clucked around her, the males rushed to make a comfortable place for her and some of her younger cousins ran to get her some water. She met Reese’s wry gaze and saw the resigned smile on her face. Cress though didn’t want to be resigned.

Was it too much to want them all to acknowledge what they’d done? Her male relatives had called her their little niggrera, their dark Spaniard. She knew they’d meant it as endearments, after all she was the darkest of all their relatives, but with how she was treated by others it wasn’t something she could brush aside.

“Cress.” cousin AnnaMarie held out a sympathetic hand she wasn’t sure would be accepted, she was right

Cress took a step back the lump in her throat was even worse. “I’m invisible.” she whispered as she took another.

“Cressida...” her cousin tried again.

She met AnnaMarie’s gaze and for a moment resented that she was all a latina should be. Her cousin had creamy reddish brown skin, large, deep brown eyes that had that hint of being almond shaped without really being and high cheekbones. Her lips were small, not as thick as Cress’ but somehow full, like Dove Cameron’s had been before her lip injections.

AnnaMarie looked fragile but there was a sense of strength around her, something the stubborn set of her pointed chin testified to. Then Cress recalled herself and squashed her resentment. It wasn’t her cousin’s fault that Cress was far from anyone’s ideal. “I..I just...can’t deal.” she took the remaining steps to the door.”

“I’m sorry cuz.” AnnaMarie said while Rosa and Reese flanked her.

“So am I.” Cress agreed as she opened the door and ran down the steps, not sure what she was sorry for.