Protection: My Definition

Protection: My definition. Let me describe you this…

Last year it felt like a honeymoon feeling. I remember we would talk, and she would take me in during our brief conversations. Every concern I carried—when staff didn’t want to work with me, when I felt small—she heard me and stood for me. Gossips spread down the hallway, but she defended me. I believe I sparkled in her eyes, but I was already moved by her charisma, by the way she offered protection.

She insisted I stay while others counted the days I had left to sub. Her words, her text, are still recorded in the back of my mind. She wanted me to stay to prove every staff wrong. I don’t know what was beneath her intentions. Maybe it was her way to fill a vacancy—yes, she said that through a text—but more than anything, she convinced me because she sweet-talked me, telling me I was a great teacher. Even the school principal said I was good. Could it be true? That I was good when I tried to glow myself into others’ eyes, hoping they would start liking me?

I refuse to invest my energy in deception. I was tired of hearing my name whispered across the hallways. The staff wanted to be placed in a different classroom, but she came to mine to clarify them. She stood for me. And I was such a baby next to her… leaning on her presence, believing in her words.

I then spoke the truth: that we need to be mindful of our students, to be there for them. And the story went on. I guess she liked that about me—my courage to speak, my refusal to collapse, my insistence on care.

Then little by little the hiring process began. Again, she asked if I would be going to the Hiring event. It took place on a Saturday. Was she glad? Maybe. I did the interview and was immediately passed to go see HR. She didn’t walk me nor stay when HR rang the cowbell, naming me the hired teacher. I felt the ache because she never returned nor congratulated me after. So that’s when I didn’t take pride in being recognized as a new teacher that year. It was also due to a para’s hate towards me, making my year miserable. It was meant to be kept in a layaway anyways. I acted like nothing happened after the interview. But she did follow up with me two days later. She ghosted me, and I ghosted her back. Did I feel used? Kind of. But in her terms, it would be more like: you sign those papers, you agree.

To be continue… come back later.

Maybe I never met someone like her. It’s very rare to meet people like her—it is, indeed. You wonder why I keep talking about her, right? Because she’s the only Latina who ever stirred this kind of inspiration in me. That’s why I’m still hurting.

I was strange to her. A puzzle she couldn’t name. I felt things she couldn’t hold. I love her—but loving has a price. And I’ve paid it in silence, in ache, in the long echo of unanswered texts and unspoken truths.

Maybe she’ll condemn me. Maybe that’s her long favor. Maybe she found excuses. God knows.  

But I remember—she would text me in a heartbeat, even from far away in the Bahamas. That’s what makes it harder. That’s what makes it linger.