This is a sneak peek into my memoir "Embraced Identity." The insert is from the chapter titled, "Don't Let Anyone In When Your Parents Aren't Home!" This very rule I disobeyed and the consequences of being defiant changed my world forever....
..."One thing I have learned over the years is that rules are rules for the very reason of keeping one from danger, out of trouble, and guiding one in a direction where one will benefit from their very own actions. If you are not doing what you are not supposed to do, the likelihood is that you are doing what you are supposed to do.
The basic rules around the house were to do our chores and have them done before my mother got home; Be in the house within one hour after school (we would stretch it to being home before my mother walked in the front door from work), Don’t answer the phone unless we hear our parents on the answer machine telling us to pick up the phone, No watching television during the week (They literally had a chain and lock around the TV! That did not stop us from watching though), Do your homework, be polite and never be rude to your parents and, “Don’t Let Anyone In When Your Parents Aren’t Home!”....
When I was just a few days short of my fifteenth birthday, I came home from school as usual, and started washing the morning dishes. There had been April showers that afternoon, so the distraction of wanting to be outside was not appealing. As I continued washing the dishes, I heard the door-bell ring. I turned off the water, and went to the front door. ...
I did not consider Brian just “anybody.” We had been neighbors and our families were good friends. I grew up with Brian, so my idea of the rule; “Do not let anyone in when your parents aren’t home” did not apply to him. I was very attracted to Brian and had a crush on him since I could ever remember. Teenage hormones and familiarity can be a mixture for disaster.
...I could hear Brian coming down the hallway, as he was taking his time to enter into each room and looking in the closets and under beds. ..As he went in each room, he called my name as he said, “Yvette, Where are you?” I began to get nervous as I heard him enter the restroom. I was trying to think of ways of escaping the restroom without getting caught. I thought if I jumped out and scared him, I could run out the restroom and be free.
... I was in a dilemma. There was no way out and he was pushing beyond my own power, and I could not make him stop....
