Telling What Happened:
"So, what were you thinking about when Ruthie was talking to everyone else about our time in Iraq?" Naomi asked.
I just looked at them. Tears started to well up in my eyes & I wiped them away. And then told them, I told them everything.
"When I was in the room during that lunch we were aloud to eat together, the guard told me to take my clothes off, but only told me to take my shirt off at first. Then he through a hospital gown at my feet and told me to strip & put it on. I hadn't understood him so I just put my shirt back on & he took out his whip. He started to whip me in my legs & yell in Arabian telling me to put the hospital gown on. All I did was look down at the ground until my legs collapsed under me. That's about the time the guard told another guard to go and get Nyhassa. And you know what happened after that fact". When I was done, nobody said anything. I heard a noise from behind me & turned around. Everyone was there. I looked at them & tried so hard to keep the tears from falling but I couldn't. This wasn't how I had wanted everything to work out. I had wanted to tell small groups of people one at a time. I looked at my family & turned away. Naomi walked up to me & put her arms around me. I was lucky to have such good friends.
"Why don't we talk alone & you can get whatever is on your mind off of it, okay?" Naomi asked. She wanted to talk to me alone, just the two of us. She had never asked me that before.
"Sure," I said. "I'll lead the way, since I know my way around."
We started toward the Promenade. I told her what was on my mind & she told me that she would always be here for me.
"Now that were going to the same school, we'll see each other everyday. You can always talk to me, Rachel. I'm always going to be there for you, okay?" Naomi asked.
"Yeah, okay. Hey I wonder if Pete's Pizza Place is open today. But the again, it probably isn't, because they are probably at the orphanage with everybody else. You wanna go see if they're open?"
"Sure, I'd love to. But it doesn't look like they are open. Come on let's keep walking & talking. I like it when the two of us talk together," she said.
"This is the first conversation we've both had with each other. Not to be rude or anything, but I figured you'd want to spend time with your dad considering how long you were separated from him. You know what I mean, right?" I asked.