All the children are asleep except for Mala. She has her dark pink night lamp on covered with pink garlands on it and has her eyes open lying in bed thinking about Chris. She really wants to date him, but can not. She hates the fact that her mother will not allow her to date or her oldest sister Mara either and she is 18. She feels that all the American teenagers are dating and having parties except for the Indian teens and that drives Mala crazy. She lies in bed talking to herself in her head.
"God I love my culture so much, but why can't we date? Why is our culture so strict on wanting to save ourselves for marriage when we grow up? Why? Sometimes I hate being an Indian. I hope some day I will marry Chris, and we could have as much children as we want, and live in a nice house with white picket fences in Los Vegas somewhere so that we will be far apart from our parents. I don't know if Chris really likes me or not but I sure likes the way he looked at me today. His eyes, his gorgeous hair, his smile, his cheeks, his manly muscle figure. He is the kind of guy I want, he is my dream man. I wonder what he's doing right now, at this moment, at this time of night, I wonder how he sleeps at night. He probably is playing some play station game or having a boys night out with his football team. God, I can't wait tell I see his face again. His image makes me melt from the inside, it's the truth, and I feel that I can't really tell anyone how I really feel about Chris in my family, unless I tell an American how I feel deeply about him. Maybe I could tell Kathy or Alice, I'm sure they would understand."
Author Ciara Webb
Story written by Ciara Webb
Co-author Mansi Rupesh More
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