Sable Monroe

This was Richmond Hill in the early 90s. Not what it looks like now.

 

We moved to Richmond Hill, and on paper, things looked better.

More space. A place to land.

 

But what living there actually felt like… was something else entirely.

 

The apartment itself was bigger.

 

Upstairs, first floor, basement. We had the upstairs. On paper, it was an upgrade.

 

But the neighborhood?

 

It wasn’t nice.

 

Not dangerous. Not chaotic.

 

Just… not somewhere you felt proud to say you lived.

 

Not somewhere you wanted people driving through if they didn’t have to.

 

And to afford it, my stepfather came back.

 

That was the real cost.

 

He didn’t even like living there. In his mind, he belonged somewhere like Glen Oaks or Great Neck. He never saw himself the way other people saw him. Loud. Violent. Disrespectful.

 

In his head, he deserved better.

 

Meanwhile, I was just trying to make it work.

 

Getting from Richmond Hill to New Hyde Park for work wasn’t simple.

It was multiple buses. Sometimes walking just to catch the next one.

If you missed a bus, an hour and fifteen minutes could turn into two hours or more.

By the time I factored in school, work, and commuting, I was exhausted.

 

There were days I spent almost as much time getting to work as I did actually working.

 

And everything cost something.

 

Bus fare. Food. Time.

 

If your pass ran out, you paid the difference.

 

If you were out all day, you had to eat.

 

And I was working with a small paycheck, trying to stretch it across everything.

 

But I also noticed something.

 

I felt lighter when I wasn’t home.

 

Being outside, even if I was tired, felt easier than being inside.

 

Less tension. Less to see. Less to absorb.

 

My grandmother didn’t like that.

 

She wanted me home more. She was lonely.

 

And she liked my boyfriend at the time. He had a car, he was polite to her. That was enough.

 

What she didn’t know was what that relationship actually was.

 

It wasn’t serious.

 

Not on my end, and not on his.

 

Even then, I understood it was temporary.

 

He was on a student visa. I didn’t have papers yet. There was no long-term future there.

 

But that didn’t stop people from talking.

 

At work. In the neighborhood.

 

People watched. People assumed.

 

I was getting rides from men. I had a boyfriend.

 

And suddenly, I had a reputation.

 

I was being judged. Labeled. Talked about.

 

Slut-shamed… while I was still underage.

 

And the thing is, none of those people were living my life.

 

None of them were commuting two hours.

 

None of them were figuring out how to eat, how to get home, how to survive.

 

They just saw what they wanted to see.

 

And decided who I was based on that.

 

This was the part no one saw.

 

And it wouldn’t be the last time I realized that.