Melissa de la Cruz’s Sample Essays

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“Have you ever stolen anything?” The man inquired catatonically.

I sniffed in the stale air slowly. I had to answer honestly. But I wondered if I would get the chance to explain myself. 

“Yes,” I managed, breathing steadily.

Aloof, the man shifted his eyes downward and began writing in his notepad. “Please elaborate.” 

I moistened my mouth and carefully detached my desiccated tongue from my palate, where it had become stuck after completing the ess sound in yes. I ignored the dizzying apparent temperature rise in the room, and focused on my phrasing.

My entire future was at stake. I had been recruited from the National Security Agency where I had filled a military billet. I was now a civilian of four months. If all went as planned, not only would I be hired as a CIA analyst, but the government would also pay my complete college tuition--an unanticipated cost that I was facing, at which the mere thought sank my stomach and left me sullen. I blamed my own poor planning and gullibility for my current situation. How could I have believed the Army recruiters when they purported that the Army College Fund would be more than enough to pay for my education? I recognized in the moment the make-it or break-it weightiness of it all and proceeded accordingly.

“Well,” I began, hacking up the glob of phlegm that had finally dislodged itself from my throat.

…

I was seventeen years old the first time I saw the whites of my dad’s eyes. My parents had cornered me in our basement family room, insisting that I sign a behavioral contract—my only option, they said, to continue living under their roof. It was six in the evening, and I was still hungover from the previous night out drinking with my cousins. Skipping school and sleeping all day had not cured my aching head or queasy stomach. 

“Seven months. Seven months, and I am out of here,” I thought, as I boldly stared through my mother’s eyes. I constantly counted down the days. I could not wait to ship out to the Army and leave small town Connecticut behind. 

“How can they not see that everything is under control? Why do they have to make mountains out of molehills anyway?” Fully exasperated, I stood up abruptly, leaving the unsigned contract on the coffee table. I breezed past my mother who stood, mouth agape, in disbelief. My father, ill-equipped, steadied himself. I was the fourth and final daughter. Although my sisters had presented my parents with a fair number of challenges, nothing could have prepared them for this level of insolence. 

I can still see my dad assuming his stance. Feet shoulder-width apart and knees slightly bent—for balance and agility I suppose. His arms behind his back, hands firmly gripping the opposite wrist—his way of restraining himself. He had the urge to throttle me, I’m sure, but had the foresight to know that would lead nowhere. The bass in his voice reverberated in our sparse basement, shaking the furniture with each bellow. Somehow, I stood there, ghostly and unconcerned. 

…

…

Suddenly I feel like I am smothered by an oppressive wave of city summer heat: subway and commuter trains mixed with crowds upon crowds of people moving every which way. Sweat drips down my back. My mind whirrs deafeningly in concert with the intense mugginess: a scene straight from Grand Central Station during PM rush hour in July. I struggle to reflect inward and think to myself:

I want to step out in front of a city bus as it races down the road. I want to duct tape my mouth shut and shackle my legs and lock myself seat-belted in my car as I shift into gear and bind my hands behind my back then guide the vehicle off the road into Long Island Sound as I am swallowed whole by the estuary. Or maybe just jump into the bay—suffocating and tied up like that. I want to stare into the lights of a speeding train, confronting it head-on. I want to kill myself. I want to die. A painful death. A tortured death. But I’m a fuck-up. A failure. It won’t work. I’ll try and fail and be more of a burden on everyone. Goddamn fucking shit. I should have studied engineering. Of course, they say most mechanical defects occur due to human error...who knows if even then I could grasp the concepts enough to ensure a botch-free suicide?

I shrug my shoulders, shift in my chair and slip the edge of my bloodied fingertip between my teeth.  “Umm...I don’t know,” I lie. “Nothing really specific. I guess I just want to go to sleep and not wake up.”

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