The Devil doesn't cry, her eyes were just sweating.

The day that I told Ruby that I was leaving was the day that I was at my sickest. You see on our way to school Ali had to pretty much half carry me up the street. I hadn't slept the entire night and I had this dizzy fog thing going. As we approached our street Grunter pulled up with Ruby in the passenger seat. If I have ever been given the death glare then this was it. The one that would have had me dead and buried. Grunter just squinted her evil eyes and twisted her mouth while Ruby gave me the motherly caring look (I was kinda thrown off b/c let's face it- El Diablo isn't really supposed to be able to do that). Then Ruby asked "What's wrong?" really lady?! WHAT'S WRONG?!!! What the H do you think is wrong? I've only been sick for...oh I don't know 3 weeks and I've gotten progressively worse and you don't care! That's whats flippin' wrong!!! As all this raced through my head I realized that I had to get a grip. So I told Ruby in the most stern voice that I could muster "We need to talk".

If there were any 4 scarier words in the English language than those then I don't know them. Ruby looked scared and gave me a half whispered "Oh, OK". She was scared merde-less. I finally had the upper hand. Ali then helped me walk to the class. Ruby retreated into her office.

I made my way to the teachers lounge where I gave away my stickers, marking pens, paper, notebooks, and most importantly- germ sanitizer gel. Then I summoned my courage and walked to her office. As I'm walking I am conjuring up images of being taken hostage/ prisoner, of being set-up so that I ended up in a Korean prison, etc. I mean these people have the way and the means to pull of something like that. Then I remembered- Hey! I have a Dominican mother who would beat the bloody pulp out of this woman and anyone else that would cross paths with her children. I mean my mother had my elementary,middle, and high school teachers scared stiff. Side note: Dominican women have slightly shorter fuses and have a tendency to be kinda scary if you mess with them.

Anyway I straightened up and opened her office door (without knocking) I told her that we needed to talk. She replied "do we have to do this now? Can it wait?". I said "No, It needs to be done right now". The color drained from her face when informed her that I was leaving and that I couldn't work in Korea anymore. My health was deteriorating, I was getting weaker, and that if I didn't come home very soon then my mother was gonna have to come and get me...and that she would be really pissed about having to do that. Ruby then tried to offer me 2 weeks rest and then I could return. When she said this all I thought was what part of -the Yellow Dust is making me ill- do you not get?

Finally I said "I am too sick and I gotta go home. I will be leaving now".

Suddenly, Satan started to cry. I sat there sorta trying to figure out why her eyes where watering up. Did she have something in her eyes? Maybe she was currently taking medication and this was one of its side effects? Maybe she had recently heard a very tragic story in the news and was NOW crying about it. There were many possibilities but I NEVER thought that she was crying about my leaving. Either ways- when it finally dawned on me that she was in fact crying, my eyes got a bit wider and I mouthed "Oh" (perplexed stare).

Suddenly she opens up her arms sorta like Moses did when parting the Red Sea and I didn't get it until seconds later that she wanted a hug. A HUG?! WTH! I forced my body to half hug/pat her on the back but I did it the same way that you would hug a feces-covered baby hippo. With disgust, some anger, and a minuscule bit of pity.

When I left her office I told Ali that we could leave and as we put on our shoes I looked back at my desk, my BFF, Tooly,and my classroom for one last time and walked out.