You had been a slum kid, left behind by your mother and father who you never knew, and dropped onto the street when you were five at some random drug store with nothing but the dirty clothes on your back. Anita had just come to America, looking to start again, but halted when she saw you. Maybe it’s because she knew poverty, or how you clung to her leg, but from them on you were her sister.

To say the State fought with her over the adoption was an understatement. She needed a job, to earn money, have her small apartment raided to see if it was safe for a child. Not to mention the already distrustful glanced she got from the West Side Americans. Finally, she got you. You were her sister, even if her community complained over how you weren’t one of them.

Then Bernardo and Maria came in— the love of her life, and another little sister to monitor. Despite her small income, her constant fights with Bernardo for leading the Sharks, she loved you all.

Tonight would be your “introduction to society”, as she puts it. You stood awkwardly next to her in your dress at the dance that was supposed to ease the tension between the Puerto Ricans and the West Siders. She nudged you when she saw your glance towards the Jets in the corner, Bernardo lecturing Maria to not even so much as look at any white boy.

“Go dance,”

Anita encouraged, pushing you forward.