In Lakewood, a small town with a reputation of crime, gangs, outcasts and violence, Lana Takumi is an orphan and a gang member disguised in ripped jeans of her late mother and old flannels of her late father. She feels stuck in an endless cycle of b...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
E V E R E T T
MY MOM'S CHILDHOOD HOMETOWN looked exactly like she had described it. Small houses mirroring cottages with chipped paint, creaky doors and broken windows, overgrown lawns, and the stench of cigarettes and dirty lakes circling in the air.
However, mom's high school was nothing like she described it. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Floors dirty with burnt cigarettes and old gum, locker doors smashed and scribbled with words that I had never even heard of before, and a nauseating stench of nicotine intoxicating the air.
Lastly, the students. When I walked through the main entrance of the school building, I immediately noticed so many different ethnicities under one roof which I had never seen in one single town, let alone in one high school. Another surprising part was that I only spotted a few white kids here and there apart from myself. That probably explained the staring as I looked around in the lobby of Lakewood High, wondering which way the reception was.
The more heads turned my way, the more jittery turned my nerves, and I felt a tight knot form in my stomach.
Coincidentally, my eyes landed on a white, blonde girl looking completely out of place by the messed up grey lockers. The white jeans and pink sweater made her look like a high schooler gotten lost in those shady parts of downtown. She stuck out in this place so badly that it wasn't even funny.
She was cornered by a tall guy with short dark hair and brown skin, who's broad frame was towering over her like an angry lion. Mirroring a frightened little mouse with her back pressed up against the lockers, she hid her face behind a pink binder. As he kept looming over her, her knees kept buckling.
Meanwhile, a bunch of students were either hanging around or striding past them, but nobody bothered to say or do anything. It seemed like this was completely normal around here.
When a terrified whimper escaped the girl's mouth, I instinctively started heading towards them. However, the moment I was practically racing forward to shove the guy away from her, he happened to step back by himself, sending me colliding straight into a smaller, frail figure. Before I knew it, I had butt-landed on the floor while snorting and amused laughter irrupted around me until sudden fear wiped off the smirk on the guy's face and he rapidly took off down the hallway.
Rubbing my sore elbow, my head jerked up as panic made my head spin slightly. "Shit. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need to see the nurse?"
Instead of hearing a reply, I got a pair of round onyx eyes staring at me. They happened to belong to the skinny figure who I apparently crashed into and who turned out to be a girl. She had also butt-landed on the floor across from me, but instead of answering my question, her face remained flat, devoid of emotions.
