Karissa, with her rich ebony skin and darker hair.
Colt, with his mane of blond hair and freckled face.
And finally, me. Dark hair and tanned skin thanks to my Latino heritage.
For the most part, the town had been friendly. The hostess had asked my parents how long they have been together, the waitress discussed how beautiful us children were, and a couple patrons at the bar commented that they had never seen us before.
"We don't get a lot of tourists here," one of them stated.
"We know everybody in this town," said another.I snorted at his small-town logic.
They seemed thrilled to discover that Papa was joining the police force and Dad got a job teaching at the college a few towns over.
"I'm a deputy," one of the younger men said, extending a hand. "The name's Rick."
It wasn't bad. Not at all. One of my biggest fears was the bigotry of a small town. We would be judged, shamed, cast aside. It had happened once before. Instead, nobody batted an eye at my parents' marriage and their choice to adopt multiracial children. My respect for the town grew significantly.
Our food arrived, and I practically salivated at the crispy chicken wrap on my plate. I liked food. A lot. Could you blame me? Chocolate and fried chicken and everything in-between.
Fiona would often get on my case about my eating habits.
"Seriously?" she would say, lip curling in disgust. "Do you want to get fat?"
Sometimes, when I was feeling particularly vulnerable, I would listen to her. Other times, I would tell her to piss off.
"How's the cheeseburger?" Papa asked Colt. My brother was picking apart his dinner. Bread on one side of his plate, patty on the other. His nose was scrunched up as if the food was emitting a particularly pungent smell.
"I'm not hungry," Colt mumbled. The poor sandwich had been brutalized by my brother's repetitive knife slashing.
"Why did you order it if you weren't going to eat it?" I snapped. He did this shit every day. I had long since stopped asking what went through that crazy head of his."Is it because you're afraid the government is going to poison you? Is that it? You don't trust the meat?"
"When you die, and I live, then we can talk."
"So are beers and chips the only food items not contaminated by the government?"
Colt merely glared at me.
After a few more bites of my wrap, I poked Papa on the shoulder.
"I have to go to the bathroom," I said, waiting for him to slide out of the vinyl booth. Karissa, who was sitting on a chair at the end of the table, smiled innocently up at me.
"Do you have to go poop or pee?"
My sister was a real classy bitch.
"Don't be gross," I said, ruffling her hair.
"I'm honestly curious!"
"That's a demented thing to be curious about," Dad pointed out. Karissa huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Bodily fluids interest me. Is there something wrong with that?"
Papa's face had turned green.
Dad patted the back of Papa's hand sympathetically. If there was one thing that could make the monster man squeamish, it was talk of pee and periods and all that fun stuff.
A useful weapon in my arsenal, if I did say so myself.
I made my way to the bathroom quickly, did my business, and washed my hands. Frowning, I considered myself in the restaurant's dirty mirror.
I was short for my age, almost embarrassingly so. It made my petite frame seem almost childish. My hair was an onyx black, hanging down my back in light waves. I wasn't model-thin like the other girls. A slab of fat made my belly protrude over the waistband of my jeans. Not skinny. Not completely fat.
Not beautiful.
Not ugly.
Average.
I frowned at the face reflected back at me, hating every flaw on my brown skin and every tangle in my long hair. Why couldn't I have looked like Fiona? White and blond and skinny?
Beautiful.
Why couldn't I be beautiful?
I pushed aside the self-doubt and quickly dried my hands. My psychiatrist told me that I couldn't allow my thoughts to sink back into such dark territory. There wasn't a switch that I could just flip off, though. It took considerable effort to smother some of the darker thoughts and find my way back into the light. It was like tumbling through a riptide, my depression. I would sink beneath wave after wave of endless darkness, desperate to find a pocket of fresh air. Once I found it, mercifully, I would be pulled back under yet again. The water would carry me further and further away from the shore, away from the light. I needed to stay above water.
I needed to stay in the light.
I decided to think about school instead as I headed back to the table. Anything to distract myself from the current direction of my thoughts.
I would be going to a new school. Was I nervous? Excited? What would Jaron think if-
My thoughts were interrupted as my body collided with a wall. At least, I thought it was a wall. My anger quickly transformed into horror when I met the amused smirk of a handsome man.
His hair was dark, a few shades lighter than my own, and he had lightly tanned skin. Unlike mine, his skin color seemed to be a product of sunlight, not genetics. He wore a black jacket, tight over his muscles, and a white shirt that accentuated his chiseled chest.
"You made her speechless Ty," a feminine voice said with a chuckle. A chorus of laughs greeted her statement.
I tore my gaze away from Tall, Dark, and Sexy and faced the table that the voice had come from. There were about six of them - two girls and four guys. They all wore similar, black jackets with skulls on the back and had numerous piercings adorning their skin. It was the girl with the lilac hair that had spoken.
"I'm sorry," I sputtered.
"Oh look," the man I bumped into
