L A N A
"YO! GIVE IT BACK," Isha yelled, snatching back her water bottle from Carmen's hands who had sneaked up behind her and grabbed it.
Jada laughed while Carmen rolled her eyes and dropped a sweet kiss on top of Isha's head. She plopped down in the seat next to her and stole a salty fry from her lunch tray instead.
Lunchtime was my favorite part of each school day. Not only because the lunch lady, Aisha made The best food for the whole school every day, but because the break lasted for an hour and I could cut off from reality by diving into the world of Mario Kart on my Nintendo with my friends seated around me.
It was easy to just sit there and let lunchtime pass by because my friends kept talking and talking about stupid, funny shit, speaking more words per minute than I did in one day.
Sometimes, the talking grew louder and rapid until Isha usually cracked a joke and they all burst into laughter while I just sat there like a robot that smiled a little once in a while. They didn't give a shit about that though. Luckily.
"So I heard there's a new family in town. Their son enrolled here today and rumors say he's made quite the hero impression on his first day so far by trying to save Lily from Arjun who was cornering her this morning."
The change of subject to the new kid reminded me that my butt was still sore from that incident.
"I also heard he later stepped between Arjun and Ali's fight, " Isha added.
By the sound of Arjun's name twice, I had to pause the race and lookup. Arjun was the most dangerous guy in the whole school. The Indian with rich brown skin and sharp brown, greenish snake eyes, was the leader of the second most powerful gang in the whole town. The Lions. Anyone who came between him and his target was as good as dead. I knew it to a personal level. Coming between him and Jada's fight once gave me the chance to experience getting a black eye by the infamous Lion's fist.
Intrigued, Isha's eyes grew wide and she nodded. "Oh, yeah! Everett Weston. He's definitely hot but too bad he's a squeaky clean good boy. I mean, he was taking notes in class and I saw him smiling to everyone like a fucking polite angel."
"Forget taking notes in class and smiling to everyone. What the fuck is a white guy doing in a ghetto town like Lakewood? Plus, who the fuck moves here of all places?" Carmen pointed out, snorting.
As if on cue, the hero himself entered the cafeteria with Ali by his side. The Somalian, Ali, was one of those decent guys who got along with pretty much everyone around here. However, leaving The Lions cost him a ton of trouble and left Arjun furious. Thus, he ended up as one of his permanent targets. Despite it being a year since Ali left the gang, that bad blood wasn't going away any time soon.
Smirking, Isha glanced at Carmen. "We should go say hi. Shall we go say hi?"
Carmen jumped up from her seat and rubbed her palms together while grinning. "Oh, we definitely shall."
Leaned back in her chair with her legs crossed on the table, Jada sighed. "Isha, go easy on him. Carmen, don't stare."
"Oh, don't worry. As I said, he doesn't really seem like our type to have a little fun with," Carmen assured, but a subconscious grin grew across her face. Carmen's Liar grin.
When Everett and Ali passed by our table, Carmen and Isha jumped in their way, startling them. Ali raised his brows and Everett smiled politely to the girls. It seemed quite forced though.
Carmen had already kicked off their first meeting with her stare. The seductive stare. Her lips curved ever so slightly while her eyes narrowed a little, and she stayed like this for at least thirty seconds until Everett, who was staring back, blushed and looked away and ended up locking eyes with Isha.
The girls laughed and Ali rolled him before grinning slightly. Meanwhile, Everett stood awkwardly, his face completely flustered and cheeks heated red.
Luckily, Isha went easy on him and offered her hand. "Everett Weston. A pleasure to finally meet you. I'm Isha, the gayest Indian around here. This is Carmen, the Italian bike racer of Lakewood," she paused and glanced in our direction. "That's Jada, the biggest schemer around here and that's-"
"-Lana," he interrupted.
Tensing up, I blinked.
"Lana. I know. She, uh, we met earlier today." He met my gaze and his smile suddenly turned slightly friendly. "Hey, again."
Despite our last two brief meetings, it was now I actually took in the sight of him. He was tall and lean with a slightly broad frame. His hair was the color of chocolate and a longer piece of it hung over his right eye while his creamy white skin was in contrast. His eyes that had a warm brown color but seemed kinda sad, we're still looking into my coal-black.
Holding his gaze on me, he looked like he was waiting for me to greet him back. I didn't,
Honestly, I just wanted him to leave so I could return to my race. I was in second place. Luigi was currently in the lead, but not for long. Shy Guy and I were going to beat the shit out of him.
The girls' surprised eyes snapped to me all at once and then rapidly back to Everett.
Carmen smiled but it wasn't friendly at all. "Cool. Anyway, we're The Sirens. You should probably not get on our bad side, but you've probably been warned about that by now."
Confusion clouded Everett's face, his brows furrowing. "Uh, no. I haven't. Why?"
Isha and Carmen exchanged an impressed look before turning their gaze back to him.
Suddenly, Carmen looped an arm around Ali's shoulder and grinned. "I'm sure Ali here can tell you everything you need to know."
If it was someone else in Ali's place right now, their body probably would've turned to stone and others probably would've blacked out, but Ali was an exception. He was cool and helped us out on how to steal back the cash Arjun's boys raided from us and in return, we helped him get out of The Lions. Thus, there had been a permanent truce between The Sirens and Ali.
"I bet that angel has never taken a shot before," Jada murmured, seated next to me with amusement across her face.
"Smiles like an angel plays hero, and say thank you. That's a real ass good boy right there," Jada continued.
"Sits on the front row. Corrects teacher." I added, quietly.
"Aha! Stefan Salvatore left the chat."
I smiled a little to myself at Jada's words while Shy Guy and I won the race.
"Anyway, cool meeting ya! There's this party tonight that I'm sure Ali knows of so drop by if you want a beer and just chill," Isha said, putting two of her right hand's fingers to her forehead and saluting while they walked back to our table.
Everett smiled. "Sure. Thanks."
He followed Ali to the lunch line and just like that, Carmen and Isha burst out laughing and bumped their fists with each other.
"He's adorable," Isha admitted as she and Carmen turned back to us.
Jada snorted. "Don't get too excited. He's not going to last a week at this school. He'll be gone before we know it or he'll end up like that goldilocks, Lily. I honestly have no clue how she has survived in this school for three years."
"Four if she makes it through our senior year," Isha clarified, slumping back down in her seat along with Carmen.
This year would be my gang's fourth and last year in this high school. Their final senior year but this was my second senior year.
Nobody repeated their senior year- or any school year in this town. If they had to repeat a year, they dropped out instead. However, I wanted to graduate and if I had to repeat my senior year in order to do that, so be it. And anyway, it wasn't like I was a year older than the other teens. Since I was allowed to skip a grade when I was supposed to start my sophomore year, I was always a year ahead of the kids my age but not anymore.
Admittedly, so far it wasn't so bad. It only had been two months since my second senior year began, and it was going okay so far. Besides, if I wasn't going to school, what else would I be doing? Taking long depression naps or lying in bed and thinking until I drowned in a dark hole. Thus, repeating my senior year and going to school every day was the better option.
When I felt the rough brush of those cold fingers on my wrists, I tugged my sweatbands down out of habit. Afterward, I averted my attention fully back to the race where round two had kicked off.
~
Sometimes, I seriously believed something was wrong with my face. I just always looked so...blank as I was empty of emotions. When I tried to smile, I looked like the joker. It totally cringed and scary.
In the mirror, my face was sallow, my eyes gave away fatigue and my lips were dry. My pitch black hair in contrast to my face didn't help at all. I looked like I hadn't slept in years, but the truth was, all I did was sleep and then sleep more.
The knocking on the door from outside the bathroom got louder and I tore my gaze off the mirror and swung open the door, leaving the annoyed girl with a silky red crop top and white jeans to gasp and quickly avert her gaze to the floor. Intimidation made her body tense up like a statue.
Everyone in Lakewood looked at me as The Wolf, and I was reminded of it every time my eyes locked with anyone around here. Fear flashed across their eyes by the sight of The Wolf. Four years with this reputation but somewhere deep inside the old, bullied and pushed around Lana still existed. After all, that pain shaped me into The Wolf.
I moved past the terrified girl, through the corridor and downstairs to my friends seated on the red couch pushed up against the wall on the left side of the living room where the party had just begun. Limping, I scurried past drunk crowds with beer cans in their hands, cigarettes resting between their lips while bobbing their heads and moving their hips to the heavy rap beats dropping from the speakers.
"Baby, Lee. Come here!" A surprisingly sober Isha outstretched her arms to me and I let her pull me up in her lap. I grabbed a can of beer from the table and mixed it with my strawberry milk before downing a huge sip, letting the bitter liquid mixed with sweet strawberry immediately ease my stiff shoulders and my throbbing head.
"Nice flannel," she said, resting her chin on my shoulder.
I was never up for parties, but the thought of all the free food and just relaxing with my friends made me get up, put on one of mom's old jeans and white top, and one of dad's red and black flannels, and show up.
"Thanks. How'd the race go?" I asked Carmen, still feeling guilty for accidentally sleeping through her race.
Carmen smiled. "Guess what? Turns out, the Diego I was gonna race against today, was the same Diego who works at the garage. I won but I was still surprised. I thought he only fixed bikes but that guy is a mad racer."
A moment later, I caught Jada watching Isha with curiosity across her face. "Isha, who are you checking out?"
Blinking, Isha tore her eyes off the group of the dancing girls among the crowd a few feet away and looked at us with a pout. "Snacks. A hot girl would be a bonus though."
"Yo, I'm telling you. You should try it with Goldilocks. She just needs to catch the gayness," Jada said with an amused grin spreading across her face.
"Lily is so straight that I feel bad for her, okay? And anyway, she's not my type. I want something badass, hot and sexy. So Carmen who is in that category herself is finding me, someone."
With a cigarette resting between her fingers, Carmen blew a puff of smoke up in the air before nodded with a delighted grin flashing across her face. "Don't you worry. I'm working on it."
When Carmen's gaze met mine, she said, "You know what? I can't wait for Lana to get a boyfriend."
"Oh, hell yeah. She's gonna be an amazing girlfriend. I'm telling you, Lana doesn't love easily but when she loves, she loves deeply," Isha said, holding a hand to her chest.
Jada snorted. "Where did you get that from? Pinterest?"
Isha shoved her away. "Shut up."
Jada and Carmen burst out laughing while I just snuggled closer against Isha.
Love? Love was something that I never thought much about. Sometimes, I wondered if love really cured the sad and broken. If it changed you. If it made you do crazy things. The idea of loving holding the power to do all of those things sounded pretty impressive, but I guess that's why words like glorifying and romanticizing existed too. I guess you never really knew until you experienced it yourself.
The only example of true love between two people that I had witnessed was with my parents. That love was real. Even after five years of their absence from my life, their love had stayed with me like a permanent tattoo.
Before I lost my way in my head, Carmen's words quickly drew me out. "Honestly, I can only imagine Lana with someone who cooks for her, plays Nintendo with her, and takes the longest naps with her."
"I can actually think of it going like this." Isha grabbed my hand and we got off the couch together before made us face each other.
Suddenly, she went down on one knee and spread her arms out while a huge smile crinkled her lively eyes. "Someday, someone special is going to go down on their knee and say, Lana Takumi, I love your smile, I love your baggy clothes, I love your love for Nintendo, I love your love for Zelda, Shy guy and Pokemon, for boiled rice, sushi, and dumplings. Most importantly, I. LOVE. YOU. You are my sun, my moon, my star, my universe, my oxygen, my love. You are my wolf."
Carmen and Jada were beaming an "awing" while some people around us were watching us with silly smiles across their faces while others were laughing.
Chuckling, Isha continued. "And us three, we're gonna stand here and put on an Ed Sheeran song and cry while trying to not think too much about how much we need to get laid."
The girls burst out laughing and Isha kissed my hand, gingerly. As a result, I let a small smile curve my lips.
Sometime later, when the girls fell into conversation about something else, Isha wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to her side before whispering. "I mean it. We'll accept whoever you introduce us too, okay?"
I didn't say anything nor did I nod or shake my head. Instead, I rested my head on her shoulder and stole her can of beer. Isha stole it back. We ended up downing it together.
The people in this town who were gang members and even the ones who weren't, envied The Sirens. We addressed ourselves as a gang but unlike most of the other gangs, we were a family. We shared a strong friendship, and we were permanent like the name Siren tattooed to our knuckles of our right-hand letter by letter.
Not much in my life had been permanent, but The Sirens were the most permanent thing in my life. They offered me kindness, respect, and protection. That's all I ever wanted. The Sirens was all I had and all I ever needed.
****
Author's note: Here's chapter four! I hope you enjoyed it!
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