"Aya!"

My mother's voice cut through my bedroom door, making me cringe.

"Ayasi!"

I sighed and rolled my eyes. She used my full name, the name I hated on so many levels.

"Yes mom?" I shouted back, trying to color my voice with a sweet and innocent tone.

"Get down here now!"

I groaned. Her tone was not encouraging. 

Setting aside a binder full of clipped pictures of formal dresses, I crawled off of the four poster bed and made my way downstairs. Pots and pans were rattling, clangs and crashes reverberating through the house, so I swung around the bottom banister and headed for the kitchen. 

Serena Turner, small town socialite extraordinaire, was in high gear preparing for the annual Highland Hills High School dance team dinner. She, of course, could not rely on the other moms to bring anything up to her standards so she was frantically preparing five dishes too many. But that was Serena. Perfect, blonde, and an immaculate social queen.

"Ah! There you are!" My mother brushed past me with a casserole dish in her hands. Setting it down on the counter, she reached into her purse then turned and dangled her car keys in front of me.

"I need eggs and asiago cheese."

"Mom-"

"Ayasi Skye Turner, do not roll your eyes at me," she frowned.

"Okay," I whined. I hated to drive. A thought popped into my head. "Can I call Amber and ask her to pick me up?"

My mother eyed me up and down.

"I understoodd why you were afraid to drive when you first learned. But that accident was so long ago. You are seventeen now, Aya."

My mother put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed, offering a smile that hid her disappointment.

I shrugged her off and pulled my phone out of my back pocket. Amber was quick to respond.

"She's already on her way," I grinned, pressing the keys back in mom's hand. "Just eggs and blue cheese, right?"

"Asiago cheese," she answered.

"Right," I said over my shoulder, jogging out of the kitchen and up to my room to grab my purse. 

Mom's comment about driving was nagging at me, but I tried to push it away, successfully, until I passed the wall of family portraits. My parents were obsessive about family pictures and one wall in the hallway was covered in them. I paused in front of this years' offering. My bright, blonde, smiling family and me - the dark, obviously adopted kid in the middle. I stuck out like a sore thumb. My long, dark hair and almond shaped eyes made me look like one of those kids you see in the Unicef commercials.

I slowed my pace and followed the pictures back to the first one on the wall.  I was three years old. You could see the confusion in my face. I was smiling, sure, but even the brightly patterned sundress I wore couldn't mask the pain or the massive bandage along my outer thigh. I had just lost my father six weeks prior to that photo being taken and while I remember trying to look happy, I was terrified.

My hand absently ran along my leg where the scars still lurked. My biological father and my adoptive dad were Navy SEALs and had been best friends. My mother had been pregnant with me when my adoptive father made the promise that put me here, now. Little did he know my mom would die giving birth to me, or that when my dad left the daily danger of SEAL operations, he'd lose his life in a car wreck in the safety of a midwest suburban town.

I  closed my eyes and caught a glimpse of my real dad's face. It had begun to blur a little as I got older, but his smile never faded. His white teeth were bright against his honey-brown skin. Strangely, I never forgot his smell, but I didn't know what scent it was. Probably some cheap, drugstore aftershave, but it was him nonetheless.

A buzzing in my back pocket startled me.

*Hello? I'm n front of ur house*

Amber.

*Be right there*

I dashed into my room and grabbed my purse and slipped on my slides.

"Bye Mom!" I called as I flew down the stairs and out the front door.

"Asiago!" she hollered back as the door slammed behind me.

"My mom is going to be so pissed."

Amber shook her head and groaned.

"Maybe my mom's quiche will look different and you mom will never know they made the same thing?" I offered apologetically.

"Riiiiight," Amber groaned. "Why does your mom always do this?"

I shrugged. My mother had the best intentions, but she had a habit of stepping on every toe in the room, albeit with a smile and a heartfelt apology you just couldn't deny. She was talented like that.

"Hey! There's a party tonight after the potluck." Amber flashed a mischievous grin at me. "Wanna go?"

"Of course," replied, arching an eyebrow questioningly. "Who do you think I am?"

"You are Aya effing Turner," Amber laughed. "And this town is your bitch!"

I nodded in satisfaction.

"Good girl," I said, joining in her laughter.

We pulled up to a red light. Amber's white BMW idled quietly, but a loud muffler startled us as an old yellow muscle car pulled up beside us. We both looked out the passenger window at the blonde boy behind the steering wheel.

"Chad," we giggled. The high school quarterback turned his head in our direction and gave a little nod. I rolled my eyes.

"Why does he drive that thing?" I turned and groaned at Amber. The body of Chad's car was riddled with rust and one edge of the front bumper hung down, nearly dragging on the road. I looked back in his direction. He gripped the steering wheel possessively and revved his engine.

"He did not just do that!" Amber laughed as the light turned green, and she punched the gas leaving Chad and his car sitting at the intersection, sputtering.

I twisted around to watch as he finally got his car moving, exhaust sputtering from the tailpipe. Laughing, I twisted back to face forward, both of us howling, gasping for air.

We turned into the supermarket parking lot and slid into a space.

"So, where's the party?" I asked as we shut the car doors and started walking across the parking lot to the store.

"I'm waiting on that information," Amber said. "They won't drop it till right before it happens."

"It doesn't matter what they do," I began, "the cops always find out eventually."

"I don't know, Aya," she said, shaking her head. "Kellan is getting better at it. Last time, they didn't show up till after midnight."

"We'll see," I smirked.

We grabbed the cheese and eggs and headed back to my house. My mom was in rare form so we escaped the kitchen as quickly as we could and retreated to my bedroom. I checked the time on my phone and shrieked.

"It's five o'clock!" I cried, staring at the big numbers of my iPhone. Amber froze, too.

"We have to start getting ready!"

An hour later, we were sitting on the floor in front of the mirror, our makeup bags tucked in our laps. Amber was feverishly texting her mother about what outfit she wanted her to bring over, sighing and growling as they bantered back and forth.

"Why is this so hard!" she cried, throwing her phone onto the floor.

"Just go home and come right back," I suggested, carefully brushing mascara on my lashes. I checked my eyes, then snapped the eye shadow case closed. I started digging through my bag looking for my nude lip gloss. I pulled it out and started dabbing it on my bottom lip.

"Why do you use that color?" Amber asked.

"Um, nudes are in?" I gave her a look.

"With your skin color, don't you think a light coral would look better?" Amber replied, her words trailed off as she realized what she had said.

"My skin color?" I snapped, giving her a hard stare.

"Jesus, Aya! Yes, your skin color," Amber retorted. "Your beautiful, honey-brown skin color," she added with a hesitant hint of sarcasm.

I just stared at her, waiting for her to dig her hole deeper.

"I don't know why you are so sensitive about being an Indian," she whispered to herself.

"Native American, not Indian," I snapped.

Amber faced me.

"You don't get to be indignant about it when you don't even claim it," she mumbled.

I locked eyes with her for a second, then turned back to the mirror and finished applying the nude gloss in defiance. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amber look down at her lap. I sighed and focused back on my reflection. My darker skin was so much more obvious now. I had done a good job of ignoring it, but now all I could see was how the nude gloss looked nearly white against my lips. I searched my face and my almond-shaped eyes stared at me accusingly, the mascara not doing anything to make them look wider than they were.

I looked up, avoiding my own stare.

Amber had started gathering her things and was reaching for the bed to stand.

"Sorry," I whispered.

She brushed her hands on her legs.

"It's all good," she denied. Snatching up her makeup bag, she shouldered her purse and pulled out her keys. "I'm gonna go home and find my clothes for tonight."

Without another word, she left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. I watched her go, then dropped my face into my hands. All I wanted was to be like her - like all of them. I had worked so hard to make people forget I was different, but Amber reminded me that no matter how hard I tried, I'd always be Aya, the poor little adopted Indian girl. I growled and threw my foundation bottle at my mirror, screeching when it shattered.

"Great," I exclaimed, staring at the pieces of glass scattered on the carpet. I rolled my eyes and shook my head as looked around for something to put the shards in. Settling on an old shoe box, I set myself to gather up the pieces of mirror and try to salvage my pride before the dinner downstairs began.