Living in this world takes a lot of grit, poise and strength. Navigating through life with all its natural curvy roads and tricky corners is quite a mission.

Adding to that, the continuous swirl of our dreams, passion, aspirations make this life a kaleidoscope of beautiful shades.

I am Allyssa-Coco Brown. I am on this planet for 5,840 days. I am a human being, at times my species is questionable, but let's not dwell too much on this trivial fact...for now.

Chapter 1

"Mom I need my training shorts for prac today."  

"Sweets, you are 16 years-" my mom says. 

"5,840 days mommy" I correct her through gritted teeth. 

"Okay, okay 5,840 days old, you should be doing this sort of stuff yourself Allyssa, seriously." 

"You are still my primary caregiver," I cheekily respond. I can see my mother mentally rolling her eyes as she turns to face me. 

"Fine, just wear the cycling shorts I put in your cupboard yesterday." I am really trying to control my emotions at this point.

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"Mom, you know I attract too much attention if I wear tight clothing to prac," I try to explain. Let's just say I'm kind of lanky and wearing cycling shorts will draw unnecessary attention to my never-ending thighs, aargh!

My mom continues to go about her morning routine as if we are not on the brink of a mini catastrophe. "Stace will be here in five minutes." I impatiently say. 

"I already gave you a solution." She states matter of factly as she pats me on the shoulder, "Be happy in your skin, love." "Fine, clearly I don't have a choice," I mumble on my way to my room. Right now, my priority is not to miss the first athletic training of the year, I'll just have to deal with the stares and funny remarks when the time comes.

"Morning aunt Mav," Stace, my best friend since kindergarten, greets. 

"Hello, Stacy dear. Are you excited about Grade 10?" She asks. 

"Definitely, we are now officially high school seniors. We can pull rank," she exclaims. 

Mom laughs and says, "Well, all the best for the new school year, bye." She waves in response. 

"Bye, sweets, love you, see you later." My mom says to me. "Love you, too." I grumpily reply.

Stace gets me in a bear hug " I legit can't wait to start this year as a senior, it's going to be epic!"

"Will you please refrain from using teenage slang motivated by your desire to be classified as cool?" I retort.

"Wow, that's quite a mouthful on this breezy Wednesday morning," Stace answers sarcastically.

"I'm sorry, having no choice in wearing cycling shorts to prac has left me feeling a bit cranky and my mom was being so unreasonable, failing to see my point." I moan.

"Just flaunt your assets, Coco, and stop being so dramatic." she encourages.

We walk the rest of the ten minutes to school full of excitement and expectation that this year is going to be a great one.