The lake’s brightly tinted water sloshed around lightly in both the wind and the wooden boat’s movement. The brisk breeze blew through Kaiya’s face, which was both slightly irritating and refreshing.

Some of the partially rapid movements of the water were influenced by the fish in the lake, and that day they were looking particularly fat.

“Looks like we’re eating good tonight.” Kaiya’s dad, Jahseh, exclaimed with a bright smile spread on his face.

Kaiya didn’t say much, instead opting to just grin.

“That’s only if we catch it.” Jahseh proclaimed once again. He handed Kaiya the fishing rod - hook, bait, reel and all.

Kaiya handled the equipment with excessive care as she tossed the mono filament fishing line into the waters. She quickly reeled it back, almost embarrassed, as she stuck on bait and threw it back in. Then, she began to relax again, as she waited. And waited. And waited.

Jahseh cleared his throat. “How’s school going?”

“It’s going okay.”

“Getting good grades?”

Kaiya nodded. “Got an A on my last test.”

Jahseh smiled. “That’s my girl.”

Kaiya wrinkled her nose at the cliche, but chose to ask a different question nonetheless. “Why did you bring me out here?”

“Take a look and try guess.”

Kaiya was heavily muddled but just as she was about to look around, she felt a strong tugging force on her fishing rod. Suddenly, she had to pay extra attention to it. She reeled it in with all the force she possibly could.

“Ughhhhhh,” Kaiya groaned, nearly unintelligibly. “How big is it?”

Finally, after all of her energy was put into it, she was able to get the fish inside their cooler.

“Catch and release?” Kaiya asked.

Jahseh shook his head. “It’s too big. Now, look around.”

The timing couldn’t have been better. As Kaiya looked up and around, she saw a beautiful big ball of canary yellow and blood red colors hang in the lower part of the sky and a hazy feeling hang in the air. The sunset wasn’t any regular sunset.

“Golden hour,” Kaiya dazedly mumbled, almost completely awestruck. “How didn’t I see this before?”

“Because you were too busy thinking about other stuff. You didn’t relax and think about the moment.”

Kaiya nodded, her focus still fixated on her surroundings. Her eyes were stuck on it for so long, it began to slowly go away. The yolk-like colored sun began to fade off in the horizon, the beautiful shades of hundreds of different colors began to simplify and the golden hour transitioned to dusk. She could even Jahseh paddling back to shore.

“You got school tomorrow, remember?” Jahseh reminded Kaiya.

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“Relax…” Kaiya droned, her trance coming to a disappointing end. “And think about the moment.”

“Moment’s over. C’mon, we gotta make dinner.”

Kaiya followed Jasheh. “Fine. Let’s make Brown Stew Fish.”

“Alright, alright…”

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The next day followed the repetitive but certainly not boring sequence and routine Kaiya followed everyday. To any person, it would be out of the ordinary and maybe even exciting, but to Kaiya it was nearing ennui.

And to kick off the cycle, the day started with her daily dose of news.

It usually varied day to day what it was going to be about, but most of the time it was just a student committing a heinous crime. She either got her newspaper from the library or heard it from a student in the halls. It was usually the latter.

And the bell signaled the continuation of the cycle.

One thing that made life at that school tolerable was her best friend, Lynn. Unfortunately, to the worst of her luck, she only had sixth period with her, and by then she was already exhausted.

First period, which was English, was easily her most chaotic hour.

Kids throwing paper airplanes, couples kissing, and of course, Madison arguing with Mr. Thompson.

Kaiya didn’t pay too much attention to the rivalry, but it made sense if you really thought about it. Mr. Thompson was a biased, corrupt and also really mean teacher. Madison was a confrontational, brassy, sassy, and foul-mouthed teenager. It was chaos in the making.

Kaiya sat at her usual spot at the very back of the classroom. She didn’t know a lot of the students in her first hour except for Kareem, DeAndre, and of course Madison.

Kareem sat three seats to the right, DeAndre was almost always late so it didn’t even matter and Madison was unlucky to sit one seat behind the front seat.

Another thing Kaiya really hated about the school was their desperate need for a larger budget. They had switched from a more comfortable beige suede color and fabric to a monotone and less comfortable cheap plastic. Lockers weren’t much better, since they easily broke, and-

“Kaiya?”

Kaiya snapped from her daydreaming. “Huh?” She looked around to see a thousand pupils staring straight at her soul. Her only guess was that she missed a question.

“Uh, what was the question?”

“What is an anecdote?”

“Short…funny story with like a point…”

Mr. Thompson crossed his arms. “Pay attention next time, Kaiya. I know you’re better than this.”

Kaiya nodded, and it didn’t take long for class to conclude after that. It was just another forty minutes or so of suffering.

After ten more minutes of Mr. Thompson’s constant, consistent and boring yapping, everyone was excused to form study groups in preparation for the test next week.

Kaiya was pretty good friends with Kareem, but she knew he was working with Madison since they were dating. That left her with two choices - work alone, or work with DeAndre. Kaiya opted for the latter.

“Yo, DeAndre, want to work together?”

DeAndre looked up from his phone. “Huh?”

“Study group?” Kaiya inquired.

“Oh, sure. Yeah, you’re smart, right?”

Kaiya could almost feel Kareem watching from a distance, and could also feel his overly energetic grin.

“I guess,” Kaiya replied, sitting down on an empty chair next to him.

“Okay, so this is about elements of stories and different types of stories, right?” DeAndre asked.

Kaiya nodded.

“Alright bet, hit me with a question.”

Kaiya picked up the notes sheet and carefully chose a question - not too easy and definitely not too hard.

“What’s the five elements of plot?”

“Setting…theme-”

“No, no, like on the mountain.”

“Oh. Exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution.”

Kaiya smiled. “Correct.” She made the decision to increase the difficulty, one she would soon come to regret.

“Okay, what’s another way to say resolution?”

DeAndre pondered on it before presenting his irrational answer. “Falling action.”

“Wh-no. No. No, you’re completely wrong. Try again.”

Kaiya could now hear Kareem in a fit of laughter, before Madison ended it with a striking punch to his stomach.

“Is it…oh, rest area.”

“How did you even come up with an answer like that?”

“At the bottom of mountains,” DeAndre stated, a little bit too confident, “There’s rest areas. It only makes sense for there to be a rest area at the end of a ‘plot mountain.’”

Kaiya wanted to facepalm, but instead chose to give him the sheet. “My turn.”

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“Dude, why were you laughing so much?” Kaiya asked, playfully nudging Kareem’s elbow.

“Any interaction between you and DeAndre, or Madison, or Anastasia, is just comedy gold.”

“Fair.” Kaiya said, way too much happiness on her face. “It’s so boring over here, want to get lunch at the new Mexican restaurant? I’ve always wanted to try it out.”

Kareem thought about it for a few seconds. “I would, but it sounds too much like a date. Madison would be against it.”

Kaiya nodded. “Also fair.”

As they continued to walk down the halls, they came across a puffy, red eyed Lynn covered in an ocean of tears with messy hair trying to piece together broken, colored glass that seemed to form a picture. Kaiya was able to put two and two together - her mosaic was broken.

Kaiya immediately dropped to the floor and hugged Lynn. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Five-five thousand dollars.” Lynn stuttered on her words, nearly choking on her tears as she continued to weep.

Kareem stood there, a little bit confused, until momentarily hugging Lynn and comforting her. “Okay, but can you tell us what happened?” He asked after a minute or so.

“I entered an art competition last month,” Lynn said in between spells of salty water spilling from her eyes, “And I used this mosaic. I won, but they wanted to see it in person but when I came to check on it, it was broken. There’s a note.”

Kareem and Kaiya both looked around and found a note right next to the lockers. “Silly art, nigga!” Kareem spoke out loud.

Kaiya, a strong expression of concerning on her face, turned to the note. “Maybe we should go to that restaurant. We can talk there. Sounds good?” She asked Lynn, still in a tight hug with her.

Lynn slowly and weakly nodded. Kareem pulled out his phone. “I would, but one more tardy and I’m getting detention, and I have a hockey game tonight.”

“Is this a regular season game?” Kaiya asked.

“Ye-”

“Then you’re coming, let’s go.”