Chapter 1

Jasmine

My dad only had one rule for me - to live my life cautiously.

I skirt around another block, a new route. I can’t keep count of how many I’ve taken on the same course. It doesn’t matter which roads I take, as long as I end up in UCLA’s 419-acre campus that sits at the base of Santa Monica Mountains, just five miles from the Pacific Ocean. Though I had to admit, navigating unfamiliar streets had to take a considerable amount of time. I never take the same route in a week. I use one twice at most. One thing my father taught me was to never be predictable. Just as much as I was good at looking for patterns even when I was a kid, I was careful not to leave any traceable patterns to myself. My next class is still in the afternoon, but I left the house early. Whether it be time or place, whoever might be watching me - if there’s actually anyone - would find it hard to tell where I am at any specific time of the day.

LA is a dreamy city that isn’t for everyone. There are days that I love it so much and other days I swore I will leave and never come back. I picked up my pace as I walked through the sound of construction, blaring horns, shouting neighbors, sirens blaring. Everything is so loud. Ah yes, LA sounds. My ears twitch as my eyes take in everything before me. I can’t even put on earphones to block all the noise even if I wanted to. I had to use all my senses, not unless I wanted to be dead.

I took a breath of LA air, that would be five dollars. I just took another one. That would be $12.99 altogether. I rounded up a corner to much fancier houses. It’s my first time in this area and obviously a much better neighbourhood than ours.

It’s a beautiful sunny day. I’m so glad to be enjoying the sun; it is our top selling item and will be 7.99 dollars per hour. Cash, debit, credit, or crypto. Unless if you’ve been living under a rock, it’s not new that LA is expensive. Compared to San Francisco or New York, it’s dirt cheap. Depending on what type of dirt. When it comes to the cost of living as a functional and law abiding human of society, some of the essential expenses include rent, transportation, food and surprise - taxes. I would have wanted to live in a 448 square feet studio and pay $2200 rent inclusive of the insane utility bills for taking a hot shower every once or twice a month but I had to sacrifice my quality of living by sharing a bug infested bedroom with my parents while going to college instead.

College, huh? I should be glad I was able to get in to UCLA.  It’s not that hard, really. I decided to take Business Economics with an Accounting minor and I plan on graduating in three years. Not that I was too eager to work, I just want to be able to stand by myself so I could move out of our house as soon as I can. It’s too suffocating. I do survive on scholarships and part time jobs as it is but that almost counts as nothing. I don’t think my life after three years would change too much either.

Another signature trait of LA or California in general, you get heavily taxed. So don’t get too excited about that small pay check coming your way because when you get it, it will be even smaller. State income taxes are just high. Period. This is why a lot of people move to Texas or something. So yeah, you technically do have to pay for that gorgeous weather.

A few more blocks and I’m at our rendezvous point. I thought as I checked on the time. As usual, Louis Carter is cutting it close. That guy never learns. He should at least pretend to care about getting another failure due to absences. If I hadn’t called him earlier in the morning, he still wouldn’t have gotten his ass off his bed by now.

“What’s up, gorgeous?” He greeted me as I got into the passenger seat and fastened my seat-belt. His brown locks are annoying, so is that smile always plastered on his face. He does serve the boy next door type but unluckily for him, that isn’t just my type.

“The sky.” I answered and rolled my eyes at him. Might as well humour the guy.

“Wrong,” he says, followed by that high pitched buzzer sound. “It’s the car ceiling.” He pointed to up. Okay, he got me with that one.

“Jeez, don’t you think the homeless just gets more and more every day.” He commented as we drove off the lot.

It really depends on the neighbourhood but LA has a serious homeless situation.

“But of course not all of them are homeless.” I said absentmindedly.

“What? Did you say anything?” Louis asks, looking briefly towards me.

“Nothing. Just focus on driving.” I told him.

He didn’t need to know that some of those are just pretending to be homeless. It is easy to gather information through the homeless network. And much easier just to be one yourself. But as if I’ll ever get any use for them. Mostly these people stay to themselves but let me tell you LA has some of the most aggressive homeless people I’ve seen. Like they will come up to you, talk to you, sometimes curse you in front of your face or follow you. So either become rich by living in Beverly Hills or Bel Air or don’t be walking down the streets alone at night in downtown LA.

“As if we’re going anywhere at this rate.” Louis says seeing the long line of cars ahead of us. Traffic is such a nightmare. Just like now, we’re basically wasting two hours every day in traffic.

Transportation is both inconvenient and expensive. Uber and Lyft prices are crazy high at peak hours which is almost every hour and parking is for granted not free almost everywhere unless if you want to risk being ticketed or towed away. Thank goodness Louis got a car. Public transportation sucks. Scratch public. Transportation sucks. LA public transportation just doesn’t make sense. Everything is so disconnected and doesn’t really get you anywhere unless if you take a bus, a train, a metro, then two buses or something which is why most people decide to drive a car which is why traffic is so bad. A vicious cycle. And because like I said, Uber and Lyft’s are really expensive here. Oftentimes, I take buses and without commenting on the smell, let’s just say that I’ve seen some interesting, *coughs* horrific, things on the rides like people cursing and all that.

We get to UCLA in due time, at least for Louis who came running to his Intro to Accounting class.

“I’ll see you around.” He waves back and almost bumped into a parade of incoming freshmen.

My phone vibrated and I saw that it was a text from Zoe.

Lunch?

I sent her a thumbs up reply and instantly headed to the Charles E. Young Library where I usually stay at the 4^th or 5^th floor specifically. I don’t know why but I find the endless halls of books really aesthetically pleasing. I would always take the elevator up to the fourth and fifth floor at the yellow library since this place is actually quite a hidden gem. I randomly discovered these floors as really nice corners to study unlike the first floor where everyone goes to or the overcrowded Powell Library where all the tourists and all the UCLA kids go to.

After I burned a few hours at the library I decided to go to B plate. Louis was still in his Game Theory class and I have Econometrics in the next hour. I got Pistachios, French toast, avocados, egg whites, hash browns, strawberries and kiwis. B plate is by far the cutest place that exists at UCLA because no scenery beats the site of B Plate’s with a bowl full of avocados. A few minutes later, I spotted Zoe enter. I waved my hand and she made her way towards my table.

Zoe Parker. The daughter of the UK ambassador and a close friend to the Queen of England. Most people don’t know about it. The information is hidden from the public. She never told anyone about it either but on the other hand, it’s one of the rare occasions where my father told me something. I don’t know if that means I should stick with her or stay away from her. But I guess it was the later. He never tells anything or does anything for nothing.

“Hi,” she says timidly. She’s a pretty girl with caramel colored hair and big blue eyes.

“Hey,” I say and gave her a smile.

“Did you wait long?” she asks, sitting down on the chair in front of me.

“Well, I’ve got good company.“ I tell her, referring to the food. We both laughed. I noticed long ago she does seem to be the kind of person who is shy and with low self-esteem. Which is weird when I know just how rich and powerful her father is.

We walked towards our class right after but I couldn’t concentrate on our lecture at all. Not when Zoe keeps babbling nonsense to me. She seems weirdly excited for some reason.

“By the way, do you remember that Alistair guy I told you before?” she says, whispering beside me.

“Uh, yes? What about it?” I said, keeping my eyes on the professor all the time. It used to annoy her that I don’t look at her when I reply to her but I guess she got used to it especially since I explained to her that I only need my ears and mouth to hold a conversation with her and not my eyes.

“I think he likes me.” she said, covering her face with her book.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Seriously, I mean he kissed me in his car earlier.” she explains, a blush creeping up her cheeks.

I shook my head at her. Sometimes I envy her.

Ignorance is bliss. How can she be so naive? I simply couldn’t afford that luxury.

I still find it silly the way my father brought me up the way he did. I knew it was different to how everyone else around me was raised. I always felt like the odd one out, but it also made me feel special that I knew things they didn’t know. But knowing stuff doesn’t really make my life easier or better. Sometimes, not knowing is better than knowing. I would rather prefer not to be paranoid about little things that can cause me danger especially that I’m not sure if that danger exists in the first place. I never questioned him. I wholeheartedly trusted him and blindly followed what he says. There’s just a lot that people don’t know about me, like my tragic lifestyle.

“Oh, by the way, we’re going to see the Fed tomorrow, aren’t we?” She says when the class was over.

“Oh, yeah. I almost forgot.” I tell her just for the sake of saying something. Of course I didn’t. I never forget anything.

“Then, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” She said, picking up her books.

“See ya.” I replied, doing the same.

“I’ll be in your care.” She waves and I watch her walk away.

I can’t help but feel a bit guilty. I’m not a good person. Even if I wanted to, the world won’t let me. Our friendship wasn’t formed out of good faith. Yet she trusts me wholeheartedly.

For a moment I thought we were the same. Caught up in a complicated circle of life that we are not fully aware of. But the more I look at her retreating figure, the more I am convinced that we are different. That I was different.

While other little girls wore cute dresses, they dressed me up as a boy. Other girls played with Barbies, I was given a toy gun. Other kids were learning how to play music and dance but I was learning martial arts and foreign languages. It’s more beneficial for my situation, is what my father told me. I learned not to let it bother me though. I felt pretty bad ass because of it.

Or maybe I just tell myself that to feel special.

As if I’m a heroine of a movie. Well, my life is far too boring to be a movie, nothing ever happens and sometimes I wish something, anything would happen.