Biracial

Chapter 1:

Rashad.

In recent years, the want for a mixed child with light skin and pretty eyes has increased significantly. A lot of times, it's for show. Luckily for me, I was born out of love – not just for the fact that I'd be biracial.

My mother, Melissa, is African American and my father, Brian, is white, but their love sees no color. I wish I could've said the same for my paternal grandparents.

My father's parents didn't believe in interracial anything – dating, marriage, etc. They disapproved of my parents' relationship wholeheartedly and wished for dear life that my father was just going through a phase. It wasn't a phase. He went on to marry my mother and he didn't care if his parents approved. The only reason they came around was because of me, and that was years later. They couldn't fathom not being in their first grandchild's life. So, they sucked it up. It's also worth mentioning that my grandparents finally realized my mother wasn't around for the money, she had her own – so she must've truly loved their son.

My mother's parents, however, didn't care. If who she married was purple, they'd be fine if she was happy with her purple husband and purple children. And that was surprising to most.

What my parents' ethnicities are doesn't matter to me. They're great people and even better parents, and that's all I cared about.

With that being said...

Rashad Lancaster, also known as the half breed or the mixed kid. As a child I really didn't understand what it meant – yes, I knew my parents were black and white, but when people would call me things like 'half breed' as a nickname, it never really clicked that it was a jab at who I was or 'shade'. Being seventeen now, I've learned that it wasn't okay.

My family resides in The City of Angels, better known as Los Angeles. As a child, I attended predominantly white schools and didn't always fit in, which was fine according to my mother. I was too black for the white kids and too white for the black kids. Fortunately for me, I had the pleasure of meeting two students who didn't particularly fit in with the slew of black children either and to this day, we're the best of friends. Camren and Jaxon.

As we got older, our bonds became stronger and with that, we couldn't be separated. We attended the same schools from the time we met until now and had plans to attend the same college or at least stay close by, played the same sports – you name it. When you saw one, the others couldn't be far behind.

East Valley High School is where we found ourselves serving out the remainder of our prison sentence – I mean, our final year of required education. Ah, senior year – what a time to be alive?

We were months into the school year and senioritis was politely handing us our asses. We were always tired and almost drowning in homework and extracurriculars. Anything that would look great on college apps and resumes were being participated in. My main extracurricular in the fall was basketball and, in the spring, baseball. Well sometimes.

See, I had two options: play professional basketball or study the brain and become a neurologist. If I didn't get drafted out of college, then I'd go into medicine and that was gonna be it. No further discussion necessary. Either way, I was determined to make my parents proud.

Speaking of parents again, the house is entirely too quiet.

And it's an eerie quiet, no pots clanking and no bacon sizzling. Let me get my ass downstairs. Unless my parents were extremely busy, we usually had breakfast together. But as I descended the staircase into the kitchen with my bag slung over my shoulder, my suspicions were confirmed. No one was here and there was definitely was not breakfast.