Chapter 1

| September 6th| Monday |

"Luz, are you ready?" I hear my dad shout from downstairs. "In a second!" I yell back before grabbing my backpack. Then I put it on and make my way downstairs.

Hi, I'm Luz, 18 years old and am a senior in high school.

I'm half white and half Puerto Rican. My mom was white and I got her eyes, that's pretty much the only things I want to know about her. My dad doesn't like to talk about her and I understand that.

Last year I started to hit the gym and do martial arts. I was a quick learner and I'm now stronger and faster. I used to be the fat kid, who got made fun of. The girl everyone thought was funny but not attractive enough for more. While I look different now I'm still the bullied fat kid inside.

The person who supported and helped me through this journey was my best friend Ben.

We know each other since preschool and have been inseparable ever since. He's the best friend you could ask for. He's funny, kind, helpful and always manages to make me smile, even when I'm sad. Ben was also the first person I came out to. When I told him he already knew. He said something about kind of noticing a few years ago, but didn't say anything, since he waited for me to be ready.

"You can't be late on your last first day of school?" Dad asks while raising his eyebrow at me, giving me a teasing smirk. I roll my eyes but smile. "School doesn't even start for an hour!" I groan before walking over to my suitcase. Dad just laughs before opening the door. We then both walk out and get into his car.

"You know you don't have to drive me." I tell him as he starts driving but dad just smiles at me. "I won't see you as much as I used to now. Let me have this." He mumbles and I smile at that. "Also you don't have your license, so how else would you get there?" He adds jokingly, which makes me laugh.

My dad is the best.

I never met my mom, she left right after I was born, so it was just me and him for a while. But then he met Lucia, his wife.

She's great, I've never seen my dad this happy. Just the year after they started dating Lucia got pregnant with Xavier.

He's three years younger than me and he's awesome. We get along really well and he's super funny and kind, the best half brother I could've wished for. Since Xavier has a doctors appointment this morning I haven't seen them yet.

The car ride is about 30 minutes. When we arrive I say goodbye to my dad and then make my way to my first class, which is PE, yay. I used to not love PE so much because of my bad asthma but since I got bitten by the spider it's gone. Let's just say Ben and I have always been kind of losers. Well we don't really stand out, besides getting bullied by the popular kids.

Right when I walk around the corner to the gym I find Ben waiting in front of the girls change room. When he sees me his face lights up and he starts to smile. "Hey!" He jogs over to me and pulls me into a hug. "Hey, how was Greece?" I ask with a smile as I hug him back. "Awesome!" He exclaims as we pull away again. "How were your holidays?" Ben asks with a curious look, raising his eyebrow at me.

I shrug. "Pretty boring, actually. But Xavier and I went on a few trips. That was pretty cool." I answer casually, smiling. "I saw your gym tik toks. Dude, you look great!" He tells me, which makes me smile. "Thanks."

I've been filming my journey since I've started. At the beginning it was just for me to see the progress but now it's for other people to see my journey and get motivated too. I already got a few DMs that I helped some people, which feels amazing. On my tik tok account I post mostly everything about gym. My work out routine, my meals and also some tutorials. Overall I got over the past few months around 350k followers.

"Move." A guy suddenly says and pushes Ben away, so two girls can go into the change room. The guy is Aiden White, rugby player and biggest bitch ever.

I didn't catch who the other girl was who walked past us inside the change room but the one whose eyes I caught was Samantha white.

Most popular girl in school, head cheerleader, Aiden's little sister and..my crush. Look- I don't even get why I like her. I don't even know her, besides that she's Aiden's sister. But she's just so..hot. And smart and kind and beautiful. Why does she have to be my type? When I told Ben that I'm into her he almost spit out his drink. And then he just laughed at me. He knows as much as I do that it's a lost cause and will never happen. Not like I want it to happen, or do I? But she doesn't even look at me, so not happening.

Ben just rolls his eyes at Aiden and sighs. "I have to go get changed. See you later inside." He says with a small smile and then gives my shoulder a patt before going into the boys change room. So I make my way into the girls change room. When I'm inside I go over to the bench and put my backpack on it before taking out my gym clothes. After that I take off my hoodie and my pants to put on the gym clothes.

"Bro, since when are you jacked?!" I suddenly hear my other friend, Lauren say, which makes me jump a little.

Since I used to wear baggy clothes all the time. I even did that until summer break. I mean..I still do it but now I'm a little more confident in my body, so I wear more fitting clothes here and there. But since it's pretty cold outside I'm mostly wearing pump covers, so you can't Se much unless I take off my clothes lol.

I chuckle at that as I look down at my body with a shrug. "Looking good." She adds with a smile before sitting down on the bench. As I put on my gym shorts I can't help but glance over to Samantha for a second. She's talking to some of her friends, other cheerleaders, not noticing me. But then she suddenly looks over to me, which makes my eyes widen. I quickly look away at that. But someone I can't stop myself from looking back over to her, carefully. I catch her eyes glancing down at my stomach and then looks away. That action makes my heart skip a beat.

But then I snap back to reality and get ready for PE.

——

This was the first chapter.

I hope you all enjoyed it!