I was never the type to stand out. I wasn't extremely beautiful nor did I have some amazing prodigal talent. I went to highschool and I followed the crowd, flowed with the wind and never went against the current. I had dull dark brown hair and even duller brown-grey eyes. My facial features were average and so was my life. I didn't play sports or a musical instrument, nor was I some prodigy artist. I got average grades and lived an average life; well almost average. Before my freshman year, I lived with my mother and her late husband. I was never an extremely happy child even before the crash. I loved my mom and the man I called father, given I didn't actually know who my sperm donor was. We lived in a small home on the corner street of a small neighborhood in East Los Angeles. My mother went to work at a family owned taqueria and my dad went to work as an Über driver, leaving me to take myself to and from school. I had average friends and an average social status. Never had a super bestest of best friend and I never really got so close to somebody to where they were my world. I didn't have some amazing or special story about my birth and I didn't have some tragic background. Why my mother decided to name me Emily instead of a Mexican name that would display my heritage is beyond me; though my father says it's because she was expecting a boy and had originally planned to name me Emil. And then when I got into eighth grade, things began to crumble. My mother who worked at the taqueria was shot in a neighborhood shooting and my dad packed us up and moved us to Maine. He still worked as an Über driver and money became tight. We got behind on our bills and he started borrowing money from loan companies and people off the streets; and then it happened. He got into a fatal crash, drove himself off a bridge when he was I intoxicated. I was put into an orphanage and made to work to pay off my father's debts. And when I finally had them payed off, my life took a turn for the worse once again. I was raped. By the time I was in my sophomore year of highschool I was diagnosed with chronic depression. I got involved with the wrong crowd and got into drugs. And one night, when enough was enough, I tried to kill myself by overdosing. I only succeeded in landing myself in a coma. I guess I wasn't meant to die just yet. All my life is gone thinking I was nothing more than human. But maybe I'm more, and maybe that's why I'm still alive. My name is Emily Lopéz, and this is my story.