Lila's Song

Lila Dawson had always been different. Since she was a little girl, she had known she didn’t fit into the neat boxes the world seemed to put everyone into. While most of her classmates wore matching uniforms, Lila preferred wearing dresses she had sewn herself out of old fabric she found in thrift stores. The colors were bold—vivid purples, greens, and oranges—and so were the ribbons she used to tie up her wild, curly hair. But it wasn’t just her clothes that made her stand out. Lila carried around a homemade ukulele, a beat-up tambourine, and sometimes a flute, all of which she played when she was alone, her melodies swirling through the empty spaces of the schoolyard. She didn’t mind being different. In fact, she liked it. She liked how the music made her feel like she was part of something bigger than herself. But high school wasn’t a place that appreciated uniqueness. It wasn’t that the other students were cruel—most of them simply didn’t know how to deal with Lila. They didn’t understand her music or her style, and that made them uncomfortable. The teasing wasn’t extreme, but it was enough to make Lila shrink away from attention. She tried, in her own way, to blend in—wearing more subdued colors, avoiding the big ukulele when she could—but no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t make herself small enough to fit the mold. It wasn’t until Caleb arrived at Eastbrook High that things started to change.