Life can be weird. A person's entire world can be thrown off just because of things out of their control. Sickness. Death. Bad breakups or divorce. Things that could change it all in an instant. I considered myself lucky to have not gone through the pain that many people have, including many members of my family.
My name is Cody Lahote. I grew up in La Push and from the famous founding Lahote family which includes my cousin Paul.
Growing up on the reservation had its perks. We knew basically everyone and they wanted to know us. In spite of our Lahote tempers and our strength. I usually beat Paul in any match of the wits, mainly because I use my brain. I'm told I'm more loyal, compassionate, and selfless than he is, especially towards those I care about. Not that that takes too much.
Not that Paul doesn't care about people, he just enjoys a good fight. Especially if the person in question was pissing him off. Like most boys, I have also gotten in my fair share of fights because of my temper and general hot-headedness. Even if I can think things through better than Paul. We are Lahote's. Thinking is not on my top ten list.
Looking back at my childhood with Paul playing as kids, there was always something to fight about. We'd always get mad at each other for not sharing a toy or doing what the other wanted. Eventually, we would see eye to eye together. Sometimes it took us getting grounded to get there, but we did.
As we got older, we both became more interested in girls. We usually avoided crushing on a girl at the same time. But some girls, everyone loved and wanted them. When we found the same girl attractive, our competitive nature came out. We tried to get the girls to date us both to determine the better man. To be fair, this happened only a few times. It was 50/50 who won. Which did not help us determine the best man for the job?
Now that we are seniors in high school, I hope we both had grown up a little. We still became angry easily, but we were trying to work it out on our own when we fought. It was hard to tell if our fights were better or worse now than when we were a kid. Either way, I was still stronger than Paul had ever thought about being.