Atsuko Okatsuka

She was a poet, too, on top of it.

I was like, wow.

So these were the kinds of girls.

Once I got my driver's license senior year, the captain of the squad, she borrowed my car during lunch, went, got an abortion, came back for six periods.

What were your friends like?

Oh, my God.

So this is the cheerleaders.

When I say, yes, when I say if it weren't for cheer, we would have joined a gang.

These are suddenly my friends in America, you know?

And I was like, wow, like I have been snoozing.

What is this exciting life?

There was, we would go to, one time we went to Denny's parking lot where a fight broke out between the cheer squad and the flag team.

I had never seen such a thing.

We were all in uniforms after.

The cheer team fought the flag team.

Yes, because one of the flag team girls started dating, oh, no, no, no, one of the cheer squad's ex-boyfriends.

And I said, oh, what is this?

And yeah, I was trying to get on board because I'm such a scaredy cat.

I don't fight.

Literally, like the only things I fought or like helped fight are the voices in my mom's head in that garage.