Someone impersonated my sister and invited me to the shadiest part of Los Angeles.

Last year, I started law school in Los Angeles.

I have never lived in a big city before and I was really excited to be in a massive city with over four million people.

Ever since I was little, I always knew I had a half-sister in LA, but my parents had this weird anger toward her that always made it feel like a taboo topic. Of course I had looked her up on social media and I knew what she looked like, but that was about all. We had never actually met. She was never that active on social media so there wasn't a lot I could see.

Out of nowhere one day in my first year of law school, I got a friend request on Facebook from my sister. Her profile seemed legitimate, she had Facebook friends, and her profile picture looked like her.

She sent me a message inviting me to a little dinner party at the park with her friends. We could finally meet each other for the first time. I was new to LA (still am) and I had no idea which parts of the city to avoid at night.

I was so excited about that idea, but I had a lot of anxiety about it too. It would be nice if we met, totally clicked, and became besties for life. But what if we ended up sobbing like we were in some dramatic movie scene? What if I tried to talk with her, and she just didn't click with me, and she started showing me an attitude? Or worse—what if it's all going well until we have some kind of disagreement, someone said something hurtful, and then we were both crying in front of everyone?

Honestly, if she had suggested a cozy little bakery for desserts instead, I would have gone. But going to a park with other people didn't feel right. I thought it was like such a precious moment that I didn’t want to have in front of all these other people.

I couldn’t bring myself to go. I didn’t want to risk having a meltdown in front of other people. I was worried about how messy it could get.

A few weeks later, I googled that park just to see what it was like. Maybe we could meet up there together, just one on one. That's when I learned something was wrong.

I won't say the name of the park, but anyone who has lived in LA for long will tell you that it's NOT a safe place for girls to be having a dinner party at night. The area surrounding that park has very high violent crime rates. It's controlled by gangs. Even people who do illegal business in that park are forced to pay a "tax" to the gang in exchange for being left alone.

So now I was really concerned and curious.

I actually tried to get ahold of my sister myself. She was an undergrad at the time, a local college. I had a friend who went to her school. I asked my friend to reach out to her on campus and ask her if she'd be ok with meeting us. They connected and the three of us met at my friend's house.

It was great. We got along so well. My friend was also very happy to do that for us. The three of us had so much fun. We weren't bursting in tears but we let out a few. We had dinner, we watched a movie, and we spent the night at my friend's house.

When I told my sister about that whole thing, she said she hadn’t used Facebook since high school—so clearly someone was impersonating her. I would have told her to report the fake account but it had already been deleted.

She knew she had been impersonated on social media though. Another one of her friends had been scammed by someone pretending to be her. It was some scheme involving fake concert tickets or something like that.

Someone had been impersonating my sister; they knew I was in town, and they literally tried to lure me into one of the most dangerous parts of LA at night. I have no idea what their motives were. I don't know if I even want to find out.

Meeting my sister after all these years was a beautiful thing but the whole backdrop was terrifying.