I was holding onto the edge of the swimming pool in the deep end, watching people dive off the board. Some kids would bounce a couple times for maximum air, and do some kind of cool trick. Others tried to make the biggest splash they could possibly make. I wanted to jump too, but was too afraid to approach the other kids.

I bobbed up and down in the water a couple times before completely submerging myself. Trying my best to be a rock, I sank as far down as I could; as far away from everyone else as possible. I counted the seconds, and when my lungs started to burn, I let myself float slowly back up above the water.

I did this until, after several times of breaking through the water, I found myself clutching the side of the pool next to a girl with long black hair. I could tell she was older than me, and I knew I had seen her somewhere before, but I couldn’t decide where. I didn’t get a chance to ask.

“Let’s play a game!” she said enthusiastically.

Normally this would have been strange to me, but for some reason, this time, it felt like I was just meeting up with an old friend. We spent the rest of the time seeing who could hold their breaths under water the longest.

***

“I hate you! I hate all of you! I should have never come to this stupid school!”

I screamed at my fifth grade P.E. classmates as I held one hand up to my throbbing right eye. I’d had several straws picked at, and getting hit in the face with a soccer ball was the very last one. I could no longer contain my anger as I let my class know exactly what I thought of them. The substitute P.E. teacher didn’t say a word as she led me over to the side lines to cool down, and inspect my face.

Moving to a new school did not meet my expectations. Despite having lived in the town my new school was in for most of my life, I had been going to the school in a different town where my mother worked because it was more convenient to just catch a ride with her. The old school had been great, but my parents knew I would want to be in sports (I laugh at this now), or Marching Band, or other school activities. It would be a huge expense for me to commute to practices all the time.

I was excited to move. I knew I was leaving a lot of really good friends behind at my old school, but I felt confident I would make new ones here.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much going for me from the get go.

First of all, my previous mascot was the Trojan. For those of you who have not already chuckled, or sadly nodded your head in understanding, the Trojan is not only a brave warrior, but also a brand of condom. Not only that, but my old school was also, for some stupid reason, the new school's biggest rival. No one ever called me a condom personally, but there were quite a few who felt the need to say, “Haha! You guys are condoms!” There was also a never ending supply of insults, and hateful comments about my old school’s sports teams.

Like any awkward middle schooler, I had my quirk. At the time I refused to wear jeans. I had a thing about itchy clothes, and jeans were super itchy, so I had multiple pairs of matching sweats and sweatshirts from all spectrums of the rainbow. I was not hard to miss.

Oh, I had a good run right out of the gate though. My first day of school I managed to find the most comfortable pair of jeans (if there was such a thing at the time), do my hair, and wear a ghastly amount of eyeliner. I. looked. Hot. (in my 11-year-old mind).

I’ve noticed a trend with the popular crowed. Whenever fresh meat is brought in, they drool over it, but when they discover it doesn’t live up to their expectations they leave it for the flies. This was me on my first day. I was immediately invited to lunch, which was actually more like an interview. Strike one was that I was from the rival school, obviously, because who can get along these days? Strike two was my taco.

I was so excited that tacos were for lunch. Maybe a little too excited because I freaking loaded that thing. Having overestimated the maximum capacity of the tortilla, I ended up making a mess on my tray when attempting to eat it. The popular kids thought that was, “So gross!”

That freaking taco screwed me over. Whatever, true friends wouldn’t care about how I ate my tacos, right?

I’m pretty sure strike three was the way I dressed. Like I said before; sweat suits of every color. The "looking cute" thing did not last long.

Don’t fret though. I had friends on reserve. My next door neighbor, and childhood friend was at this school which, don’t get me wrong, it was awesome, but it wasn’t enough to quench the hatred which was slowly building inside for this school.

Thus is middle school. There is nothing wrong with my old school, and there is nothing wrong with my new school, as far as I see it. I am merely a victim of circumstance, and bad fashion sense apparently. Today, I love both schools, but this is about fifth grade, and fifth grade was a confusing, irrational, and angry time where too many stressful things took place all at once.

It wasn’t long before I was begging my mom to let me go back to my old school for sixth grade. I missed my friends, kids were mean to me, a certain teacher was mean to me, and I just felt like a total outsider. She wouldn’t let me, but of course my parents didn’t just not do anything about it. The teacher who had made me cry on several occasions had been talked to, and I had talked to the school counselor and resolved some things with a couple of the kids, but of course it wasn’t enough to just have problems inside school.

My dad had been sick from West Nile Virus for a while which was hard to cope with, and without delving too far into the technicalities it made things so hard to cope with that in the midst of spring my parents decided to get a divorce.

Now I was the maddest eleven-year-old on the face of the planet. I was good and ready to explode, and all it took was a soccer ball to the face.

As I sat, fuming on the sidelines, I knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it didn’t matter if it was. I was just fed up. There was no going back to my old school. I wanted to be in extracurricular activities so badly. All I could do now was hate everyone, and let them know how much I hated them.

“Do you want to go back in and play?” The substitute teacher asked me gently.

I wouldn’t look at her. I kept my eyes on the infuriatingly green grass.

“No. My face still hurts.”

***

My friends tried to console me (God bless them for putting up with my irrationality), but for the first time since arriving at the school, I wanted nothing more than to be an outsider. I had humiliated myself on more than one occasion, and I just didn’t want any more attention. Even if it was good.

I walked alone through the busy hallway, thinking about what kind of story I could fabricate to see if I could finally convince my mom to let me go back to my old school when I felt my body suddenly jolt forward. I was able to catch myself with my other foot, and just barely caught a glimpse of the jerk who had tripped me. This wasn’t the first time he’d done it either.

I stood there in the middle of the hall just overflowing with anger as the excited middle schoolers pushed past me on their way to the buses. I just wanted to scream. I wanted to hit someone. I wanted to throw someone down, and scream at them about how unfair it was. About how unfair it was that I had to leave my old friends. That I felt more alone than I ever had before. That my dad had gotten sick, and my parents had divorced. That a jerk kept tripping me in the hallways, and that soccer had just been ruined for me for the rest of my freaking life!

“Hi.”

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a soft cheerful voice. I swung around to see a girl walking past me, smiling. She had long black hair.

“Hi.” I said with a broken voice as I watched her prance cheerfully away. It was the girl from the pool.

I’m not going to say this changed my entire perspective, but it did make me feel better. It wasn’t until then that I realized this girl had been saying hi to me every time she saw me weather I said it back, or not, and she always said it with a smile. Every time she did this it made me feel good about myself. The fact someone besides the few friends I had seemed to like me was enough to make me hate my situation just a little bit less.

I wanted to be this girl’s friend, and the only way to do that was to stay at this new school.

***

It was freshman year. Middle school and all of its immaturity was far behind me now. I had accomplished things. I was the youngest person to get into the drum line in a long time, I had made more friends, I was doing well in school, and I was happy with how things were going.

During the second semester, Health was one of my favorite classes. Not because it was interesting, but because the work was easy, and when you finished quickly you could just hang out and talk with your friends. This class is where I met one of my best friends, Lucas. We had been in Drama class with each other for half the year, but I was too awkward to make conversation with people on the other side of the room. Thankfully we became acquainted through a mutual friend during Health in the second semester.

In eighth period Drama I sat clear to the right side of the room. Even though I was friends with Lucas now, I still felt I might be stepping over some kind of boundary if I went and sat with his friends. So I took my seat far, far away from them as usual, but before class started someone walked up behind me and flipped my pony tail. I whipped around to find Lucas staring at me quizzically.

“Why don’t you come sit with us?” He asked.

“Oh…I…” I leaned over and looked at the rest of the group he usually sat with, and then looked back up at him, “Would it be okay with them?”

“Yeah! Come on.”

I followed behind him like a lost puppy to the other side of the room where a group of friends sat, laughing together. I knew she had been in the same class with me, but I was always way too shy to say anything to her. The girl with the black hair was one of the friends among Lucas’s group.

“Hi!” She said immediately upon catching sight of me.

“Hi.” I replied quietly, taking the desk next to her.

“What’s your name?”

“Oh…uh…I’m Gabby.”

She smiled. Like she had been waiting to hear that for a long time.

“My name is Katie. Are you going to be sitting with us now?”

“Um…if that’s okay-”

“Of course it is!”

Little did I know that Katie, the girl from the pool, the girl who lifted my spirits by saying hi to me every time she saw me, the girl with long black hair would become one of my best friends, and would one day say to me, “I saw you all the time. The first time I saw you was at a birthday party. That’s how I knew you at the swimming pool. I thought you were so cool. I said hi to you all the time in the hallway. I’ve always wanted to be your friend. And now I am!”

After she said that, she hugged me tightly, and in that embrace I felt warm and loved, and immensely thrilled that I made the decision to stay right where I was at.