Love is Hard

Up until I was eight my life was perfect. I had great friends that I played with every day and I got good grades. I liked school and my teachers and they liked me. There was this one boy, though, Jeff, that picked on me, bullied me, and made me feel stupid and ugly. In third grade, my school closed and I had to transfer to another, along with Jeff. Even at our new school he teased me, and he had the other kids do it, too. When I was thirteen I started believing it.

I realized then that I had no social life. All of my friends posted pictures of themselves having sleepovers and hanging out with each other. They had all of these inside jokes that I was never a part of. I hated it, and wanted it to stop. I tried being louder, less quiet and shy. It worked a little, but what still bugged me was that everybody was so judgmental. They based their opinion of you by what you wore and how your hair looked. They were all very wealthy and looked down on me, who was not. I faked it and got by on being first to text people and hoping to God that they respond, but I vowed that high school would be different.

I went to a basketball camp the summer before my first day as a freshman, hoping to make some friends. Not much luck, except that I learned who the coolest girl in school would be. Her name was Erica. She was very athletic and didn’t care what people thought of her. I could be like her, I thought. So on the first day I tried to make as many friends as I could. I met a few girls who had all of my classes, and we became pretty close by the end of the first month. I went to the movies once, and countless football games. I even met a boy that took me to his homecoming. I didn’t really like the boy, but the boy I was supposed to go with blew me off the day before the homecoming, his name was Robby. He was an ass. He dated one of the girls at my school and cheated on her; and he teased my friend, Melanie. My best friend from grammar school had my back, though. His name was Mick. He was like a brother to me. We had our different opinions in books, and politics, and sports, which we always fought about. But it was good, fun fighting. We teased each other about the other’s taste. But he was always there for me when no one else was. I owed him for that. He stood up to Robby and told him what a terrible thing he did and that he would be lucky to take me to his homecoming. I then realized that he had been the boy that I had overlooked my entire life.