Struggle

Chapter One

It was a day like no others. On the first day of school, Alex and Evelyn met up in line for 5th grade, only to find that their best friend Harper had been spending the whole summer with the most popular girl at their school: Sarah. And to make matters even worse, Harper's personality had changed! She now tied her shirts in knots to make them cropped, and acted more sassy and self righteous. Was she really gone? They tried to talk her out of it, saying that the popular girls were mean and stuck up. "You guys are saying bad things about "popular girls'' but I guess now I'm one of them, and you're basically saying that about me." Harper said, while picking at her nails. Were the popular girls hypnotizing her? As Harper walked away, Alex thought of something to say.
"We're not saying that about you Harper, because you're not even a popular girl." Which only made Harper feel even more mad. Evelyn just stood there, her hands in fists, frustrated and angry. All she could think of in her mind was: What the heck are you doing, Harper?

A few months passed, and Alex and Evelyn still mourned their loss.
"I can't believe that Harper ditched us!" Evelyn exclaimed. She was pacing across Alex's room.
"Well... we don't need her, right? We're fine friends by ourselves! I mean, she never really helped us anyways, right!?!" Evelyn stopped pacing. She forced herself to calm down and then made an obviously fake smile.
"Yeah... sure... totally... yeah, we never needed her." She shifted footing five times and then stopped. "But what are we going to do!?!" she said in a panicked tone.
"Nothing!" Alex said. "We just ignore it!" But in her head she herself, had no idea how to do that. Incidentally, Evelyn was thinking the same thing.
"How are we going to do that!?! I can't ignore anything that big! How can you be so calm right now? Do you even care!?!"
"Of course I care! I just..." Alex trailed off. Evelyn saw a wet streak go down Alex's face. She was crying.
"I'm sorry Alex. I just... I just, I don't know how to deal with this. I've never felt this way before. It feels like... it feels like how it feels when someone dies. It feels like they're gone forever, it feels like they're never coming back, like we've lost Harper FOREVER." Evelyn started to cry too. Alwx walked over and hugged her.
"I feel kind of like that too. I just don't know how to deal with this. Usually I'm the person that everyone comes to for help... but now, now it just feels like I'm the person that has to help you and I have no time to take care of myself!" Alex said, still crying a little bit. They hugged one more time, and calmed themselves down. Evelyn looked down at her watch.
"Oh! I have to go home. My mom said that I had to get back home by seven o' clock."
"Wait!" Alex yelped. "We can't go down there when we look like this!" She motioned towards her face with tear stains streaked across it, and red puffy eyes. They ran over to the full sized mirror on the other side of the room and stared at their faces, just to see how bad it was. They both looked horrid. The parents would obviously notice, and asked what had happened.
"You're right!" Evelyn exclaimed. "We have to do something!" They looked at each other, and knew exactly what the other was thinking: Let's get into spy mode!
"Okay." Alex whispered. "You be lookout and I'll get something to dry our faces off with. Okay?"
"Great idea." Evelyn whispered back, and then they started their operation. Even if it wasn't a big operation, they still made a name for it, just for fun: Operation, find toilet paper and make it back to Alex's room safely without being seen. It wasn't the best name they had ever made up, but they liked it. They barely made it back to the room safely but, happily, they did! They made themselves look normal again, then said their goodbyes.

That night they both dreamed about Harper, but in their dreams, Harper was the most popular girl and she was their biggest enemy. That morning they met up at a certain corner (To be specific, on Hamble street.) They didn't speak the whole way to school, and when they got there, they set their backpacks down in line, and noticed that Harper was right in front of them chatting with the popular girls. It made their hearts feel so heavy, and when the heavy pain went away, it had shattered to pieces, but they also felt, somewhat, happy when they saw how happy and excited she was. She looked happier than they had ever seen her before. Alex and Evelyn locked eyes for a moment, and then jogged away from the other girls. They went to a place that they called "The Rock" and sat down on it.
"Did you see that!?!" exclaimed Evelyn, heartbroken.
"What do you think!?!" Alex answered sarcastically.
"I just want to walk up to them, and beat them up." said Evelyn with a growl. She looked at Alex, who was staring, wide eyed at her. "I didn't actually mean that, it was an exaggeration." she said.
"Okay, sure, I hope it is."

TO BE CONTINUED...