6th grade:
The first month of school was a breeze. I had classes with my friends and my teachers were all lovely. Middle school was nothing like the frightening place my mind had conjured up over the summer. With Danielle in the grade above me, I was able to ask questions about the things I didn't know about middle school. That helped me a lot in the first weeks. I was on my way to language arts with my friends Lilly and Eve. Eve was telling us about her brother, who was in the eighth grade. We got into Mr. Grozny's class and took our seats at our table groups, Lilly and I at one, Eve with this other girl Carrie at another. Mr. Grozny started droning on and I took the time to look around at the people who I had just started to get to know. Our town combined with another for middle school, and then our two towns combine with another for high school. Eve was from the other town, along with a few other kids in our class. That included Sam, the boy I had met at the bonfire over the summer. We had barely spoken, but I knew he recognized me from the looks he would sometimes give me. The quick glances when he thought I wasn't looking, the smiles when I caught him. I was by no means attractive, I was short, chubby, and flat chested with a mouth full of braces. He wasn't looking at me for my looks obviously, but I could tell we both wanted to talk to the other. It didn't happen really until about two months into school. We were on the bus ride to a field trip that the whole sixth grade was going on and I was sitting with one of my closest friends, Maddie Campbell. She was in Sam's homeroom and had become friends with him. She gave me his phone number, which I had programmed into my shiny new Env2. We decided to prank him by texting him and not telling him it was us, even though he was sitting a few seats in front of Maddie and I. We sent him all kinds of mysterious messages, trying to get him to guess who we were. We heard him ask the teacher up front if she knew who it was and we couldn't hold in our giggles. He turned around to see Maddie and I almost crying we were laughing so hard. He gave us a strange look before turning back around. This only set us off more. He eventually guess it when we told him we were on the same bus and that he had two classes with me. We were in literacy and advanced math together. Little did I know this would be the start to one of the best things in my entire life.
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We began texting each other all the time. Everyday like clockwork after school, he'd text me and we would text for the rest of the night. Ours was a friendship founded by texting. We told each other everything, from our likes and dislikes to homework to friends, I knew I could always count on Sam. He was one of the smartest people I knew. Every dilemma I had he knew the answer to. He was a logical thinker and had the ability to sort through my crazy mind and make sense of all of the weird thoughts. He knew what I wanted to hear and how I wanted him to say it. I didn't know how but Sam had figured out how my mind worked faster than anyone I had ever known. It was winter now. He had been texting me for a while now. It was a Friday night, and I was skating on the ice rink in my back yard, which my dad builds every year. Melinda and Mikey were over, our parents inside making dinner. They asked who I was texting so I told them Sam, of course. At the moment, he was questioning who I liked. I told him I didn't really like anyone, despite my growing crush on him. He persisted, telling me it was impossible that I didn't like anyone, even a little bit. I started giving him hints, saying he was in two of my classes. He still didn't get it. I told him I was good friends with him. He asked what he looked like, which I wouldn't answer. I turned the tables on him, asking him who he liked. He said he kind of liked two people. I said if he would tell me one of them, I'd tell him what the boy I liked looked like. He was stupid, or smart depending on how you look at it, enough to accept. He told me he liked Maddie. It was like a stab to the heart, but I knew more than to be overly upset. I should have guessed he would like Maddie. Everyone did. She was tall and skinny, was allowed to dye her hair, and her teeth were straight without braces. Her parents let her wear make-up and things from Abercrombie. We had been best friends since the first grade, but I had always known everyone favored her over me. He asked what the person looked like again and by this time I was done trying to be coy and Maddie-like. I sent him a message that only said " Look in a mirror". He didn't answer for a few minutes and when he did it was with a question. " You like me?" My heart was fluttering but I couldn't just let him do that without adding my usual sass. " No, your twin brother." He said I wasn't funny, but I guarantee he laughed. He told me the second person he sort of liked was me. I knew better than to believe him. My crush was only just starting to develop and he didn't like me, that I was sure of, so I stopped it out, ready to help him get with Maddie. My two best friends, why wouldn't I want them to be together? Of course, Maddie had other ideas. Within two weeks of that night, Maddie was dating a very tall boy named Will and she had set up Sam with her other best friend, who I was not really friends with, more of acquaintances, named Bethany. If only I had stopped Bethany before it was too late.
