Angel Eyes

Gisselle Steel

I've never made a single friend that is my age, in all my seventeen years. It's not that I haven't tried believe me I have. I was homeschool most my life. I tried going to school at third grade, my first day there everyone already new each other. I grew up in a small town near North Carolina. There was less than three hundred kids, at the elementary school I went to. I tried saying hello but as I tried approaching them my hands got clammy, my stomach started turning, and the words got stuck at my throat. The teacher noticed my struggle to socialize. She tried introducing me to other friendly students but it was no use, I couldn't even bring myself to say hello. Some students did try talking to me, but I guess they got tried or annoyed that I never responded or replied back to them that they gave up trying to be my friend. My teacher got concerned about my silence and extreme shyness that they thought maybe it was problems at home. My mother and the school principal got involve and so did the school psychologist. That's when we found out I have social anxiety disorder.
My mother blamed it on herself for it, because I never really needed to talk at home. My mother is deaf so instead of learning to talk I learned to sign. I had trouble with pronouncing words and talking to others. So my mother tried to help me by hiring me a speech therapist. I didn't have a full on conversation with anyone besides my therapist, until I was thirteen and that was with my neighbor also know as my baby sitter, Molly Fredrickson.
Molly is more like an older sister to me than a friend. She is three years older than me, and I've known Molly since I was four years old. She is the most talkative person you'll ever met. She dresses a lot like Harper Finkle from wizards of waverly place, and they have the exact same hair color too. She also talks and thinks a lot like Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. A lot of people make fun of her. But like Luna she didn't really care or mind. Molly was our closest neighbor, she only live four miles down from where we lived. We would play almost every weekend together. She learn sign language just so she could ask me to play with her. When Molly was in her Freshman year she introduced me to her new friend, Gabriella Campbell. Ella is the daughter of our small town pastor, Noah Campbell. She too is an outcast like Molly and I. Ella reminded me a lot of Grace Bowman from The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Ella is kind, loving, and selfless. She always has a smile on her face, and she is always doing community work. The reason they would make fun of Ella is because the way she dresses. Ella's dad never let her wear makeup or shave, and she wasn't allowed to wear shorts or mini skirts, not even bathing suits. So Ella was always seen wearing long shirts, sweater, leggings, she was only allowed to wear shorts dresses or skirts if she wore tights underneath. Both Molly and I took Ella in as our friend and since then every weekend we spent our time together. Both Molly and Ella were my closest friends.
But even with Molly and Ella I felt like the third wheel. Molly and Ella went to the same school together, they were both the same age. They were closer. Yeah, sometimes they fill me in on what's going on but even then, I still felt left out. But I've had books, never really saw the importance of having a best-friend. But I want one. I want to fit in, though I never said it out loud.
Things changed even more in junior year. When Molly feel in love with Peter Jones.