Kenzie's Time to Meet the World

~9~ Popularity. Oh, and Personality Changes ~<3~

"If you have friends who actually like you, you're popular enough." - E. Lockhart, 'Real Live Boyfriends'

(Oct. 14) Popularity is something we as humans can get addicted to. We strive to be known by a group of people. But we learned this week that that's not what matters, especially if you don't be yourself.

~<3~

( Song (don't hate me, but I was clueless and this song is super catchy) ~ Popular - Wicked)

We stood in the hallway of the school. "Look what's happening; look what's coming," Riley said excitedly.

"What's coming, crazy?" Maya asked, humoring her.

"Invitations... to the seventh-grade parties. It's begun. We could be party girls. I'm going to need a party-girl walk." She then proceeded to do one of the craziest walks I'd seen in my life.

"Yeah, that's not it," I noted, adjusting my backpack. Riley just kept going.

"You know, there are going to be boys at these parties. But not just any boys. No, opposite-sex boys. They're the best kind."

"No kidding." This is bad.

"Yeah, you sound ready for this."

"Oh, I am. And I may just be the first girl who crosses over from our side of the room to the..."

"Yeah, it's gonna be us." Maya and I chorused after pausing for a moment.

"Yeah, it's gonna be you," Riley said at the same time. "You know what pretty-boy hipster is handing out invitations to... don't you?"

"A party?" I asked confusedly as she tapped me on the shoulder.

"Membership cards to the popular club."

Maya groaned. "Why can't you just let it be a party?"

"Yeah, it sounded normal when it was just a party."

"Because this is it, right here. This where you two go one way and I go the other way. You get the invite and you marry pretty-boy hipster and his best friend and I end up marrying Anthony Delveccio and we buy things in bulk. You're gonna be popular. I'm not." She started rubbing Maya's hair. "Good for you." She started rubbing mine. "Good girls. Bye-bye, Maya. Kenz." She started sobbing. "Bye-bye."

At that moment, "Pretty-Boy Hipster" walked up, holding out his arm to give Riley an invitation. She moved his arm to face us. He moved it back. "Yay! For me. Girls, I know you didn't get one, but is it okay if I'm really happy?"

"You go get 'em, tiger." Riley "party-girl" walked out.

"I love you, but you're a lot of work." I said before the two of us "party-girl" walked out.

~<3~

We walked into history class and Riley walked straight to Matthews' desk, her invitation on it. "Boom!"

He picked it up. "You got invited to something?"

"So much for genetics, baby."

"Ooh, seventh-grade party. Yup, I didn't get invited to a whole lot of these. Your mom did," He pointed to me. "but not me. Good for you. I'm proud of you. Boy-girl party?"

"Yup."

Then both Riley and Cory chorused. "You can't go."

"May we approach?" Yeah, we got the gist of things by now.

"Hurry, please." They chorused again.

"We're gonna keep your young'un out of trouble, sir."

"Yup, she's safe with us."