I’ve always hated similes. Saying something is LIKE something else is completely stupid. I just don’t see the point; but then again, English was never my strong point. However, there was a simile I heard once that particularly struck a chord with me. I was watching Forrest Gump when I was about twelve. I remember Forrest’s mother saying; “life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” At the time I didn’t really understood what that meant. My parents started murmuring to each other about how true the saying was but I took no notice. When you’re twelve, you don’t take much notice of anything that your parents say.

I’m almost seventeen now. And I still remember that quote even though I haven’t seen Forrest Gump in years. I think I still remember it so well now because it’s totally relevant to my life. My life really is like a box of chocolates, and I just got hazelnut. I hate hazelnut.

Let me explain myself a little bit better. My name is Emily Blake. I’m almost seventeen years old, and I have just completed grade 11 at Palm Waters High School on the Gold Coast of Australia. When I say just, I mean that my eight weeks of school holidays started last week. Next year I’ll be a senior. And this is where my life, which was going along great, suddenly turned into a hazelnut chocolate.

Picture this: Emily Blake. Vice president of the Palm Waters, co-captain of the undefeated senior A netball team. Academically minded. Athletic. Popular. At least, that’s how I saw myself up until a few weeks ago. Two weeks ago I was just about to go into my last week of grade 11, which also happened to be a week of exams. That’s where my life started to slide downhill.

I’d been psyching myself up for what I had predicted was going to be the best summer ever. I had a heap of friends, a great boyfriend, a brother who I worshiped, money and a lot of spare time on my hands. Sounds like the perfect combination huh? I was positive that nothing would go wrong. Turns out, I was wrong. I was about to find out that you should never take anything for granted. My decent into ostracism started with little things. You know how if you pull at one loose thread of a jumper, the whole thing comes undone? It was like that.

Going into grade 12, I’d thought that everyone was beyond throwing poses. Throughout the year most people had settled down and accepted others for who they were; people had gotten over images and labels. We were growing up; or at least that’s what I’d thought. But people are only human, and I’ve learnt now that you shouldn’t expect too much from them. They’re fickle, needy, confusing and have this overwhelming need to always have the one thing that they feel is missing from their life. And what’s cool today won’t be tomorrow. I guess I was flavour of the month.

I noticed that my boyfriend Sam was becoming increasingly cagey and unavailable. My group of friends, who I had thought were incredibly close, started to fight amongst themselves. My best friend started skipping school frequently to hang out with her dropkick boyfriend. I’ve always been pretty popular, with a lot of friends from heaps of different groups. I never really had a label either. I played netball and surfed, but I wasn’t really a jock. I tried hard at school and got good grades but wasn’t considered a nerd. I don’t know what I was. Doesn’t matter now though. I’m virtually nothing. I’m a loser.

You know that stage you go through when you’re about thirteen, that stage where you feel really insecure and lonely and you don’t know where you fit in? I’m going through that stage again, four years late.

I’ve gone from being popular to not in a matter of about a week. And I have no idea how it happened. Before, the name Emily Blake had commanded attention. Now, people are like, ‘Emily who?’ Sam’s still not talking to me. Sophie’s still not coming out of her house. Ella still doesn’t want to be around me. Which explains why I’m sitting on my bed on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, writing in this little book aunty Robin got for free at some librarians conference. A few minutes ago I leaned over to check my phone, just in case I’d gotten a message. I wasted my time. My phone has been pathetically silent for days now.

I guess my troubles could seem trivial to someone suffering from a life threatening disease, or to someone who’s pet toad was just devoured by the family dog. But my problems really don’t seem all that trivial to me. My aunty who’s a librarian suggested to me that I write everything down. She reckons it’s a good way to sort though stuff that’s bugging you. Normally I think Aunty Robin is a sandwich short of a picnic, but for once one of her ideas made some sense to me, so here I am.

I’ve been a loser for about a week now. I hate. But I still haven’t really explained how it happened right? You probably think that it’s not that easy to go from popular to unpopular in a matter of a week. It is. Trust me. This is how it happened…