So, I'm trying out writing in a style with vignettes. I thought of this title today, and had to get it out there quickly. There's a lot to be said for zoning out in - oh, the irony - English class!

Each chapter has a song title. At the end, it will be the soundtrack of the narrator...

This chapter:

Dark Blue by Jack's Mannequin

Enjoy!

The funny thing about my friends – when I first met all of them, we didn’t all really get along so great. And we weren’t all best friends right off the bat. Some of us were enemies, some of us were freaks, and some of us were just... outcasts.

I first met Emma in sixth grade orientation. It was when we were supposed to be getting introduced to our teachers and learn the layout of the school. It was when we were supposed to make new friends.

It had the opposite effect. The orientation didn’t have the welcome mat we all wanted and needed... instead, middle school had blinking red neon lights saying ‘DO NOT ENTER’ in bold letters.

Naturally, we were terrified. Emma was the one who came after me alphabetically in our orientation group. She was tall and skinny, with insanely long brown hair and trusting brown eyes.

Just like her, I was desperate for friends and we immediately clung to each other for someone, anyone, to get through this awful day.

But, just like all who are desperate for friends, I wanted to be friends with the “cool” group. To be in with the blonde girls who already had their cliques and boyfriends. And I tried to get in their group. I tried everything. But failed miserably.

The same thing happened to Emma.

You could say that it was a bonding experience.

I met Nadia on the first day of seventh grade in science class. Nadia was petite with wildly curly hair. She was Lebanese, and had elegant facial features with wide blue eyes.

Poor Nadia had the misfortune of sitting next to me... and, it was that morning that I had discovered that I was going to get braces.

Naturally, I was panicking. Nadia had braces already, and, since she was sitting next to me, I immediately turned to her for advice, the first question being “Do braces hurt?”

With the look she gave me, I felt that I could have had an arm growing out of my forehead. Yep. I freaked her out.

She didn’t really talk to strangers much. And I happened to be a girl who was not only a stranger, but a creepy stranger.

The teacher always had us work together, for some reason. Even when names were drawn randomly. Because of this, she was forced to put up with my oddities and I learned how not to be a freak. And we actually got along pretty well, once we figured out that we were both freaks with oddities.

We were best friends within a few months.

Adelia was the hardest friend to make. When I first met her, we hated each other. She was mean to me. I didn’t like her for it. And that’s the way it was for a long time.

Adelia didn’t really give off the impression that she wanted me as a friend...she tended to glare at me above her glasses if I said hi to her in the halls and she stuck to her only (and best) friend like glue.

Until we both got health and PE together in seventh grade. The unhappy hours. And we got partnered up a lot. And we learned to get along.

We weren’t friends yet, but we were... acquaintances.

And then eighth grade came. So many things happened that year that we became alliances; I needed her just as much as she needed me. I was losing someone who I thought was a friend, and was broken because of it; she was trying to find her niche.

At the continuation dance, that really set it in stone that we were friends. We both complained through the getting-dressed-up process, the dancing, and then the excruciating pain of our feet after the actual dance.

Now we're inseparable.

The four of us are kind of... unconventional. But we’re close. We’re a little, tight knit, hormonal, insane, bizarrely random, supportive, wonderful family.

But I wouldn't have it any other way.

To any silent reader : raise your voice! I love to hear from ya!