This is a true story. This is _my_ story. I lived this. Now you have to live with it.

Fifth graders are kids. Kids are mean. Therefore: Fifth graders are mean. I found this out the hard way.

Mean people start rumors. Rumors can follow you forever. I also found this out the hard way.

I was in fifth grade once. Worst time of my life. The whole year, I fought with my best friend. Wait. Rewind.

This story starts in _second_ grade. Makes it seem even worse, huh? Well, it’s not. Second grade was a happy time.

Every girls needs someone. Not a boyfriend, most second graders were evolved enough to not be cave-woman-esque about needing a boyfriend. I’m talking about a best friend. In second grade, I had a best friend. No, wait, scratch that.

In second grade, I had _three_ best friends. We’ll change their names to protect them, because they were people I needed. Keep in mind that two of them really _did_ have the same name.

Samantha and Emily H. were in my class. Emily R. was a year younger than the three of us. We were still together every chance we had--all three of us went to the same day care.

The four of us were well known as best friends--Samantha, Emily H., Emily R., and Mary (my first name, I used it then) were inseparable. Until…the day we were separated. Come on. Second graders have no power over their parents. This was out of our control.

The end of second grade. It was like a dam broke--all the bad we had expected came rushing out.

Samantha moved away. It was probably only a couple of town over, but that’s forever away to anybody who’s eight. I’ve only seen her once in almost seven years since then.

Emily H. failed science and got held back. I’ve seen her since, she came to my late eighth birthday party---I held it in third grade. We went to the same elementary school and middle school still. We saw each other, we would talk sometimes…but more often we would just walk past.

Emily R. was already a year younger than the rest of us. I don’t think I ever really saw her again. I think she moved away after fourth grade (_her_ fourth grade). I can still see her in my mind, and I think she was probably the prettiest of us.

I stopped going to the day care. I took the bus home and became a latch key kid.

Third grade came. Emily and Emily were in the same second grade class. I learned the consequences of orienting you life towards the same people-- when they’re gone…you’re alone.

We did the third grade United States geography pretty early in the year. We had two people working on each state. But there was one extra person in the class. She got to pick what group she went to, and they would do two states. She picked mine. My original partner was Phoebe (name changed). I had known her since first grade, and although we weren’t _good_ friends, we were friends. The girl who joined our group was different. I hadn’t known her before. She had long red hair, naturally the vibrant orange red color that comes in a box. Her name was Rebecca. (She doesn’t deserve to have her name changed, but I’m a charitable soul. For some reason, I don’t hold the same vengeance against her that I used to.)

It was the three of us against the whole third grade to get these states done. We worked together. We laughed together. We became friends together.

We’ve all seen at least one movie where a girl meets a guy on the rebound. The rebound can either be totally right for them, or totally wrong. Rebecca was totally wrong.

Rebecca became my best friend. She lied all the time. She was easily provoked. She never really seemed to care. None of this bothered me though. Like all rebounds, I was blind to faults and wanted to see the good. The two of us were best friends most of third grade, all of fourth grade, and all of fifth grade. Or so she said.

We fought all the time, over the stupidest topics. But the worst fight was yet to come.

I never thought, “This is the girl that’s my best friend?â€