She stood so straight and tall, you’d think either she didn’t realize how strange she looked, or she was proud of it
Braid Girl.
The name I tagged her with from the beginning. I must have asked her real name during that first conversation, but it slipped my mind and, well, this one just stuck.
I met her at tenth-grade orientation.
Just seeing these words gives me a stomachache. Orientation wasn’t half as bad as I’d expected it to be. It was doubly, maybe triply as bad.
Ninth grade starts with a whole bunch of insecure eighth graders trying to prove themselves. Tenth grade starts with a whole bunch of insecure ninth graders trying to recreate themselves. The last thing you risk is being caught schmoozing with the New Kid. Unless New Kid shows up with a million friends from camp who gaggle around her like a flock of geese. Like the other new girl in tenth grade, and very unlike yours truly.
I found a seat in the auditorium that looked safe enough — not too close up to look nerdy, not too far back to look like the social outcast I felt like — and smiled at nobody while I prayed silently for the speeches to start.
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