My sister stood in front of the bathroom mirror, as she did every morning. I was behind her, fixing my hair for the day. Why is my hair so ugly, I think to myself. I had always hated my hair; I wished it could be softer like the other girls. My mother always told me that I had great hair, but that didn’t mean anything to me. It is one thing to hear a compliment, yet it was completely different to actually believe it.

I ran downstairs to grab my backpack. Geez, my backpack is so stupid. My friend Sarah had told me that she loved my backpack; I didn’t care though. “You should go outside. The bus will be here soon,” my mother spoke.

I opened the front door and paused for a moment. I took a deep breath and gathered all of my thoughts up. I was going into a new place today. A place where I knew nobody. A place where I would constantly be judged. A place where I would want to talk to everybody, but not have the courage. I closed my eyes and stepped outside. I was so nervous; my body was shaking and my heart was pounding. I did not want to get on that bus. Nobody was familiar to me; I would sit alone.

The first bell rang and I shuffled into my first class. I sat next to a boy named Josh. Josh was the most obnoxious person I have ever met. I do not mean “talks all the time obnoxious”, but I mean “throws sharp objects around the room and almost hits me obnoxious”. It was awful. I was about to talk to him, but I stopped. I got the strangest feeling I had ever felt. It felt like needles were filling the pockets of my throat, causing me to go mute. I sputtered out a strange noise, much like a mule that got a cinder block dropped on it.

That is all that I really remember from my first year at the new school. The rest of it went by in a miserable blur. Kids were not bullying me, but they just acted like I wasn’t a thing. Some people talked to me, but not most. If they were my partner, they wouldn’t talk to me. And you know what? That really hurt. It made me believe that I was not important. Like I should not have even tried. So I didn’t. I did not try to hang out with people or make new friends. I desperately wanted new friends, but I thought that I wasn’t worth it. The thought of being judged would not get out of my head. And the fact that my “best friend” Sally completely ditched me did not help either.

In the summer of eighth grade, I hung out with Sally Manist almost everyday. She went to my old school. I hadn’t really talked to her until I left, but she became one of the only people that I could look like a psychopath in front of, and not care. We were two of the closest people that you could ever meet. Over that summer, Sally slowly became my rock, the person who I would tell everything to, my stronghold. She was not only there for that, but she boosted my self-esteem, which was basically nonexistent without her. When she left, it all went downhill from there.
In August, we both made the freshman volleyball team. Sally and I were both so excited to be on the same team, yet she began to ignore me. She had became very close with another girl on the team, Maya. Maya did not like the fact that Sally and I were best friends, so she began to do everything she could to split us apart.

I saw Sally less and less every week. By the beginning of the school year, I was basically invisible to her. I had lost my best friend. My only friend. The part that hurt the worst was the fact that I had no idea why. Am I really that stupid? Ugly? Awkward? I tried to talk to her, but she would just smile and walk away. My nights began to consist of sitting in my room alone, thinking of every possible reason why she would do thing and everything that was wrong with me.

On multiple occasions, I would be sitting in my room and hear a voice. A voice that told me I wasn’t worth it. A voice that told me losing Sally was all my fault, I should be punished. A voice that told me that I should not even try anymore. It tried to come out of my body and consume me. Luckily, I did not let this voice control me. My parents started to notice that something was different. Sitting in my room, alone, became a daily activity. Worries of freshman year would flow into my head, and I would try to think of solutions. Little did I know, freshman year was a life-saver.

My sister was sitting in the driver’s seat. We were going to the first day of school. My first day of highschool at KM Perform. A charter school where the kids were strange, but in a good way. A charter school that was looked down upon by my “friends”. A school that my heart told me that I would fit in at, but my head told me I would not.

Walking in the glass doors, I fixed my shirt. “Maddy, are you sure this looks okay?” I whimpered at my sister.

“Yeah, you look really cute today,” she responded. Great, cute. Not mature, not attractive, just plain old cute. I tugged at my shirt, begging it to pull down just a little farther. By the time I got into my classroom, it was basically at my knees.

I sat in an open desk. A girl with dark hair sat next to me. I looked over, raised my eyebrows and gave her the double-chin. It was a look I used to give to Sally, when we still talked. Ugh, my first day and I already grossed someone out. Before I knew it, the girl was laughing. Not at me, but to break the silence. I began to laugh, too. It felt great. That was the first time I had really laughed in a long time.

At that exact moment, I had a realization. I did not need to be perfect. Here in Perform, the people were accepting. They could not judge, for they were strange, too. I felt at home. I could finally just be myself. My freaky, strange, double-chinned self.