Secret

Dear Annie,

In 7th grade my parents decided they wanted a change of scenery, so we moved to Santa Rosa, California. We were only there a year, but when we moved back home, everything was different. I remember crying on the car ride there, and crying on the ride back. It's tough when you're a kid, adjusting to such seemingly drastic changes.

So we moved back home and I returned to my old school. There had been an influx of new students, and my best friend Julie had latched onto a whole new group of friends. One girl in particular, Rachel, seemed dead-set on becoming Julie's new best friend!

Julie and I had been best friends since third grade. We used to alter the lyrics to songs like "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" to say inappropriate things. We had countless sleepovers, and my family took her on many of our camping trips. One of our favorite playground pastimes was making fun of the boys at recess who would pretend to fight each other karate style. (We called them the Karate Idiots, and would make up witty things we thought they might say to each other.) Somehow I thought our friendship would last a lifetime.

Rachel and Julie had some sort of connection that I didn't share. I tried desperately to remedy this. Nothing seemed to work. I remember one day we were walking to class, and I thought to ask Julie what her favorite color was. I kid you not, Rachel piped up and asked the same question just seconds before I could utter it!

"Hey, Julie... what's your favorite color?"

"Sea green."

"Wow! Mine too! Let's be best friends forever!"

That's how I remember it anyway.

As the year progressed, I felt increasingly distanced from Julie. I was the "outcast." They would go to parties and events, and somehow I was rarely invited. I felt lucky if they even saved me a seat at the lunch table!

After a while I simply accepted my place on the fringe, and felt lucky I had friends at all. Then, one day during Phys Ed, Julie approached me, motioning that she wanted to whisper something in my ear.

Could this be? A secret? Was Julie actually going to tell me a secret?! Suddenly I felt as if perhaps the tables were turning...somehow secret telling signified the ultimate form of acceptance, and maybe, just maybe, Julie and I were still great friends.

I leaned in eagerly, fully accepting the bait, only to receive not a secret, but an ear full of cold water. That's right. Julie had spit a mouthful of drinking fountain water right into my left ear!

The tears welled up immediately. I sat in the corner of the gym the entire period and cried uncontrollably. Julie must have been shocked. I don't think she had any idea how she had made me feel.

Well life goes on and time heals all wounds. I left for boarding school a year later and made a whole new bunch of friends with an entirely different set of issues. That, however, is a different story for a different time!

Love,
Taintedsky