Bella walked into Algebra ll. It was a fresh spring day, and the sun was cheerfully shining down on Denver High. She saw a few other friends, Christina and Julie, a few desks away, and waved. All of her friends were kind-of like a clique, with Julie as a ringleader. There were a few others not in this class. During class, she saw them smiling and pointing at this guy. Afterwards, Bella asked,

“What was with you and that guy?”

Christina blushed, and said

“I met him over the summer, and he’s really nice”

“ Wanna talk about it later?”

“ I don’t think you would be the best person to ask,” cut in Julie “Do you even know much about things like this?”

“Well...” Bella began, surprised.

“ We should probably get to class” said Christina, in an attempt to break the awkwardness.

“Yeah, uh, bye” Bella mumbled as she walked away.



After dance practice, Bella walked home. Luckily, her house, the studio, and her school were all close. They were all in the outskirts of Denver, where it was less busy. She unlocked the door of the small house she shared with her mom.

“How was your day, sweetie?” her mom asked as Bella walked in.

“Nothing much, just the first day introductions to high school,” Bella answered, “How was yours?”

“ Super busy,” her mom replied.

Bella sighed. Her mom’s days were almost always busy. She went up the staircase to her room, and dumped herself and her backpack on her soft sleep-worn purple twin bed. She kept thinking about what Julie said earlier. Julie had never been so abrupt with her, although Bella was always considered the naive one in the group. She decided to dismiss it though.


However, over the weeks it turned out it was worse. In the summer her friends kind-of bonded without her, as she found out. For most of the beginning of the summer she was visiting her dad in Nevada, and they had lots of little get togethers. However, for the rest of the summer they forgot about her, Bella thought. They were now slightly distant from her, and Julie was even a little mean sometimes. They also, for some reason, had this desire to be popular, which Bella thought was rather absurd. She was getting tired of this, but she expected it to all blow over soon enough.


One day Bella was walking to her next class, and she noticed the rest of her friends and a bunch of ‘popular’ people were crowding around in a group. As she walked past she caught a snatch of conversation-

“Oh Bella? Yeah, she’s so naive, it’s like she’s our pet or something”

Bella almost choked. That was Julie’s voice. For the rest of the day, Bella was quiet and subdued. She needed to think about what she should do. She was hurt by Julie’s words, and she was tired of being teased all the time. But they had all been a group for years, and was change necessary?


The next day she confronted Julie.

“What was it that you said?” said Bella heatedly, then repeating what she heard Julie say.

“If you think of me as a pet, maybe we shouldn’t be friends anymore. I didn’t hear the rest of you stick up for me either. I just want to let you know that I am done”. Bella walked away angrily.

It was a little lonely without a group of people to sit with. However, Bella thought, it was way better not being with people who weren’t good friends. She was still a little hurt, though. Soon, she met a girl in dance class, who seemed really similar to her. Her new friend, Sophia, actually did go to her school, but Bella had never noticed her before. Sophia was loud and open, while Bella was kind-of quiet and subdued. She liked these differences between them, and soon enough she was much happier. Her old friends did become ‘popular’, but they discovered that not many people really cared. High school was a lot more fun and less dramatic after finding better friends!