Are the kids nice in fifth grade? That’s the question I asked myself about a thousand times on the last day of summer break. Would they talk to me, nonetheless even look at me? I slept that night not even worried about my classes, but about who I would talk to when I got to class or who I would sit next to. The next morning, I got dressed in a pink shirt, my light pink shorts, and my pink sneakers. And to complete the outfit, my mom even put a pink bow on me and painted my nails a bright and shimmery pink. I looked in the mirror staring at myself, did I look okay? Did I look good enough for people to want to come up and talk to me? My mom came up behind me and rubbed my shoulder in a comforting way, which told me to stop worrying. I got in my mom’s car and looked at myself in the car mirror, turning to the side as I checked if my hair was perfect. We get to school and my mom parks the car waiting for me to get out, but I don’t. The fear of not being able to make a single friend on the first day terrified me, to the point when I had chewed up three of my nails. My mom grabbed my hand and pulled me inside, hugged me goodbye, and left. I went to my class, and the seats were already filled, leaving me next to a girl, who was at least 3 inches shorter than me. She looked cool, but cool in a way that you should be a bit threatened by her. She had short hair with bits and pieces dyed red, and her clothes were baggy and dark. She looked like the complete opposite of me. I sat next to her and felt like I stood out like a highlighter in a box of crayons; I didn’t like it. I feel her looking at me, was she judging me? Maybe I spilled toothpaste on my shirt, and she thought I was a mess. But I didn’t; she just kept looking at me as if I had eaten a roach right in front of her. She was looking at me in disgust. I tried to ignore her until the teacher introduced herself and caught my attention. After she was done talking about herself and the classroom expectations, she told us to turn to the person next to us and share some facts about us and to share what we did over the summer. I turned slowly to the left and I locked eyes with her, she had dark eye shadow on her eyelids, my mom would never let me wear makeup, so she had to be cool. I told her one fact about myself, which was that I like to put a pink bow in my dog’s hair even though he’s a boy, and she told me that she likes the color red. I found that kind of obvious from the color of her hair, which I next complimented her on. I wanted to color my hair, maybe even pink, that would be a dream. Then I told her about my summer, and she told me about hers; we kept talking and getting to know each other increasingly until I asked for her name. Her name was Zoe, and then she asked for mine. She told me I looked like a bright light in the middle of a dark room, and I was taken aback. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? I told her thank you just in case it was a compliment, but it didn’t feel like it was. She looked at my pink shimmery nails, then she suddenly held my nails close to her face and again she looked disgusted.  

“Your favorite color is pink, isn’t it?” She asked me, and it sounded like she would puke when she said the word “pink”  

“Well, yes, it is, my mom told me it looks good on me,” I told her in a hushed tone as the teacher started to go over more classroom rules.  

“I don’t like pink, and neither can you.” Now I was really taken aback. It was fine that she didn’t like the color pink, but why couldn’t I?  

“What? Why not?”  

“It’s too girly, and it hurts my eyes” I let those words wrap around me, but as they wrapped around my neck, I felt the pain of hold in my tears.   

“To be my friend you can only like blue, red, or black,” she said, as she started to peel my shimmery pink nail polish off from my nails, and I let her. She said I could be her friend, that’s all I’ve wanted since the beginning of summer to the end. I took my hand back from her and I myself started to peel off the nail polish she had already begun to peel.   

“So, what’s your favorite color then?” She asked me, and I thought about it for a second.  

“Blue.”