I have always been a quiet, "shy", and isolated girl.

It never had any affect on me until the 7th grade when I

moved to a small town in Southern Maryland. Despite being "shy", I knew how to make friends. When I
started my first day of school, I made it my mission to make acquaintances. After months of attempting to
bond with others, I remained without any actual friendships. Everyone already had their established cliques,
and I did not fit into any of them. That is when I decided to just keep to myself. I began to feel anxious about
sitting in the cafeteria alone after I overheard whispers from classmates, "I feel so bad for her!", "Look at that
girl, sitting alone". Soon, I asked the Principal if I could read in the library during lunch. She did not
understand why a kid would want to be somewhere alone rather than with other people and declined. I
began to believe that something was wrong with me.

Sometime later, at the end of 8th grade, I found a best friend. As we entered high school, we supported each
other in a world of everyone striving for popularity. Through my new friendship, I made many new friends
and acquaintances. The social hierarchy was a new experience for me and in order to fit in, I did not spend
time caring if any of these new friends were genuine or not. I had friends, people knew me, and I did not
have to be seen alone anymore. My friends would often joke around about how I was the weird kid back in
middle school. Nothing else mattered to me more than turning my reputation around. I was tired of the
reminder that not so long ago, people thought I was strange.

It stayed that way until February of 9th grade year, my best friend betrayed me. When it happened, I wasn’t
surprised as there were always red flags in our friendship. I chose to ignore them because, well, I had a best
friend. After our other friends began to find out about what she did, my phone exploded with messages.
“Why aren’t you doing something about it?”, “You’re going to let her get away with that?” I wanted to move
on, but I was under pressure by my familiars to confront her about the issue. So, I approached her in school,
and things became physical. The Principal was shocked when seeing that I was one of the girls involved. After
I was honest about what had happened, she recognized I was acting out of character for the sake of my peers
and suspended me for two days instead of the normal four.

A week after the fight, I got a lot of attention. It was the most popular I had ever been. Finally, everyone had
forgotten about that girl from middle school, but it just did not feel right. Deep down I was ashamed about
what took place with my best friend. I looked myself in the mirror and did not recognize the girl staring back
at me. I said to myself, “What are you doing?”

School ended and throughout that summer before 10th grade, I spent a great deal of time self-reflecting.
When 10th grade year started, I was that girl from middle school again. I had come to learn that I was not a
shy girl like the label pinned to me by others. I was an introvert. An introvert without self-confidence, and I
cared too much about what other people thought. After, I grew apart from my 9th grade friendships. Now as
a 12th grader, I keep a small circle of friends, and I enjoy spending time alone without the anxieties of being
judged. The mistakes I made and the bad company I kept is what led me to understand more about who I
was.