By Amelia Griffith

I’m sure most of you are accustomed to a school full of Ashley’s and Britney’s, Austin’s and Josh’s, and it’s probably unusual when you come across someone named Blair or Maci. But that’s normal here in Westbridge Bay. I come from a family of Braxton’s Skye’s Ariel’s Isayic’s and Levi’s. My brother’s girlfriend is Gia. My ex-best friend is Sade. Everyone thought it was weird when an Ashley or a Josh showed up in town.

My name means ruler or leader. I certainly wasn’t a ruler or a leader, at least not at seventeen. I was shy and reserved, a goody-two shoes if you will. My teachers knew me only for my impeccable grades; I’ve held onto a 4.0 grade point average since my freshman year. I didn’t have any real friends besides Sade and we did absolutely everything together. We’d see movies, do the usual sleepover/manicure/facial thing, but it was always just the two of us, unless her cousin Jace was with her. (Jace’s mother died a few years back, and a lot of times, her dad would go heavy with the beer, in which case Jace would sneak out and ride the city bus to Sade’s house and stay for a while.) I wasn’t a total loser or anything. I’ve had other friends. We weren’t close, but I’ve had other friends. They’d come and go, like a game of Whack-a-Mole, without the whacking. January of my junior year, Brett, a snobby football player, who was notorious for doing just more than partying at parties, asked me out. Little giddy sixteen year-old immature me said yes, because what girl wouldn’t want the most popular guy in school to be her boyfriend. We dated for about a month and all of a sudden, I had his football friends who followed him around like puppy dogs saying hello to me and inviting me to their parties and giving me high-fives. I had

preppy little cheerleaders trying to be my best friends all of a sudden, sharing the latest gossip with me and asking to borrow my mascara or my eyeliner and walking me to class. One day I realized I hated every minute of it, so I broke it off with Brett. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. What?! Break it off with the hottest guy in school? are you out of your mind? Maybe I was. But I knew one thing for sure. I didn’t really like my über popular boyfriend at all, really. But, breaking up with him also meant breaking up with my new so called “friends”. I was relieved when it was all over and I was out of their drama/party/more drama trap.

And truth be told, I toughened up after that, almost to the point where some of my actions became rebellious. I wasn’t the shy, sweet little girl everyone loved anymore. I still maintained my grades and such, but when my mother insisted I stick with Chorus as my elective, I went behind her back and chose art. Now I know what your thinking. Oh, yeah that is the worst thing ever. You are so bad. Such an animal. It gets better. In art, I discovered I have a serious talent for drawing and painting just about anything. (Not to brag.)

I stopped sitting around at home on a Friday night watching the attest chick-flick. Sade opted to take art with me and we befriended a few indie kids. Zane, Sade, Colby, Ellie and I would go out and go bowling, or the five of us would troop into some rich kids party (We played it safe, going in around eleven or twelve o’clock, as by then, most of the people were too drunk to care who walked thought the usually open front door.) and hogging the pool table or the Wii, staying away from the stumbling, word-slurring doofuses who weren’t aware of the federal drinking age. When I’d come home at

three or four in the morning on the weekends, my mother would come out of her bedroom in her pajamas and give me some crap about how I “should be getting home earlier” blah, blah, blah and I have “little siblings who look up to me, now how does that make me feel?” usually answered with a sarcastic “horrible” or “terrific”. Then she’d roll her eyes and go back to bed and in eventually turned into a regular thing and she got used to it. Which was a good thing because when the summer arrived, it wasn’t just the weekends anymore, it was a few times a week we’d crash a party or stay out late doing something. And although there was a city curfew, Zane turned eighteen in may of our junior year. We classified him as a responsible adult (and ourselves too even though we technically weren’t adults; none of us would even touch a drink much less actually drink nine or ten glasses) meaning we could stay out as long as we liked. Our party crashing lasted all through the summer and the beginning of senior year until we had a bit of a he-uge falling out.

See, Ellie had this ongoing crush on Brett (yes, that Brett) for maybe a few years. When a rumor swirled that I liked Brett again and wanted to get back together with him (I almost puked when I heard that, just the thought of it makes me gag), Sade went straight to Ellie with this news before checking with me. (She tends to run her mouth much more often than needed.) Ellie was absolutely positive this was true and hasn’t talked to me since. Zane, who’d, only the way to a party, told me and Colby that he liked Ellie, like a lot, got really mad at Ellie for not liking him, mad at Sade for telling her this, and mad at me for apparently liking Brett again. Now, Colby, who’d spent August with his family in Florida, decided that he liked me, which made

everyone else upset because I apparently still liked Brett. So, Colby was mad at me because he thought I liked Brett, and mad at Sade for telling Ellie this it’s all a very confusing story and truth be told, I was a little pissed at all of them. Except for Zane. I could never figure out what it was that he was at fault for, if anything. None of us have spoken to each other since. Although I’m pretty positive Ellie knows I don’t like Brett anymore. One day, he came up to me and asked if this rumor was true. I said no and stuck my gum on his notebook. But on the bright side, one good thing came out of this. Oh, wait. Nothing came nicely out of this, which makes for a pretty dark bright side.