In thoughts

Can I just say that when you're hoping things will get better but they don't, it majorly sucks?

I really, really thought that today would be different. I imagined getting to school and everyone reacting to me like I'm not such a freak anymore. But that's not how the first day of school is going. It's bad. Like, desperately bad. Because when everyone expects you to be a certain way, it's really hard to escape that image. It's like once everyone decides who you are, you're locked into their version of you and that's it. And everyone decided I was crazy last year. But I'm determined to break out of that. I have to believe that there might be a possible escape route for me.

Sterling seems fine. But she's always fine. She's little and cute and people like her. We don't have any classes together this year and I have no idea how I'll survive lunch. I saw her in the hall when we got our locker assignments and she was talking to people and laughing like she wasn't even nervous. I always have a knot in my stomach on the first day of school that doesn't go away until I get home. Plus, I can never fall asleep the night before, so I'm trying to handle the disaster of my life on two hours' sleep.

I was expecting people to realize that I've changed. I made an effort to smile at people and say hi in homeroom, but I was basically ignored.

Why doesn't anyone want to talk to me? I mean, other than the same people I've been talking to for years. I was sort of hoping to make some new friends. I only have a few friends and I find that to be lame. Lots of kids go out in these big groups. That would be so fun.

Whatever. I can't even deal with this now because we're supposed to be doing a getting-to-know-you activity in chemistry. I hate it when teachers make you sit in a circle on the first day of school and do some activity where you have to introduce yourself. It's like, every nerve in your body is already twanging, which is bad enough. The last thing you want to do is talk in front of people. How can teachers not know that?

So I guess it isn't too heinous that Mrs. Hunter is making us do this activity in pairs. We already got assigned seats. I sit in front of Nash. Then we got this sheet of questions and we had to pick ten that we would most want to ask a potential friend. Which isn't a bad idea if you think about it. Being able to interview your potential friends would rock. Because then you wouldn't get so many nasty surprises later. It's not like you can take back a friendship.

After we pick our ten questions, I turn my desk around to face Nash.

Nash goes first. "If you were a shape, which shape would you be and why?"

I smile at my paper. That was the weirdest question, which is why it was my favorite.

"What?" Nash goes.

"I picked the shape one, too."

"So what shape would you be?"

"Hmm."

I have to seriously think about that. Not only am I sitting in front of this boy for the rest of the year, but we're also lab partners. Which means we have to do every lab report together, plus a few big projects. So if I make a sucky impression and he thinks I'm a reject, it'll be really hard to prove him wrong after that.

Okay, so it's not the first time he's meeting me. But this is the first time we've said more than three words to each other since elementary school and I want to make a good impact on everyone today. I don't just care about how I look (shoulder-length blonde hair with natural highlights, brown eyes that have these green flecks if the light hits them the right way, not fat or skinny, white T-shirt, jeans, black Converse). It's also important to make sure my new personality is showing.

"I'd be . . . a circle," I go. "Within a square."

"I think you're only supposed to pick one."

"Well, I can't be defined by just one shape."

"I see."

"I'm a very complex person," I say, even though I'm not. But I feel daring and wild, saying it. Like I could be anybody and he wouldn't even know the difference.

"I'm getting that," Nash goes. He has this glint in his eyes and a smile where his mouth only turns up on one side.

Don't let that fool you. He's not potential boyfriend material.

Here's why. Nash is totally geeked out. His hair is always messy, his shirts usually look like he slept in them, and he constantly has to correct people when they're wrong, in this annoying know-it-ally way. His social skills are pathetic and I want more friends, so we don't exactly have the same priorities. Plus, I've seen him lick his fingers at lunch when the napkin is like right there.

There's just no way.

Nash does have some good qualities, though. I like how he's really shy and sweet. He's not like most other boys who are always acting all doofusy and fifth-grade about everything, where it's like, Hello, we're in tenth grade now, grow up already. Nash seems a lot more mature. He's the type of person Aunt Katie would say has an "old soul."

All those good things about him were enough when we were younger, catching fireflies in the summer and making snowmen in the winter. We could be friends without things getting weird. But everything has a different meaning now that we're older. Now there are, like, implications.