It was late , and I was up doing homework. When I finished, I turned on my fan and stood there for just a minute letting the air blow on my face. I turned the lights out and layed down and tried to drift off to sleep. Before I shut my eyes, I did a quick mental check to make sure all my homework was done and everything was ready for me to go to school tomorrow. My room is quiet, There is only the sound of my running fan but everything is dark. There are shadows along my walls from the branches outside, it begins  to rain, so I open my window to listen to the raindrops fall on the roof and ground. Then, I'm asleep. The next day I wake up before my alarm goes off. I open my door and cold air hits me right in the face. When I walk into the bathroom I can feel the cold floor on the bottom of my feet and I almost feel awake, but not all the way. The first thing I do is brush my teeth to eliminate the taste of morning breath  in my mouth. Then I splash cold water on my face to wake myself up more. I walk back into my room and my alarm finally goes off, I turn it off and pick my outfit for the day. My friends thought we should match today because apparently we are suppose to be these girls of perfection. So I pick out my black skirt and a blue long sleeve shirt, with my black flats. The skirt is kind of short and my dad would have a fit if he saw me leave the house with it on, so I put on some jeans and put the skirt in my backpack to put it on later at school. I stand in front of my mirror to see if my outfit is accurate.
I grab my bag and phone, then I head down stairs.    
“Good-morning”
my mother says with a smile as she puts cereal in a bowl for me. My dad is sitting at the table with his laptop and coffee, I can see him studying me out of the corner of his eye. I look at him then my mom. I tell her I’m not hungry and I sit down at the table and wait for Zoey’s dad to pick me up. When I hear the honk of his car I grab my stuff, say bye to my mom and dad and rush out the door. It’s  foggy outside so I have to squint to see where I’m going. When I reach Zoey’s car I struggle to find the door handle, then I hop in the car. We start to drive off and I look over at Zoey and she is wearing her blue shirt and a black skirt. Her skirt is super short. She doesn't notice me looking at her because she is focusing on the mirror she is using to apply makeup to her face. She looks back at me and ask if I needed any and I just shook my head no. My mom says that makeup is what girls use to hide their true beauty. My friends don't seem to think that's true. In the car I text my friends to meet Me and Zoey in the bathroom so that I can change my skirt and make sure they think it looks good. I wanted to be the first in the bathroom to change my skirt and no one else would see that I was wearing jeans. So I went in and rushed into the stall and as soon as I locked it I heard my friends Mackenzie and Sarah. They were talking about Mackenzie’s boyfriend Josh.

“Last night I lied to my dad that I was going to the movies with you guys”     Mackenzie told sarah
“I was actually at the movies with Josh”
   I came out of the stall with my skirt on and trying to shove my jeans into my bag.
“ You had to sneak your skirt out of the house again, how lame is your dad?”
“He’s not lame” I say
“ It was cold outside and I didn’t want my legs to be cold”
Mackenzie rolls her eyes and they both start to walk out of the bathroom I walked behind them, and just as they open the door Zoey was about to walk in. We are all together in front of the girls bathroom with our blue shirts and black skirts just as we are talking we hear a little voice say
“excuse me”
Mackenzie turns around and looks at, and she  looks back at us.
“ well I just need to get into the bathroom if you don’t mind”
“ not at all” I say before the rest of the girls can speak.
They all look at me and, I feel I’ve done something wrong. But all she wanted to do was use the bathroom and she looked frighten by all of us tall girls. We were in the 8th grade and she looked like she might be in 6th she was very short. Her hair was in a bun and she had on leggings and a shirt with a panda on it with a white sweater. She wore glasses. She reminded me of a younger me. A me that my new friends wouldn’t approve of. I used to wear glasses, now I wear contacts, and I always wore these cheesey shirts that had these funny sayings on them, and sometimes they would say the day of the week. If my friends saw the old me they would probably say that I was a geek.  She walked past us into the bathroom with her head down and tried not to make any eye contact. In math today I got passed a note, I secretly opened it behind my stack of books and I tried to make my face look like I was actually working hard on a problem. I unfolded it, and in very neat handwriting it said, ‘wanna hangout sometime?’ I looked at the name at the bottom of the note and it said Olly B. I had a smirk on my face but I didn’t notice until my teacher, Ms.Brown said
“Penelope is there something you’d like to share?”
          “No Ms.Brown I just got excited after solving the equation.”

She scolded me then after a few seconds she looked back down at her computer. I didn’t tell any of the girls about the note, I just kept it to myself. I happen to have Olly’s number. But that’s when it hits me I’m on my way home thinking about calling Olly to arrange plans for the weekend, and I remember that Olly dated Zoey once. It’s super girl code not to date your best friends ex-boyfriend. It slaps me right back into reality and here I was feeling all lovestruck just to find out that I can’t actually date a boy who’s on my crush list because my friend would probably ruin my life. But does it really apply to me and Zoey. As I’m riding in the backseat of Zoeys dad’s car I’m thinking this is the girl whos is friends with people who puts others down. They criticized my outfit multiple times. They are conceited and think they are they run our school. They think in their pretty little heads that they can just boss everybody around.  I don’t want that image. I don’t want to be their friend if all they do is hurt people’s feelings. I want to be the opposite of that. The car came to a hard stop, we were in front of my house. I got out of the car with not a single goodbye as I reach my door I realize that I forgot to take of my short skirt so I just put the jeans on under even though I look super ridiculous. I walk inside and my mom is sitting on the couch and it looks like my dad just got home from work.
I started my homework right away, and when I finished , I went down into the living room to watch T.V. I turned it on and it was on “The Voice” probably because of my mom. So I flip through the channels to find something good to watch but before I can, I fall asleep. When I wake it’s morning so I go up stairs and do my daily routine, but today I decide not to wear my contacts and I wear my glasses instead. I put my hair up into a ponytail and I pull out some of my old shirts. I pick one that says, Stand Out, in big bold letters and there is a picture of a whole zeal of zebras and in the middle there is one single giraffe. Instead of flats I wore my tie-dye sneakers. My mom packed my lunch today, I guess she got the memo, but there was a note and it said, It’s ok to be different. Mom, I smiled and when I heard the honk and went outside. I walked to Zoey’s car confidently. When I get inside the car Mackenzie and Sarah are there,  and they just sat and stared at me with there nose scrunched up like they had smelled something bad. While I just sat and smiled confidently. Hopefully Olly will like me for who I am and not who mackenzie wants me to be. If not I’m Okay with that. Because it’s okay to be different.
Once again in math class I got passed a note. From Olly. New look?  This time I drew a smiley face, winking. And passed it back. After school we walked home together and he told me he liked my new look. We talked about school, Mackenzie and her minions, and possibly hanging out sometime. He walks me to my house we say our goodbyes and he looks into my eyes and for a second it looks like he’s leaning closer to me. I tuck my loose hairs behind my ears. I can feel my hands shaking and I don’t know what to do. Just then the door to my house opens and my dad is there. I already know what happens next so I look at Olly, and say goodbye and walked inside. I looked out the window from my room and Olly was already gone. I sat on my bed and all I could think about is, Olly. I think being different really pays off.