I should be honest about something.
If you had seen me in 7th grade, you would have laughed. Not behind my back — right to my face, openly, without shame. I was that bad. Grown out hair, zero fashion sense, the kind of confidence that only exists when you're too young to know what embarrassment is. I look at photos from back then and I genuinely cannot hold it together.
She and her best friend noticed too. They made fun of me. Little comments, jokes I half-understood and half didn't. I wasn't even offended. I was too clueless to be offended.
Slowly, though, things shifted at tuition. Teachers liked me. I was doing well — top of the rankings, people coming to me for help. At some point, I was even helping her with some of the work. We became something. Not close. Not friends, exactly. More like two people who acknowledged the other existed.
That was the most we were, for a long time.