She stood so straight and tall, you’d think either she didn’t realize how strange she looked, or she was proud of it

TOVA

Braid Girl.

The name I tagged her with from the beginning. I must have asked her real name during that first conversation, but it slipped my mind and, well, this one just stuck.

I met her at tenth-grade orientation.

Just seeing these words gives me a stomachache. Orientation wasn’t half as bad as I’d expected it to be. It was doubly, maybe triply as bad.

Ninth grade starts with a whole bunch of insecure eighth graders trying to prove themselves. Tenth grade starts with a whole bunch of insecure ninth graders trying to recreate themselves. The last thing you risk is being caught schmoozing with the New Kid. Unless New Kid shows up with a million friends from camp who gaggle around her like a flock of geese. Like the other new girl in tenth grade, and very unlike yours truly.

I found a seat in the auditorium that looked safe enough — not too close up to look nerdy, not too far back to look like the social outcast I felt like — and smiled at nobody while I prayed silently for the speeches to start.

I hoped I could get away with the polite-smile thing when the principal announced a 20-minute intermission for refreshments. Swallowing hard, I surrendered to the crowd’s powerful tide and somehow ended up in the second auditorium. The room was teeming with people. Hugs and high fives and laughter and friendship and… and… there I stood, alone. I wondered if it would have hurt me this much to smile if I hadn’t been hurting so much inside. I didn’t think things could get worse.

But they did.

I felt a pair of eyes on me even before I felt a tap on my shoulder. And when I turned around, there she stood.

Her frizzy hair was pulled into a braid that hung down her back like a horse’s tail. Little wisps stood out behind her ears and along the length of the braid, lending a haphazard finishing touch to the whole thing. And she stood so straight and tall, you’d think either she didn’t realize how strange she looked, or she was proud of it.

I gulped.