"She is so ugly. Don't you think she's ugly?" I just vaguely nod at the maybe the 50th terrible remark made by my friends at Kara Simmons today. Kara is a usual victim, with her untamable black hair, failing effort to make cargo pants look cool, and overly skinny figure.


But there's something different about Kara. I've seen at tons of different ways of crying. Some girls, like Penny Whiler, will go into the bathroom and cry her eyes out while other girls try to tough it out when really, they are really sobbing on the inside. I've even seen a couple of girls cry so hard they had to go to the ambulance.



Kara never cries. Sometimes, she even smiles at our ridicules and threats. I don't know how she does it; she's the only girl in the whole school I haven't seen cry. I had to know.


"I'll be right back." I slipped away from my friends' sides and followed Kara into the bathroom. She turned to the mirror and tried to fix her hair. I pretended to reapply some lip gloss so she wouldn't think I was watching her.


"Why are you friends with them?" I broke away from the mirror and stared at her. I didn't know what to say.


"Uh, well...."


"You don't know, do you? Is it because you're scared of them?"


"Why would I be scared of my own friends?" I rolled my eyes at Kara's remark. "I like them because they are nice."


"Oh please. Even you aren't stupid enough to know that's not true. I've seen at least 400 different ways of crying." I thought about Kara's last remark. She saw the ways people cried, too?


"If you think they're so mean, then why don't you get bothered by their remarks?" I spat "I've never seen you cry."


"That's because if you don't cry, they don't try." Kara walked out of the bathroom and left me deserted. Well, there were at least 5 other girls in the bathroom, but Kara left my heart deserted. The places where my friends occupied my heart (which was a majority of it) felt empty; like I had no friends. Like Kara.