There had been around 120 people in Grade 7, but only Kara had checked on me and comforted me as I sobbed in the toilets.

Kara Evans and I had been BFFs ever since Grade 2 when, during one reading time, we found out that we both loved 'Rainbow Magic' as the two of us reached for the same book - the only one from the series on the classroom shelf - and then ended up sharing it together, each of us playing a part, with me speaking as Kirsty and her as Rachel. Later on, during free time, we became caught up in a fantastical world of our making, as we pretended to be fairies fighting the bad goblins.

Ever since that day, we were inseparable.

As we grew, we continued to share our love of and taste in books, going through a 'Magic Faraway Tree', 'Warriors', and 'Rangers Apprentice' phase - and as these phases changed so did our capes, as they morphed from Fairy wings to magic cloaks as we pretended to be wizards living in the Faraway Tree and the Land of Spells, then fur pelts as we became apprentices training hard to become Warriors, and finally cloaks which we dyed green to helped us remained camouflaged amongst the forest trees.
The same could be said for our taste in TV shows and movies too, as one of our favourite imaginary scenarios was one in which we role-played and pretended to be dragon riders, making the story up as we went, with me training and eventually riding a Razorwhip, and Kara taming a Deadly Nadder, after we discovered the 'How to Train Your Dragon' trilogy (viewing them with much shared laughter and tears) and watched the 'Race to the Edge' series so many times we could quote it almost word-for-word. We had many sleepovers and midnight feasts, and laughed over the same dorky stuff together. She was my only and best friend. And we did everything together.

We were like two pieces of a puzzle that just fit and complimented each other. I never had to guess what she was thinking, and the same went for her to me, we just always understood and got each other.
For instance, on the day of our first sleep over, a present graciously allowed by my parents for my 10th birthday, we could barely concentrate in class as we whispered to each and perfected plans for the much-coveted event which took place in almost every 'Malory Towers' book.

She came home with me after school and whipped out her Ladybird huggle buddy, the twin of my own red and black companion (when we used to pretend that we were fairies they acted as our noble steeds, now they were just good for cuddles and hiding things in), and had given me a conspiratorial wink. After much fun, giggling and talking, we finally settled down to sleep, until the little 'beep-beep, beep-beep' of my digital watch at 5 minutes to midnight had us awake and bouncing out of bed, as we turned on the lamp and Kara opened up her huggle buddy to reveal 2 bars of chocolate and I quietly opened the draw under my bed - mostly used to storing random bits and bobs - and revealed my greatest prize; a whole bucket of candy floss.
We opened it up and dutifully sat and waited as I looked at my watch, holding up a finger, "wait..."
After half a minute which seemed ages for two young candy-floss lovers, I finally told Kara,
"Okay, it's midnight. NOW we can eat.", and then we pounced on it and promptly finished the whole tub between the two of us before tackling our chocolate bars with much the same delight as we giggled and laughed, enjoying the thrill of pretending to be Malory Towers girls enjoying a secret midnight feast.

Once we had finished and washed down our sweets with a glass of warm milk and honey (I had prepared a flask) I had been surprised as Kara seriously said,
"Wait."

"What is it?"

She reached into her Ladybird pillow and drew out a small tub filled with carrot sticks.
Unable to help myself, I let out a snort of amusement.

"What?" She said, defensively, "it's to balance out the sugar."

I shook my head,
"That's not why I find it funny."
And, as I reached down into my draw and pulled out my own tub filled with light green celery sticks, Kara understood.

Both of us found this so funny, goodness knows why, that we had tears pouring down our face as we clutched each other and stifled our howls of laughter.

I felt the corners of my mouth twitch as the echo of our joyful, youthful laughter drifted in my mind for a few moments. Those were good days, back when I was happy. But all too soon, the joy of that memory faded, despite my desperate attempts to hold on to it, replaced by the lonely thought. I miss those days.

For, in Grade 8, I had found out that the 'Forever' in 'BFFs' was a complete lie.
Out of nowhere, right at the start of the year, Kara had stabbed me in the back, joining the "popular" girls group, aka the group of gossipers in the corner...

The first day of Grade 8. We were finally not at the bottom of the Middle School ladder, which meant the Grade 9's and older kids would give us a break as they focused on the fresh meat the grade 7's provided. Of course, I'm still on the bottom-most rung within the social ladder of Grade 8, ever since the Valentine's incident with Jonathan Thompson people no one even tried to pretend and be nice to me. But then, I would rather know than be ignorant of how they feel about me. But anyways, at least I have Kara by my side and I'm not completely alone. Talking of... I checked my watch and frowned. She was meant to meet me like 20 minutes ago at the playground so we could walk to the Grade 8 blocks for the first time together. And Kara is always super organised and NEVER late. And if she was sick or couldn't make it she would have told me at LEAST half an hour before, if not the night before.

Chill out, she probably just got caught in traffic or something, I told myself.
But it seemed pretty unlikely since she was only a 5-10 minute drive away from school. I opened up my phone and quickly shot her a text,
'Heya. Where are you? I'm waiting at the playground.'
A minute or two went past, and there was no reply. Which for Kara was unusual since she normally replied on average in 34 seconds flat (I'm not exaggerating, I've actually timed it before). I checked our conversation again, and saw that my messages were now on 'read'.

I raised my eyebrow. Definitely unusual. But then maybe she only got a chance to read it and then someone started talking to her or something. Sighing, for I hated to do it, I called her. I hated the ring-ring sound of it and knowing that at any second the person could pick up.
No reply.

"Come on Kara, where are you?" I muttered as I glanced at my watch again. I had already waited long enough and I only had 10 minutes to get to form class.
Coming to a decision, I began to make my way to class and shot her a quick text,
'Hey K, I waited for you but can't wait anymore. Sorry. Heading to form class now. Hope you're okay.'

So, having settled on the reason for her mysterious lack of appearance being that she was so sick she couldn't even gather the energy to send a text or even wake up, I stopped short as, having dropped my bag off at my locker and grabbed my equipment, I saw her waiting outside the form classroom with everyone else. And she was talking to Allison, Michelle's best friend.
What on earth? We never interact with them if we can help it, so why was Kara chatting with and SMILING at her? Did it have something to do with the reason why Kara hadn't showed up to meet me this morning?

As I had this thought, Kara looked up and saw me. I waved with a "what's up with that?" look on my face which only she could read, and she half-waved back with a faint smile. Only, for the briefest of moments I could have sworn that it was a grimace. But that was a stupid idea, and I shrugged it off. After all, she's my best friend - why would she be grimacing at me? It was probably her showing her dislike at having to talk to Allison. But then Kara went back to her conversation with her, not even bothering to come and say hello with a hug in her usual way. Even more puzzling, her face had gone back to being all weirdly smiley.

Don't get me wrong, Kara has a naturally sunny and optimistic disposition - completely balancing out my naturally stormy and pessimistic one, but even she normally doesn't smile THAT much when talking to someone. Plus, was that a tint of lipstick I saw? No, it must be a trick of the light or something. The Kara I know always sticks with BB cream foundation and Blistex lipbalm. She doesn't do that sort of prissy makeup.

Anyways, I still had my brow furrowed, when suddenly it cleared as I had some clarity. Oh, of course. She's being friendly to the popular girls because she's probably campaigning for a spot as student leader.

In fact, she had been really busy preparing for it lately, and now that I think of it her text responses had been shorter than usual during the last few weeks of holidays and she hadn't even able to meet up with me. It was really important to her so I had been giving her space. Even though part of me wanted to try for student leader, I knew that there was no point since no one would vote for miss 'Fatty Patty'. But Kara on the other hand, even though she wasn't really friends with anyone else, was loved by everyone she encountered. And so I had encouraged her to go for it, even though she had been worried initally about me feeling excluded or whatever.

So I let her talk for a few more minutes before walking towards her to say hi. Only to have the grossly gorgeous face of Michelle appear in front of me with some snarky sentence or other which I ignored, with Thea and Mia blocking the spaces next to her so I shouldn't squeeze around.
Seriously? I crossed my arms, then, running out of patience, I squeezed past them, getting no small amount of satisfaction from their little indignant noises, and walked up to Kara.
"Hey Kally! I waited for you in the usual spot, how come you didn't show?"

"Oh. Hey Em. Uh, yeah, sorry about that, I got caught up with... something."

"All good, just tell me next time m'kay?" I said as I stepped forward and flung my arms around her for our usual greeting hug.

She hugged me back, but it was not the usual friendly, warm hug she gave. It was almost... stiff. Unnatural.
That's weird, I thought. But just brushed it off as her feeling bad for not waiting for me at our spot.

Oh how naive I was back then. Of course, when it came time for Lunch, I found out the real reason. Going into middle school, Kara and I had mostly different subjects so I didn't see her for most of the day, and lunches were usually our time to hang out together. Well, little old me had no clue how much that was going to change.

I walked into the Cafeteria, scanning the hectic middle-school crowd trying to find Kara, and then, spotting her, I stopped short. She's sitting with them now?

For a moment I was motionless as the cogs in my brain turned whilst I tried, and failed, to come up with a logical explanation and plan what to do next. I wasn't a fan of those girls but, I guess I should go over and try. After all, it's Kally, we always sit together.

I slowly walked up to them, and, after a pause where I awkwardly cleared my throat, they ceased their giggling and chatting and turned to me with disgust as they became aware of my presence.

"What do you want?" Michelle sneered.

"I- er-" I glanced at Kara, "Are you going to sit with me Kally?"

She opened her mouth, and I fancied that her face seemed almost ashamed, but Mia cut in,
"Kara is one of us now. She doesn't need a loser like you for a sorry excuse of a friend anymore."

"I... I don't understand."

Allison rolled her eyes, "ugh, since you still don't get it, long story short: ever since Michelle's birthday sleepover during the holidays Kara finally realised that she's too cool for you. And we realised how fashionable and fun she actually is to be around when you're not there to drag her own with your weight. Ergo, She's one of us now. There. Satisfied?"

I could only gape, unable to comprehend what was happening. I looked to my best friend, but Kara was avoiding my gaze. Clinging to the hope that this was all some weird mistake, I appealed to her,
"Kally? It's not true is it?"

She was silent for a moment, glanced at the other girls then Michelle (who nodded encouragingly with a smirk), and then answered.

Her response was short, only two words, but, like small, compact bullet, they made me stagger back,
"It's Kara."

After giving one more shocked, pleading look which she ignored, I had just turned around and left, blood rushing in my ears as I stumbled to get away from the cutesy but cruel giggles that had begun to bubble from their table.

Later, still trying to process what happened, I tried texting her.

Em 🦔: "Hey... Kara. What was up with today? You all good? Or are you just pretending to be a spy infiltrating the notorious Sassy Girls gang or something? Haha"

'Read'

'Kally 🌻 is typing.'

I waited, seeing what possible thing she could say to explain her hurtful behaviour today.

'Kally 🌻 has gone offline.'

Her reply came later, a single sentence
"I'm sorry, but not everything is some make-believe game Emily, grow up."

My heart sank. Emily? She never calls me Emily, I was always Em to her as she used to be Kally to me...

I had been devastated at her betrayal.
What did I do wrong? The small voice inside whispered the words that had repeated over and over. Why did she leave me? What's wrong with me?

Swallowing back the lump in my throat, I recalled what had happened since then.

In Grade 9, she had apologised for ditching me, and said she wanted to be friends again.

Then, when I had gratefully accepted her apology, gushing how happy I was ("Oh Kally! I knew you wouldn't have just ditched me like that!"), she laughed in my face along with Michelle and the others who had been watching. Her response still stung me like a slap in the face,
"You seriously think I would want to be friends with you? Miss- Miss 'Fatty Patty'?"

My heart and hope had been crushed all over again.
The nickname 'Fatty Patty' had stuck.
No matter how hard I tried to lose weight, even starving myself when I could, I was always fat.
You still are, the voice inside scornfully reminded me.

Shoving that crushing, numbing thought aside, I continued to sadly recall what had happened next.

In Grade 10 the exact same thing had happened again. The "popular" group had acted all friendly and invited me to sit with them at lunch and I was stupid, so incredibly naive, enough to believe them. And then they proceeded to mock my eating habits (despite the fact that I had only a little bit of food, all healthy) and gag, saying that just watching me eat was so gross and I looked like a cow chewing grass.

Made fun of. Again.
Stabbed in the back.
Again.

It was after this happened that I started spending my lunch times in the library, just eating one muesli bar at morning tea and nothing else. In this, however, I found a new friend (or, at least, as close to a friend a teacher can get) in Mrs Collins, the Librarian. She knew I was quiet and so was happy for me to come and sit in the library during the usual eating time and read, do some work, or write (I dabbled in writing stories but they weren't very good, mostly just scribbles of different ideas which I didn't know how to make into a story). Then, over time, we began to discuss and debate different books and recommend certain ones to each other. She even let me start volunteering as a library assistant who would help out at the borrowing and returning desk and help catalogue, read, and write summaries for new books which came in.

But despite this new friendly acquaintance (though whether it was formed of pity or genuine book-comradery, I was never sure), I was still left feeling empty, the hollowness of my many betrayals lingering at the back of mind and making my heart ache. And it was then, at that moment in Grade 10, when I was so incredibly ashamed, hurt, and embarrassed by my extreme naivety (seriously, who gets fooled that many times, how stupid do you have to be?!) that I vowed to never let myself be fooled again.

I sat in quiet reflection at this sobering thought,
Is that what I'm doing now?