I walked from the lunch line and entered the section of the cafeteria with tables, holding my plastic tray.

The first face I recognized was Sydney. Sydney Hucal. We became great friends in grade 9. The only word I can really describe her personality with is "fabulous". She had shoulder blade long chestnut hair, and chocolate eyes. She usually her hair up wears it in a pony tail. Today she was wearing grey jeggings, blue Toms, and a red Hollister hoodie. She's about an inch taller than me.

"Sydney!" I yelled, waving to her from the table she was sitting at. She looked up at me, and grinned.

She stood up from her seat. I put my tray down on the nearest table and up to her.

"Katie!" She squealed.

We embraced in a long hug. I hadn't seen her the entire summer.

I let go of her and pulled away arm's length, still hanging on to her by her wrists.

"How was Paris?" I asked. I was happy that Sydney could go experience such an adventure as spending the summer in France, but it was a dull summer without her. "I missed you so much! I was so scared something might happen to you! What if--"

"Shhhhh..." Sydney grabbed my head and pulled it under her chin, stroking my hair. "Calm. Calm, my darling, calm."

I smirked as she stroked me. "My precious, my precious." I said, imitating Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

Sydney giggled and let go of my head. "I missed you too, darling. Don't worry, everything went fine."

I lit up. "I'm so glad you got to go, but never leave me like that again. Please."

"Oh, I mean, I got you something, but ya know, since you don't want it..."

"Oh shut up, really? I want it I want it! You can go back to Europe for all I care--"

Sydney cupped my cheeks, making me look like a guppy. "Calm, child. Calm."

Sydney released my face and pulled something out of her hoodie's front pocket. She held out her hand. Resting on her flatted palm was a white box the size of a walnut, a little baby blue ribbon tied around it.

I snatched the adorable box and fumbled with it in my hands, impatiently trying to untie the ribbon. When I finally pulled it off, I plucked the lid from the box. Inside was a silver Afoul Tower pendant the size of an almond, with a silver chain to match.

I look the necklace out of the box and put it on with my pocket watch necklace. I was so deeply touched by Sydney's beautiful present. She really didn't need to do that.

Of course, I couldn't let her know that.

"Alright, this almost makes up for the fact that you left me." I grinned.

Sydney made a face she is famous in this school for: The Fabulous Face. She scrunched her lips together, causing them to turn from red to white. She looked up at the ceiling.

She bobbed her head. "I'm just so fabulous."

I love this girl.

"Seriously though, when I got the tattoo this summer, I was hoping you would come with me and hold my hand like when I got one down last time."

"You got ANOTHER tattoo?!"

"Yeah man. Look." I held out my right arm and pointed to the skin close to my inner elbow. The words "If we all light up, we can scare away the dark" were tattooed in black ink. They were lyrics from my favorite song, Scare Away the Dark, by the artist Passenger.

Sydney held my wrist, and traced over each word on my forearm. "Did you go to the same person again?"

"Yup. Dawgg's great. I think I want to get another one soon."

"How many do you have by now?"

"Three."

Sydney did the Fabulous Face again. "Well."

I heard my name being called, and I looked over my shoulder. Instantly, I knew I had to cut the conversation short.

I looked back at Sydney. "I'm sorry man. I gotta go talk to Claire."

"Ohh." Sydney curled her lower lip over her upper lip, nodding her head. "Yeah, you bests go do that."

I squeezed my dear friend one more time and turned away from her, picking up my tray and walking in Claire's direction.

I have known Claire Carter since the fifth grade. She has curly, shoulder level Goldilocks hair, and hazelnut eyes. Today for the first day of school she was wearing a cream blouse, skinny jeans, and black flats with a black bow on the front of each shoe. She was a little thing, maybe half a foot shorter than me.

"Hi Claire!" I chirped. I sat my tray down on a table and gave her a big teddy bear hug.

"Hi Katie." She said back, patting my back with one hand as I held on to her.

"How was your summer?" I asked, breaking away.

"It was ok." She said with little enthusiasm.

"Good!"

"Did you get another tattoo?" She said with skepticism, obviously jumping straight to the point.

I guess she overheard my conversation with Syd. "Yeah boy!" I replied.

She arched an eyebrow at me, clearly not amused by my choice of words. "Yeah boy?"

"Yeah boy." Nuf said.

Claire grabbed my arm and read my tattoo on my forearm. Claire looked back up at me. "Scare away the dark?" She said, scrunching her eyebrows at me.

"Yeah man. Lyrics from my favorite song."

Claire crossed her arms. "You know, you really shouldn't do that. It's a sin. Your body's a temp--"

Blah blah blah blah. Ok, look, for people out there who are opposed to tattoos. I respect your opinion about where you stand. But please, don't preach to me how you feel about it or where it says it's wrong in the Bible or whatever. I have my own opinion, too, ya know. And I think it's perfectly fine. Plus I already have the tattoo, so there's no way you convincing me it's wrong is going to change that it's already apart of my body forever. Like, what am I going to do? Go get laser removal surgery after your beautiful speech to me?

"That's nice." I said, waiting until she was done her lecture to snap back into reality.

"Won't you listen to me!? It's wrong! You're tainting your body: That of God's! You don't want to end up going to hell, do you?"

"Look, Claire. You're free to believe what you believe. But please, just don't preach to me, okay? It's really annoying and unnecessary, if I'm perfectly honest."

"There's a quote in the Bible: 'What I tell you in the dark, speak in daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops: Mathew 10:27.' Therefor I shall tell you what is sinful and I shall preach to you what is good and what is not in God's eyes."

"Okay, well, preaching like you are right now tends to turn certain kind of people AWAY from God. People like me. The whole point of spreading God's word is so that they believe it in they're hearts and accept Jesus as their Christ. The way you're telling me about tattoos is just making yourself sound like your snobbish and a know-it-all. You want people to come to Christ, don't you? Doing that doesn't help." I said, getting a little agitated by this conversation.

I continued. "And if you really want to use the Bible in this argument right now, the reason it may ever say in there 'not to get tattoos' is because during the time the Bible was written, it was a part of the whole pagan ritual worship crap to get tattoos on your body that mark your alliance with your fake and demonic gods. That's pretty much out of context for today's society. I'm not getting tattoo's to oppose God. I like them. They make me feel pretty."

Claire crossed her arms and turned away from me. "I though you didn't like going to Church and learning about the Bible. You never come when I invite you. Besides, what the Bible says is the same for now and when it was written."

"Again, you're opinion whether or not to interpret the Bible literally or take it into context. We can do this all day, Claire. Again, it's your choice. But I made up my mind a long time ago, and there's nothing you could ever do or say to change it."

Claire looked at Sydney from where she was sitting at her table, then back at me, then back at Sydney, and then back at me again.

"You know, I wouldn't hang out with that Sydney if I were you, if you're at all concerned for your well being. She seems to be a bad influence to you."

My jaw dropped.

And at that, she walked away from me, she arms crossed and her nose high in the air.

I stood there, stunned by her words. "I got no clue what you're talking about, man! Sydney's fabulous!" I yelled at Claire.

Sydney, hearing her name being mentioned, looked over at me and gave me a Fonsie thumbs up.

I gave her a thumbs up in return.

I picked up my tray and walked out of the cafeteria.

Oh well. Claire's lose.