My best friend in the sixth grade was named Juliet. Juliet was one of the lucky ones. Her parents bought her matching Ralph Lauren ensembles and she started the trends- body glitter and butterfly hairclips- all the other sixth graders followed. Boys wanted to hold her hand behind the chapel and she got her first kiss, with a seventh grader no less, before anybody else did. Juliet was everything I wanted to be-pretty!, popular!, and perky!-and I figured the best way to achieve that was to be emulate Juliet exactly.
Juliet had that power to control others some people are blessed with. The kind that politicians and cult leaders have. Juliet used her power to hurt people. I never knew why, but it seemed that she could get away with it. When Juliet didn’t like somebody, none of her friends, including me, were allowed to like that person either. One day, Juliet decided she didn’t like somebody.
“She’s wearing my shirt,” Juliet whispered. Her shirt. Like Karen had snuck into Juliet’s room in a black ski mask and stolen it.
There Karen sat, armed only with silverware, wearing her shirt-the cute one with the brand name printed in pink. Karen had been my best friend until Juliet decided I wouldn't hang out with her. Still, I wished that we didn’t have to do what I knew we were going to do.
I felt sick. Not the kind of sick that if I didn’t find a toilet soon I would throw up all over the floor. The kind of sick that ties a knot in the center of your stomach and makes your hands as damp and clammy as the old, metal sink we had to wash our hands and faces in after P.E.
But I was exhilarated too. Not the kind of exhilaration I got from getting a good test score and making my mother proud. That’s the kind of exhilaration you don’t feel guilty about the next day. I had the kind of exhilaration that makes your head fly from your body like a balloon and circle around the room. The kind of exhilaration that once it it’s over, the balloon pops and makes you feel as low as we would make her feel.
Juliet and I stood haughtily and put on matching, disdainful smirks. Then we walked over to the table where Karen was sitting.
“Nice shirt,” Juliet sneered as she walked by Karen.
“Yeah, um, you too,” Karen muttered back, staring down into her lasagna. I could see she wished she could be wearing the food, wearing the milk carton, wearing anything else but that shirt.
I giggled on cue, pointing and whispering to Juliet about Karen and her shirt as Karen sat there, trying not to cry.
When I went home that night, I felt disgusting. I had followed Juliet down into the lowest depths of sixth grade meanness. I was not an automaton controlled by a switch Juliet held, I had my own free will and I choose to follow Juliet. Juliet and I had made little girls, with their tremulous confidence, cry in the bathroom. We had made little boys, with their easily broken egos, embarrassed in front of their friends.
My days of wanting to be her-popular!, pretty! and perky!-ended then. I wanted to be me. I decided I’d rather figure out who I was than figure out how to be her.