"What's wrong with me?!" I begged my mother for an answer. I was fourteen years old, balling my eyes out on the phone as I hid in the closet of my boarding school dormitory.
"Why don't they like me?" I asked again. "I'm a nice person, aren't I?"
"Of course, you are."
"Then why don't they like me? What's wrong with me? She invited all the other boarders to her party, except me. I don't understand. What's wrong with me?"
"There's nothing wrong with you, Nikki. You're just... different. You always have been." You could hear the pain in my mother's voice, but I was frantic. I was sobbing so loudly.
"I don't want to be different! I don't know why she hates me. I'm not a bad person. I'm a nice person. I even spent an hour helping Melissa with her homework last night, and then this morning, I overheard her bitching about me in the bathrooms. She called me a freak, Mom. And I thought she was one of the nice ones."
"They're just insecure. It's got nothing to do with you and everything to do with them."
"Yeah, right. Why would you be that mean to someone when they're only ever kind to you? It doesn't make any sense."
"Because people don't make sense, Nikki. I promise you. It's not you. You're just a bit... unconventional."
"You mean, a nerd?"
"More like a... creative. You march to the beat of your own drum. You always have."
"I just want to fit in, Mom. I just want to have some friends."
