Helooooooooo, a new chapter story, here is the first chapter.

This story is about Mal and it picks up rite b4 she leaves 4 Riverbend. Insted of messin' with Ann M.'s version, we r making r own, so this is totes diff than what happens at Riverbend in the books, Alternative Universe OK?

Please read and reveeeeeeeeeeeeew!

Chapter One

Someone with so many friends and from such a huge family should never be lonely. Doesn't that make sense? It seems like it should be that way. But it isn't. I'm lonely now. Riverbend isn't that far from Stoney Brook and the Berkshires are so pretty I'm surprised everyone doesn't visit every day. My family comes a lot but it's not them I'm lonely for. I miss my friends. They used to visit, but then they stopped. Well, most of them visited... I wish I hadn't left on such bad terms with Kristy, Claudia, and Abby.

Have they turned everyone against me?

Where are my friends?

We've been so close over the years. We've shared good times and bad times, love and laughter. They tried their best to convince me that I wasn't blonde! And we've still been friends through it all. Yet...It seems like it's all over.

I'm here at Riverbend, trying to get through the pain of this loss. It is nice here. People accept me and the creativity of everyone astounds me! I write in my diary every day but I also am trying my hand at pottery. Yesterday I sculpted an ashtray for every member of the BSC. I know it's not chilly to smoke, but I'm no Claudia!

Oh, girls. I would send the ashtrays in the mail, but I keep forgetting to ask Mom and Dad for stamps. Plus I forgot to write down some addresses and it wouldn't be fair to give gifts to some and not all. I know how it feels to be left out and I'd never want to hurt anyone.

I'd never want to hurt anyone.

Dr. Jill tells me I need to take ownership for the ways I've been irresponsible and hurtful to others, and believe me, if I knew I would.

But I don't know. I'm just a girl who wants to be liked and babysit, and wear cool clothes my parents won't let me, and at the end of the day, go to Pizza Express with the BSC and give it all a pizza toast.

I can no more imagine what I've done wrong than I can imagine why I can't pierce my ears.

I've practically raised my brothers and sisters. What more do my parents want from me? I'm sure they'd like it if they had a popular daughter, I mean, I've looked at my parents' yearbooks. They were very much the king and queen of the school. At least, until Mom got pregnant with me senior year. I guess that's a way that I hurt Mom. I can take ownership for her becoming the manager of a Victoria's Secret rather than a linguistic anthropologist like she wanted.

Dr. Jill tries to tell me it's okay I wasn't popular, that I'm real, a real adolescent with problems and awkwardness and its okay. If I can accept that, I'm more real than any of my friends. Sometimes I get mad at Dr. Jill. She seems to pit me against my friends. Sometimes she even tells me they're not my friends. Does she think they were a bad influence on me? No. They were the only ones who made me feel accepted.

I've made new friends here. We've all had problems at school. Some of them got into fights, others withdrew, until everyone agreed Riverbend was the best solution.

Maybe that's why my friends stay away. They think my new friends are strange, the way the kids at SMS thought I was strange. Or maybe they're jealous. Or maybe they don't want me to miss them. But I do.

I will always miss them. You see, I think the girls and I are so close that they are a part of me, even when I'm away. If only they could see that. I'm not a whole person without them and without the Kid Kits and the club notebook. How will I know who is doing what without it? I try to keep it updated so that when I go home for breaks everyone will know what I've been doing. It's another way to stay close!

Jen, my new roommate, rolls my eyes sometimes when she sees me writing in it. But then, I've heard Jen talk. I don't think she have very many friends back home. She's always been very nice to me, but I can see how some people might be afraid of her. After all, the multiple piercings and the random screaming is a little bit off-putting.

My best friend here, Jospehina (isn't that a gorgeous name) or Jo-Jo, had a good group of friends back home just like me. She said they were really close and did everything together, like a family, and if someone did them wrong, the others would take care of it. When I told her about my fight with Kristy, and how Claudia and Abby were obviously on her side, she understood how hurtful it was. That's not how a hang of friends should act. Jo-Jo said she and her friends were a club too, but she hasn't told me what they did for business.

I just wish I could explain it. It was such an awful fight before I left. Emily Michelle sobbing, the broken glass on the floor, Watson so angry as I tried to explain it was Cokie Mason, that Kristy said I could stay over...

Even thought Kristy didn't stand up for me, I miss her. I miss her bossy ways, her chestnut hair under that ever-present baseball cap, her athletic prowess, her great ideas.

And I miss my best friend, Jessi, with her beautiful graceful form that dances through air like a pixie or swan or maybe some hybrid pixie-swan. A beautiful cocoa-skinned bird-creature.

I miss Dawn's long hair, the color of sunshine at the beach. I miss Mary Anne's warm heart and the way she cries at Hallmark commercials. I miss Stacey's New York sense of fashion. I miss Claud's beautiful almond shaped eyes. I miss Abby's weird sense of humor, even the puns!

I am sure they will come through for me. They always have. Like when I had mono. Or when gym class was so awful. Or when I needed time to myself to write and my siblings drove me crazy. When my dad lost his job. They were the only ones who believed me about the ghost cat. Every time my siblings and family were too much, it was like one of them just appeared, to help me through it.

They'll come back to me. They have to.

Friends forever.