Isn't it funny how everyone has different personalities around different people? Like when you're with, say, your grandmother, you keep all crude language to a minimum and you put on a bright smile even if you feel like crying? When you're with a crush, you try to be everything you think they want you to be. Smart, funny, sweet, even if you may not be those things. When you hang with your best friends, it's like you can almost be yourself, but not quite. You can't tell them all of your family's deep dark secrets no one outside the family is allowed to know about. You can't tell them about your secret, embarrassing, guilty pleasures for the fear of them telling the whole school.

The only time people are themselves is when they are alone. When you're alone, you can be honest. You can stop pretending to laugh when you want to scream, you can listen to the music you love even if your best friend thinks you hate it as much as she does. Only when you are alone you can let your true self show. Maybe that's how things are supposed to. Maybe there isn't the one true person you can totally be yourself around. Maybe you have to be your own best friend sometimes.

Every once in a while, I try to figure out who everyone else is. It's hard, when everyone is wearing the mask of who they want to be, disguising their true selves. Is it possible that the person you thought was your best friend could really just be someone trying to find someone they can almost be their self around?

This is how it was when I met Miley Stewart when she first moved to Malibu. We were both the "New Girls" at Seaview Middle School. Sure, I'd lived in Malibu my entire life, but up until the 6th grade, I'd gone to this expensive private school on the other end of town. At the end of 5th grade my parents told me they were getting a divorce... and all of the court fees, lawyer fees, all of that, would make it impossible to afford my private school's outrageous tuition costs. I wasn't bummed, in fact, I was glad to not have to wear the ugly plaid skirt (khaki pants on Fridays) and bland white blouse. Besides, I would get to go to public school with all of the kids I knew from my neighborhood. As far as I could tell, the only downside to the situation was the whole divorce thing.

So, on the first day of 6th grade, I arrived wearing jeans (for the first weekday during the school year in my entire school-going career) and a tank top, ready to hang with the girls I knew from my block. Being twelve and not knowing any better, I thought I would fit right in to the public school scene. Boy, was I wrong. All of the kids I knew and sometimes hung out with on weekends completely ignored me, looking at me like I was some kid they had never seen before. It hurt.

Come lunch time, I couldn't find a seat anywhere. All of the tables were filled with groups of friends who had known each other since they were in diapers. I was an outcast in a town I had known my whole life. I took my tray to the hallway and wandered down to the girls' bathroom. I would eat in solitude, away from the eyes of the kids I used to consider my friends. Much to my surprise, there was already someone sitting on the bathroom counter, tray of gross school food on her lap.

After a moment of standing in the doorway, I hopped up next to her and we ate in silence. Our mutual feeling of fear of eating in the cafeteria was highly apparent. We ate our entire meal with out speaking to each other once. It was only when the three minute warning bell for fourth period rang that we introduced ourselves.

"I'm Lilly Truscott," I told the girl, tucking my empty food tray under my arm and sticking out my free hand to the girl. She shook it gently.

"Hi, I'm Miley Stewart," she replied in a thick southern accent. We exited the bathroom side by side, ignoring the stares of those judgmental preteens who had nothing better to do than to give us strange looks as we headed to the cafeteria to deposit our empty trays. We handed them to the ancient lunch lady with a double chin and a face full of wrinkles, who gave us strange looks, not unlike the ones from our peers.

"What's your next class?" I asked Miley, reaching into my own pocket to find my schedule. She pulled hers out as well and we held them both out to compare. A smile spread across my face as I saw that our next three classes, the last three of this awful first day, were the same. She smiled in return and we headed off down the hall to our computer skills class.

So this was just the prologue, hope it got you interested. This story will go back into present times, but you needed to know the background first lol.

Wish