There is absolutely nothing in the world more boring to anyone, child or adult, than the stretch of time known as mid-January. At least this was what one Grace Katherine Monroe believed to be true. It wasn't a thought that was unfounded. All of the fun holidays had passed and months away were the ones worth caring about. The sun was a distant memory of brighter times and at least for Grace school wise she was running on empty, only being kept alive by the distant promise of spring break.
So here Grace sat on the couch bored out of her mind on this gloomy January day absolutely praying for anything to do. Evidently her prayers had been answered as shortly after the phone rang and was greeted by a call from none other than Simon. She answered it quickly wanting to be rescued from boredom. At this point she'd even settle for one of his long winding rants about the Esormoth trilogy over listening to the sounds of silence that filled her house.
"Hey Grace, It's not like a big deal or anything but my mom found a coupon for one of those trampoline places and said I could invite some friends so if you want you can come." he said casually. Grace clocked that as strange, usually when Simon had something to invite her to he was very excited about it. Still, Grace wasn't concerned enough about it to risk losing out on an escape from her boredom so she didn't mention the strangeness of it.
"I'll ask my parents." she said. Grace rushed off and did just that. She got the okay and told Simon. "What's the address of the place?" she asked. "Peirce is going to bring me up there." she explained. Simon quickly added something.
"You don't have to go straight there, just have him drop you off at my house since you already know the address and we'll all go together." he said. Grace still noticed something in his voice, tension, nervousness? She couldn't decide. Grace figured that if something really was wrong she'd find out when the two met up and put the rest out of mind. Her and Simon exchanged goodbyes and Peirce took her to the Laurent household. Pulling onto that familiar curb she was once again struck by a difference. Normally Simon was either sitting on the stoop or waiting for her searching for her car at the window but he wasn't either of those places. Well, he was at the window but he was pacing back and forth, he didn't even notice when she arrived.
Grace left the car, gave Pierce his thank you and walked up ringing the doorbell. Grace heard shuffling inside and correctly assumed that she'd broken Simon from his pacing and he was rushing for the door. This was confirmed when he opened the door for her. Appearance wise Simon looked fine so Grace considered that to be good.
"Hey Simon, I'm excited for the trampolines." she said. Simon nodded.
"Right, come inside." he responded and she did. She heard Mrs. Laurent call out from the kitchen.
"Who's at the door?" she said.
"It's just Grace." he responded and Grace was a little annoyed by the term. She figured that she shouldn't be considering that they were best friends and had been for a long time so being "Just Grace" was likely more of a mark of a long lasting friendship than anything. It didn't stop her from feeling a bit upset about it. Grace decided to ask Simon what was wrong because he was bad at hiding these things and the quicker she figured it out the quicker things could go back to being normal.
"Are you okay Simon? You seem kind of upset about something." she asked. She saw a wave of surprise and then relief wash over Simon and he sat down to explain everything to her.
"I'm just nervous because this is the first time that you're going to meet my other friends and I really want you all to get along." he said nervously. Grace raised an eyebrow at this.
"That's why you've been acting so weird? It's okay if some of your friends aren't friends. You're not close with my friends." she responded. Simon shook his head.
"That's different. You've got tons of friends and I've only got a few. So if you all don't get along then I'll end up with even fewer friends than I already have." the anxiety in his voice was clear and it was likely Simon had spent far too much time stressing over the outcome of this single day. Grace gave him a confident pat on the back to try and reassure her worrying friend.
"Listen, if me getting along with your other friends is important to you, it's important to me. So I promise you that I, Grace Kathrine Monroe, will be the best, most welcoming, most exciting person ever so that all of your friends will like me." she responded. Simon looked at her thankful.
"Thanks Grace, you're the best," he told her. Grace gave a smug smile in return.
"I know." she responded jokingly. Simon quickly shot back.
"And so humble too." he added teasingly. Grace hit him with a throw pillow and the two would have began an all out pillow fight had it not been for the interruption of Mrs. Laurent.
"Alright, we'll be going at two so you're actually early Grace." she began. "And Simon, don't play with my good throw pillows." she said in a mostly jokinging scolding tone. She turned to Grace. "It's up to you to be a good influence on him." she said. Simon raised an objection to this.
"She's the one who started this!" he said playfully indignant. Grace shook her head and turned to Simon's mother.
"I'll do my best Mrs. Laurent." Grace said. Simon's mother chuckled at Grace's comment and use of a formal name.
"Please sweetie, you can just call me Margaret." she responded. Grace shook her head.
"Thank you for the offer but physically I don't think that I can do that." Grace said seriously. Mrs. Laurent laughed at this again and walked off. Grace and Simon still having some time went to go look at the updated star chart that Simon had made. Grace found Simon's enthusiasm about the thing very endearing and it brought her back to the day that she and Simon had met. That had been a year ago, maybe almost two. In a lot of ways they had changed very little from that day besides getting a bit taller and in other ways they had changed a lot. Grace could barely remember not always being able to call Simon and talk to him even though Simon was a fairly new development in her life. Sometimes she felt like she and Simon had known each other forever.
Eventually the time did come for Grace and the Laurents to pile into the car and drive to the location where they would hang out. As they did Grace remembered what she'd decided to do, she'd have to be the most interesting, exciting, and non-threatening person of all time if she wanted to get the approval of Simon's friends and therefore keep Simon's other friendships intact. If his friends were anything like him it shouldn't be too difficult. After all, how difficult could it be to get along with his friends.
Upon arriving Grace got her first look at these friends of Simon and they looked about how she'd expected, black and brown hair with non-distinct features. They didn't stick out much and if what Simon had told her about the way they were treated at school was true that was probably something they were fine with.
"Hi, I'm Grace." she said to the two, waiting for their reaction. Neither acknowledged her and both walked over to where Simon was standing to talk to him instead. Grace got an uneasy feeling in her stomach which she ignored. They were likely just unsure of her, was what she told herself as she walked over to where the three congregated. Simon formally introduced her to the two now.
"Guys, this is Grace. I told you about her before." he said. Both of them looked at her again, this time as if they thought she was somehow lying to them without having said anything. At the very least they did share their names now.
"Tyler." the one with brown hair said.
"Jacob." was the name of the one with black hair. That uneasy feeling was back in her stomach. Grace was a nice person so people liked her. She was not used to people not liking her and she was even less used to people not liking her for no reason. Grace didn't like to keep uncomfortable feelings to herself but they hadn't technically done anything wrong and she didn't want to be the one to ruin the day before it started. So she took that uneasy feeling and ignored it. The three headed off towards the trampolines and Grace did her best to have fun. And sometimes she was having fun.
Sometimes her and Simon would challenge each other to try and reach something super high up and she'd do it leaving everyone speechless. Sometimes Simon would remind her of a funny shared memory and they'd laugh and it would be fun. But Simon wasn't always around her. And then Grace would interact with Tyler and Jacob and she wouldn't be having fun anymore. She didn't know why the two of them gave her that nervous feeling in her stomach but they did. Sometimes they'd ignore her like she didn't exist and that wasn't fun at all. But sometimes they'd turn and look at her and ask why she was watching them, or standing near them, or bothering them. And that made Grace want to walk far away and go home.
It wasn't just that what they said was rude, it was definitely rude but that wasn't what made Grace the most uncomfortable. It was the way that they'd say it to her. It made her feel like her being there was something wrong in of itself. It made Grace feel like she wasn't allowed to be there even though she'd been invited and Simon was her friend. And Grace really wanted to say something to Simon about it but everytime she almost did she'd stop herself. Grace had promised Simon that she'd get along with his friends and she didn't want to ruin the fun that they were having because she was too sensitive.
That was all it was, her being sensitive. She tried to tell herself that but it wouldn't work. Grace knew that they were being mean to her on purpose, she knew it wasn't her being overdramatic. Simon's mom called him over and he walked off towards her leaving Grace alone with his friends. One of them started to say something to her that Grace knew would be rude.
"Why are you still here-" Grace cut him off.
"Why are you being mean to me? I haven't done anything to you!" she said more distressed then she meant to. Grace couldn't help it, this was distressing. To have people you've never met before treating you like you've slighted them somehow. The one who Grace was pretty sure was named Tyler was the one who gave her the answer.
"We don't like you because we just don't. We don't want you around, why don't you get that?" he said so seriously that Grace was sure he'd said it before. Grace wasn't a person who cried, her parents didn't cry and neither did she. Grace wasn't going to cry because two people she didn't know didn't like her. So she walked away. Grace found a nice bench to sit on and waited for Simon to return to his friends so she could ask his mom to call her ride. Grace wouldn't ruin their fun but she wasn't going to stick around to be the butt of anyone's jokes. At this point, Grace just wanted to go home. She sat there for a while before hearing approaching footsteps and turning to see Simon.
"There you are, I was looking for you." Grace nodded and didn't say anything. Simon looked concerned. "What's wrong?" he asked. Grace did her best to not give away what had happened.
"I want to go home." she said quietly. Simon looked even more concerned upon hearing that.
"What happened? Is something wrong? Did I do something wrong?" he asked. Grace quickly shook her head.
"No, nothing's wrong I just want to go home." she said, doing her best to make her words sound authentic. Simon gave her a disbelieving look.
"Grace, you're the best at almost everything. Except lying." Grace looked away from him upon hearing that. She kept doing her best to keep herself together. "Grace, you can tell me if somethings wrong. I'll always be on your side." Grace started to shake her head but couldn't hold back any longer and blurted out what she wanted to say.
"Your friends are jerks Simon. They've been bullying me all day." Grace didn't know what she expected to happen at that moment. Maybe she thought he'd want to hear their side of the story, or deny that it had happened. That was not what Simon did.
"Okay, I'll send them home." he said casually. "And I won't be friends with them anymore." he added. Grace was surprised at this and shook her head.
"I can't make you stop being friends with them because they don't like me." she said.
"Not liking someone is one thing but bullying them is different and I don't want to be friends with anyone who'd bully you." he said earnestly. Grace still looked unsure.
"Those are your friends." she muttered.
"I can make other friends. And besides, you're my best friend. You're the one who's seen me throw up on a roller coaster and heard me talk about my dad and seen me cry at the planetarium." he said listing instances of their closeness. Grace smiled remembering all of those things. She and Simon were best friends, of course he'd have her back. She'd been silly to think that he wouldn't.
"Thank you Simon." she said, giving him a hug. Simon hugged her back.
"It's what best friends are for."