~~You think it's so easy to change yourself.

You think it's so easy, but it's not.

What do you think it takes to reinvent yourself as an all-new person, a person who makes sense, who belongs? Do you change your clothes, your hair, your face? Go on, then. Do it. Pierce your ears, trim your bangs, buy a new purse. They will still see past that, see you, the girl who is still too scared, still too smart for her own good, still a beat behind, still, always, wrong. Change all you want; you can't change that.

I know because I tried.

I was born to be unpopular. There was no other way it could've gone. If there were just one place where it first fell apart, I could dream of going back in time and finding myself and saying, :Listen, ten-year-old Elise, you don't wear that oversize bright red sweater with tufts of yarn sticking out of it like pom-poms. I know it's your favorite, because it looks so special but don't do it. Don't be special." That's what I would say to my younger self if I could pinpoint the moment when I went astray. But I was always astray.

I've gone to school with the same kids since kindergarten. And they knew what I was before I did. I was uncool by fourth grade. And somehow, even in the fourth grade, they knew. A new girl moved to our town that year, from Colorado. She and i would sit outside together during recess while the other girls play don't-touch-the-ground tag. And then one day on the playground, Lizzie Johnson came over and casually said to my new friend, "Don't spend too much time with Elise. She might rub off on you." I was sitting right there. I was a social liability.

This was in the fourth grade.

We went to a middle twice the size of our elementary school and then went to a high school twice the size our middle school. But, somehow, all those new kids immediately found out about me. Somehow it was that obvious. When I was little, my mom would schedule my playdates with different girls: Rachel, Heather, Jessica. Then in fifth grade, Rachel moved to Delaware, Jessica invited every girl except me to her birthday party, and Heather have me a note saying that the only reason she hung out with me was because her parents told her to.

I used to hang out with neighborhood boys. But around the time we went to middle school, everyone started thinking about dating, which meant no boy could play in the snow with me anymore lest someone see us and think had a crush on me. By seventh grade, I had no one. Okay, I still had kids who I splashed with at my mom's summer lake house. My parent's friend's children who were never quite my age. But I had no one who was really mine.

Last summer, after freshman year, I decided I couldn't go on like this anymore. It's not like I wanted to be the like the popular girls in school because I didn't want to be the most exciting, beautiful, beloved girl in the world. I just didn't want to be me anymore. It's not easy to change yourself, like some makeover. It's a whole summer's worth of work. The one thing I couldn't change about myself was the music I listen to. I tried but gave up after an hour and a half. It was bad. Not interesting-bad but bad-bad. Auto-tuned vocalists couldn't really sing; offensively simplistic instrumentation; grating melodies. Like they thought we were stupid.

I would have given almost anything to change myself, but I wouldn't give in to that. I hated that music almost as much as I hated having to be myself every day. So I just read about popular artists and musicians online until I felt prepared to talk about them. All summer I spent on this. Except for the time I spent record shopping, and the weekend I spent trying to repair my dad's computer, and the week I spent at the lake house.

The week before school began, I went shopping. Not only did I go shopping, I went to the mall. I knew what I was supposed to wear via Seventeen magazine. So I knew what I was supposed to do, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wasn't going to spend $130 on jeans, $300 on a purse. Both my parents gave me some money for back-to-school clothes, and I had some money saved up, but I resented spending it on clothes that I didn't even want. It's probably different for girls who have always been cool. Probably when they go shopping, they just have to fill in with a new pair of sneakers here and a new belt there. I was inventing myself from scratch.

I went through everything in my closet. Which of these could I bring into my new life? Not the sweatpants, not the sweatshirts. I though the clothes were fine. They made a statement. The Indian sari that I tailored into a summer dress. The white boots with unicorns printed on them because, even though I'm fifteen, I still think the unicorn would be the world's greatest animal.

And that's the problem with me. Not just that owned these clothes, but that I liked them. I threw my wrong, wrong clothes into garbage bags and tied them shut. I hid them in the attic on my mom's house. Then I went on a shopping spree. The total amount ended up being way more than I'd ever spent on clothes. I guess that's the price of happiness.

On the first day of sophomore year, a Thursday, I got up at six a.m. It takes time to make yourself look like a cool person. So I washed and conditioned my hair, shaved my legs, put on my first-day-of-school outfit, which I tried on a trillion times already. Loafers, fitted jeans, a T-shirt without writing or patterns, and a headband.

"I'm going to school," I told Dad.

He blinked at me over his newspaper. "No breakfast?"

"No breakfast."My stomach felt tight and jittery. Breakfast was the last thing on my mind.

Dad's gaze drifted to the table, which had bread rolls, jam, bananas, milk, a pitcher of orange juice, and boxes of cereal. "You want breakfast like a monkey?"

"Dad, please." I never had to go through this routine at my mom's house. "I have to go."

"All right, kiddo. Knock 'em dead." He stood up and tossed the banana to me. Then gave me a hug. "You look great."

That should of been a warning sign too, because dad's didn't have the same taste teens had in what looks great.

2: Chapter 2 - Realization

~~I walked to the corner to wait for the school bus. I made it with minutes to spare. I'm never early to anything, so I didn't know what to do with myself. I fought the part pounding urge to put on my headphones. All I wanted was to listen to music, but wearing headphones makes you look cutoff from the rest of the world, antisocial. I wasn't going to be antisocial this year. I was decidedly pro-social.

A few other kids showed up at the bus stop, buy none of them spoke to me. It's so early so who would want to talk. The school bus pulled up and we all got on. I did not sit in the front. The front is where losers sit so, instead, I sat in the middle, which is a relatively cool place to sit, even though I don't feel cool about it. As the bus moved, I tried not to think about the other time U sat in the middle.

It was last April and, for some reason, I didn't sit in the front row. Dave Benson and Sam Grant suddenly sat next to me and I had to press my body against the window so they could fit. I was excited because they were talking to me, like a real person. They asked me what I was listening to.

"You always have your headphones on," Sam said, leaning in close. That was flattering.

"Yes," I said.

"What are you listening to?" Dave asked.

"The Cure," I said.

Sam nodded. "Oh, cool. I like them."

That was exciting, too. That this suntanned soccer champ and I like the same eighties goth band. I think a person's taste in music says a lot about them. I thought, in that moment, that if Sam liked The Cure, then he wasn't just the cookie-cutter prep boy. So when Sam went on to say, "Let me see," I handed himy iPod.

Why? Why did I believe he had to see my iPod to know what I was listening to? I just told him and he could ask if he wanted to know more. I handed it to him, and he grabbed it and ran off to the back of the bus with everyone on the bus cheering him on. So what do you think I did? Did I go charging down the aisle and demand that I get my iPod back, because it didn't belong to them?

No. Instead I let them go and leaned my head against the window and cried. Does that seem weak to you? Could you have done better? Sometimes when you are worn down, day after day, with no reprieve for years, sometimes you lose everything but the ability to cry.

I got my iPod eventually. I told my homeroom teacher, and she told the vice principal and made them give it back. So now, on the first day of sophomore year, when I sat in the middle, I felt my while body trembling. Because I knew the big risk I was taking. Also not cool is rocking back and forth as you sit on the bus, breathing loudly, and wiping your sweaty palms on your knockoff designer jeans.

The seats filled up fast. New kids got on at every stop, shrieking with excitement our new haircuts, new hook bags, new manicures. Sam and Dave weren't in the bus, though. Maybe they got a new rude other than riding the lame school bus. I wanted someone to sit with me. But no one sat next to me. The bus filled up, stop by stop, until all seats were taken and three girls were crowded together across the aisle from me.

The bus pulled up to Rochester high school and everyone jumped up to get off. As if if they couldn't wait to go to school. I got off the bus alone, went to homeroom alone, and got my schedule and compared it with no one's. Pretty much went through the whole day alone and I wanted more this year. In AP World History, Amy Dawson asked to borrow my pen, using my name. And when she leaned over and asked me, I smiled at her because I read in a psychology study that people like you more when you smile. It wasn't a full-on conversation but at least it was something. It was acknowledgement that I existed. After class I accidentally passed Kelly Reardon in the hallway. Last year I knew her schedule so I would find another route to take to get to class on time, though I was late sometimes.

I stared straight in front of me, attempting to avoid her.

"Meghan!" She got in front of my path. I try to ignore her. "Meghan!" she called out again, in a singsongy way. "Don't be rude! I'm talking to you." I stopped walking. She looked me up and down and stared directly into my eyes.

"You look like a ghost. Did you go outside the entire summer?"

That was not the worst thing Kelly has said to me. Probably the kindest. But it cut me. I realized that the time I spent inside reading magazines, I should have been outside, tanning. For all that I'd done there's one thing just as important that I forgot to do. Kelly eventually let me go off to class and soon it was lunch time. I went to the cafeteria, which is usually the worst place in the whole world. Like the rest of Rochester High, the cafeteria is dirty, loud, and low ceilinged. It only had two windows on opposite ends of the place.

I walked into the cafeteria, clutching my brown-bag lunch and faced a room with people who either hated me or didn't know who I was. I wasn't going to be intimidated this year. I was going to spend the next thirty minutes making new friends. I saw Amy sitting at the same table as last year with ten other shiny-haired girls. I feel like if anyone in this room could be my group of friends, it would be them. So i slowly walked over to Amy's table. I stood there at the table for a second before forcing myself to speak.

"Would it be okay if I sat here?" I said.

All of them stopped what they were doing and looked at me. No one said anything for a moment.

"Sure," Amy said finally. Had she waited any longer, I would have dropped my lunch and fled. Instead I sat on the bench. Soon the girls returned to their conversation, ignoring me. "Jenn swore she'd never been there before," one of them said.

"Well she was lying," said another "She'd been there with me."

"Then why would she say she hadn't?" Countered the first girl.

"Because she's Jenn," explained the third girl.

"Remember the time she said sh hooked up with her stepbrother at that party?" said one of the girls. "At, umm..."

"At Casey's graduation party," supplied another.

"Wait, you mean she didn't?" the first girl said.

"No," they all groaned.

I hung on every word, and laughed a beat after they laughed, rolled my eyes when they rolled their eyes. I realized that after studying celebrities, and fashion, that my potential friends were talking about people I didn't know and things I hadn't done and I can't study that. It was their weight of the truth settled on me.

The girl sitting across from me said simething like, "We sent rappers to the gallows on Friday."

I giggled, then stopped when she pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows at me.

"Sorry," I said. "You just said...I mean, what are the gallows?"

"The Gallos Prize for the best student-made documentary film," the girl explained.

"Oh, I see. Cool. And what's rappers?"

"Wrappers," she said. It's my film about people who go to mummy conventions."

The amount of things I didn't know about these girls, that they were never going to tell me, was overwhelming. But you can see, can't you, how these are the sorts of girls I would wants as friends? If that were at all possible? They did things like film documentaries about mummy conventions. I wanted to do stuff like that! The lunch period was coming to a close and , for some reason, everyone at the table touched her finger to her nose.

"You," said one girl, pointing at me.

"Yes?" I said, smiling at her. She looked directly into my eyes. "Clean up."

The bell rang, and everyone at the table stood up and left, leaving all their trash on the table. I stayed seated as the cafeteria emptied around me. Amy stayed for a minute. "We always do that," she said. "The last one the table to put their finger on their nose has to clean up. That's our rule."

Amy smiled apologetically. I could have said, That's a messed up rule. or, But I didn't know. or, Why don't you stay and help me? I could have said anything but I just said, "Okay."

And Amy walked off, and I stayed cleaning all their trash into the garbage can. As I scooped up potato chip crumbs, I realized this, this most important truth: there are thousands, countless rules like the one Amy just told me. You have to touch your finger to your nose at the end of lunch. You have to listen to this band. You have tosit this certain way. There are so many rules that you don't know, and no matter how much you study, you can't learn them all. I realized this too: this year wasn't going to be different. I worked so hard but it hadn't happened and it wasn't going to happen. I could buy whatever I wanted to buy but there's no point. You think it's so easy to change yourself, but it's impossible.

So I decided on the next logical step: to kill myself.