What had happened to her? She was a monster. As I was staring her down, madly I realized she was, was…wearing make-up! What had happened to my best friend? She swore up and down, no dresses, no heels, no pink, no ribbons OR bows AND DEFINATLEY NO MAKE-UP! It’s funny what love will do to a girl.


I am Elizabeth. I am 14 and live in Louisiana. I have a thick accent and a BAD temper. I moved here from Mississippi when I was only 3 years old because of my dad’s work. We needed the money and this job would get it. When I was 4 I started school at Jackson Pre-School. Then I was on to K-12 school at Jackson. When I was in 1st grade I met Susie. She became my best friend. We hated all the same things. Dresses, heels, SHOES, girly clothes, the color pink, rap, hip-hop, pop music, and we absolutely positively HATED make-up! When we were in 5th grade Susie’s parents were killed in a car wreck. She had no other family so she was an orphan. Her parents and my parents had been very close. So we adopted her because we didn’t know whom she would wind up with if she were adopted through an orphanage.

When we were in the middle of our 6th grade year, my dad got promoted and we had to move to Louisiana! There we attended Stallion Parish Jr. High School. While we were all settled in, living here, my dad was laid off along with 3,000 other workers. We decided to stay in Louisiana and fid other work.
Me and Susie are now in 8th grade and things are very weird and complicated. Me and Susie don’t really see each other anymore. Yes, I did say my parents adopted her. Well, Susie found out she had one family member left that she didn’t know about. Her Aunt Karen. She was rich and when she found out about Susie her and her fiancé, Robert, moved down here to Louisiana to take care of her. Well her Aunt Karen demanded custody. Being they were family she got the custody she wanted. The good news is they live in the same neighborhood as us. SOOOO, we still go to the same school. We are starting our 8th grade year here and there is a “new guy”. Dark brown hair. Blue eyes. A sparkling white smile. Yes. He is attractive. Susie, along with every other girl in 7th and 8th grade , want him. And want him bad. I asked Susie, “ Are you really going to go after him like every other girl?” She answered, “I have just as good a chance as they do.”
For the next 3 weeks girls were throwing themselves at him, including Susie. Susie and I didn’t talk much anymore. I get off the bus at school, the beginning of the 4th week. Susie wasn’t on the bus. Susie NEVER misses school. I walk into the school cafeteria and see a new girl. Beach blonde hair. Big pink bow in her hair. Dressed to kill. Wearing at least 3-inch heels. And wearing heavy as heck MAKE-UP! Ick! Under my breath I mutter, “who the heck does she thing she is?” I study this girl. I look deep, deeper than most people would. It’s ,it’s, SUSIE!!! I have never said words like that, I said them under my breath, but…still. I was devastated. I felt betrayed, lied to, and I WAS, WAS, WAS, FURIOUS! ANGRY! What the heck was she doing? I walked up to her as calm as I could hold myself. She explained to me how all of “this” would get Troy, the “new guy”. I told her if it took all this to get, “some guy” that he wasn’t worth it. If he didn’t like this Mississippi country girl heart he didn’t deserve you. She stuck her nose up and ran off with her so called “friends”. I watched as she ran off with Troy to flirt. As I looked more closely I realized she had stuffed her bra. OMGOSH!!!! This went on for two weeks straight! We didn’t talk.

Well I was on the bus going home. I was sitting sideways in the seat as usual, listening to my iPod. I turned back to the front. The backlight on the screen went off to where I could see my reflection in the glass. I held my iPod in my left hand with my left hand propped on the seat in front of me. I looked at the screen and saw 2 people’s reflection. They were kissing. I looked a little closer. I whipped my head around, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Troy and Susie. I was disgusted. Then I was mad.
The next day at school I saw Troy with another girl, whose name is Margaret. He leaned in to kiss her. He kissed her slow and passionately. Kinda like he kissed Susie. I know I was mad at Susie but I could have killed Troy at this point in time. I went straight up to him and wrung him in his jaw. I chewed him out and called him a butt and asked him how he could do that to my best friend. We stared each other down. He leaned in to kiss me! I turned my head and the kiss landed on my cheek. Susie saw this. She got mad at both of us. Troy then told Susie that I told him to do it! She forgave him, but not me. I tried to explain, but she grabbed Troy and whisked him away.
I called her that night to try and explain once again, but she told me she didn’t want to hear it.
The next day at school, I was asked out by a boy at school I had been crushing on since the beginning of 6th grade. I said yes.
3 YEARS LATER……..

Troy broke up with Susie! He broke her heart into a million tiny pieces that couldn’t be put back together. She was so depressed that she tried to kill herself. She tried to throw herself in front of a moving bus. Her aunt pushed her out of the way, but didn’t move herself out of the way in time to save herself. She stayed on life support for a month before her Uncle Robert said to kill the machines and move on with his life. Susie now has to go to therapy 3 times a week, for her depression. We still don’t talk. I lost my friend 3 years ago because of a guy. I almost lost her to a bus because of a guy. I am still happily in a relationship with the same guy from 8th grade. 2 year after graduation Susie and I started to talk again. We both found out that we had missed the other terribly. Well, Troy had got involved with the wrong people about the same time me and Susie started talking again. He was all messed up with drugs and murders and criminals. One night he was really messed up. He killed Susie. I will never be able to forgive Troy, for what he did. He almost took her twice, but then he took her life.