“What if I don’t make any friends? What if no one likes me?” I asked, as I was sitting in my kitchen, worrying like a nervous horse before a race, about what was going to happen in just a short week.

“You’ll be fine.  You’re a friendly kid and very nice.  I bet you’ll make at least one friend by the end of the day,” my mom said.  “Didn’t you say Hannah asked you to sit with her?”

“Yeah, but what if the people at the table don’t like me?” I said.

“Like I already said, Alexis, you’re a very likeable person,” my mom said, encouraging me with that “You’ll be fine” smile that I know all too well.

This is a serious matter, Mom. Your smile won’t fix this, I thought.

(A week passed.)

“Have a good day at school, Alexis. Remember: don’t try too hard to make a friend,” my mom said.

“Okay,” I said as I made my way out of the car.  I felt like a kid going to school for the first time, holding tightly onto their parent’s hand, that doesn’t show any sign on letting go.

As I walked inside to my first class, Health, there were many kids.  All of the kids’ faces were not familiar to me, except for one: Hannah! 

“Hi, I haven’t seen you in forever!” Hannah said, as she embraced me into a friendly hug.

“Hi, Hannah, it’s very nice to see you again,” I said as I hugged her back.

At least I have one friend, I thought happily to myself.

When I went to lunch, I thought very intensely, like a scientist does for a cure to cancer, about whether the other kids at the table would like me or not.  I finally found the table that Hannah was sitting at.  Six other kids were sitting there also, two of which I had found familiar.  One was Sydney, a girl Hannah had introduced to me in second period.  The other was Isabella, a girl I knew from volleyball, but I never really talked to much. The other four were foreign to my mind.

As lunch went by, which lunch actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, I was starting to feel a little less anxiety about having friends because I knew the four kids that I sort of knew at the table would be there for me, and as the year would go on I knew we would have long lasting friendships!