Going into the 7th grade mid year was not an easy transition ,by far.I had to learn new things and make new friends. I had to repeat that infernal process all over again. I walked into the school frail and more insecure than an open safe. I was scared and alone. Like my personality was barren to the new folks of this grade.

I was escorted to Dr. Picone's class by the assistant principal. I chuckled in my head at his name.

“Heh, Dr. Pinecone..” i thought to myself.

As soon as i sat in the nearest open seat i was exploited and was presented by none other than the teacher.

“Oh hello there! And who are you?are you our new student?” his voice seemed to echo in the science lab. Everyone was staring, everyone had stopped what they were doing and focused on me. I could feel them silently judging.

I let out a whimper of a response “yea..”.

I continued to sit and tried to understand what he was teaching. He was mentioning batteries a lot and positive and negative, but besides that i didn't catch any clue on the lesson. I watched as people went to their assigned groups and i sat isolated at the large table.

Dr picone called me over to his desk. “Got any friends in this class?” he asked.

“No..” i muttered.

“Why don't you go over in that group with dylan and them, they’re pretty friendly” he offered.

“Ok” i replied a little happier.

Moments pass as i'm in this new group and i'm laughing my head off with them. Things were going great!

But the bell rang and soon i was alone again. After a few awkwardly quiet class periods it was time for lunch. As i looked for an empty table i saw an overwhelming amount of students pour into the cafeteria. I quickly sat at an empty table and found out nobody wanted to sit with me.the table felt cold and cringey. They had their cliques, i was half-way through the semester anyway. 

About 5 minutes into eating some odd PB&J with the peanut butter sticking to the roof of my mouth sandwich i saw dylan approach me.

“Why don't you come sit with us?” he offered and pointed his head to the already full table a number of feet away.

“But there's no room” i told him

“Well i guess we’ll have to make room” he smiled at me.

As i walked toward the busy table everyone was laughing and doing funny impressions. Dylan moved 2 of the kids to the side and told me to pull up a chair. And so i did. This table had felt warmer and welcoming.

“This is my new friend ryan, he’ll be sitting with us, if you have a problem with that you can go sit somewhere else.” he ordered the crowd at the small table.

In my head i was screaming with joy because I had made a friend that just kind of made me his friend, he didn't ask or anything, but all that showed was my awkward half grin and a slight wave of the hand.

I let out a confident and proud “Hey, how's it going?”

And from that day forth i had dylan by my side as a best friend and extended family.