"Coming mom!" I yell and run my way to the dining room.

"What took you so long?" Dad asks.

"Nothing dad. Just had a lot of homework today." I reply as I ate some of my salad.

Mom asks,  "Are you still sad, honey? I know that it's been really hard for you."

For a moment I stop eating and feel tears blocking the view of my eye. I wipe my eyes quickly so that no one notices. 

"No mom. I'm okay. It's taking time but I'm holding up well." I rush my words.

"If you say so dear but if you need anything, all of us are there for you." Mom replies.

"Thanks mom." I answer.

"Something crazy happened today! I had a dream in which I saw Cuddles eating my spectacles!" Grandma says, probably to lighten up the mood.

All of us look at my golden retriever and then at each other and burst out laughing.

Grandma glares at us and asks, "What's so funny? You never know what dogs can do these days!"

"Cuddles would never do such things. He's the best! Aren't you Cuddles? Aren't you?" I say as I get up from my chair and brush my hand through his soft fur.

"Woof! Woof!" Cuddles lets out a happy bark.

"See, he's my boy!" I exclaim.

Later that night, I resume typing my blog on my laptop and as I do, everything flashes before my eyes.

So it started like this...

Few months ago, my father got transferred to California and all of us had to move there.

"What! There's no way I'm leaving New York!" I screamed.

"Try to understand, honey, we don't have a choice! Do you want your dad to lose his job?" Mom tried to calm me down.

"Mom, you know how much I love it here! I have so many friends! How can I possibly leave?"

"Darling, you can make new friends there too and maybe there'll be better ones. It's not such a bad place after all. I'm sure you'll adapt to it and you'll love it." mom assured me.

"If you say so. " I replied, still not convinced but I didn't feel like arguing further.

That evening, Dad came home from work and tried his best to enthrall me about San Francisco. I truly tried my best to understand and finally agreed.

In a few days' time, all our luggage was packed and we were ready to go.

San Francisco gave us a hearty welcome and I was quite impressed.

We set up our new house and the next day I was ready to encounter the first day of my new school.

To my surprise, I woke up late and ran to get dressed.

"Have you seen my blue jacket, Mom?" I yelled at the top of my voice.

"It's behind your door, honey!" Mom yelled back.

After getting dressed I ran to the living room with my backpack, almost tripping down the stairs.

"Careful dear, do you want to have a broken bone on the first day?" My grandmother said.

I ignored her comment and popped some dry fruits in my mouth as I ran towards the door.

My grandmother stopped me and said "I think you forgot to wear this. " she made me wear a necklace. It looked beautiful. It was a plain silver chain attached to a heart pendant. It was my lucky charm as I always wore it whenever I needed good luck.

"Thanks for reminding me about it, Grandma."

"My pleasure dear, I thought maybe you'll need it."

"Wait up Cal, won't you eat something? The bacon and eggs are ready." Mom called after me.

"No mom, I'm not hungry. And I'd rather not eat anything than being late and getting a wrong first impression!" I replied.

"Well, okay then. But here's some money in case you need to buy anything. Have a good day." Mom said as she kissed me lightly on my forehead.

"I love you, Mom.", I replied and walked to school.

As I reached, I heard a loud bell and looked around for my class but there was no one around in the corridor. Clearly, I was late and everyone would have already dispersed to their classes.

Somehow with lots of enquiries , I managed to find out my class and just as I opened the door, the teacher raised her voice and said "Late, I suppose. On your first day, Miss Calidora Flinn? Haven't your parents taught you to be punctual?"

I was angry when I heard this because I would never tolerate anyone say anything wrong about my family. This time I had to control myself. So I kept quiet.

"No justifications? No excuses?" She said.

"Um...I woke up late. I'm sorry." I mumbled.

"What? I didn't hear you. Could you repeat?"

"I....nothing. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be late. "

Everyone started laughing at me making my cheeks warm and red.

I found an empty seat, sat and quickly opened my chemistry notebook as I had received my schedule before class.

"Looks like you don't have a good chemistry with the chemistry teacher." A girl next to me whispered.

I looked at her. The first thing I noticed was her necklace. It was just like mine. The only thing different was that her pendent was diamond shaped. It was red too. She wore a long frock, her long hair pulled back in a pony tail. Her hair was brown.

"I don't have a good chemistry with her either." She whispered again.

I smiled.

After chemistry, we had a break and as everyone went out of class, the girl next to me came in front, shook my hand and said, " Evanthia."

"What? " I replied.

"My name is Evanthia."

"Oh! Okay. I'm Callidora. Pleased to meet you."

"Even though I don't know you well, I can definitely make out that you're nervous. Anything troubling you?" She asked me.

I didn't know if I should trust her but my instincts just wanted to.

"You can trust me. But if you don't want to, then it's perfectly alright." She assured.

"I'm new here. Not only to this school but also to this city. I've had a bad start of my first day and I don't know what other problems I might face today." I said in a mellow voice.

Then suddenly Evanthia started laughing. I frowned and asked "what's so funny?"

Evanthia said, "I'm laughing because I felt the same way on my first day. Later I realized how stupid I was to be so scared! Don't worry Callidora, everything will be fine. You need to relax and believe in yourself. Yet, if anything goes wrong, I'll help you out."

"Thanks." I replied. Then we spoke about a few general things.

In the cafeteria, while I was walking with my tray to look for a seat, someone rushed past me and in seconds I realized that cranberry juice was spilt on my shirt. At once I turned back and exclaimed "Hey! You should look where your going!"

The girl turned towards me and replied "Excuse me? What did you just say?"

"I said that you should...." I started to say when suddenly Evanthia came next to me and whispered " Please let it go. You really don't want to get into trouble. "

"Trouble? Seriously? She did that intentionally! My new shirt is ruined!" I yelled.

"Aw, is that the only shirt you have loser?", the girl commented in a nasty way.

"What did you call me?" I asked as I walked up to her.

"Loser. L for lame, O for orphan , S for stupid , E for egg and R for rotten. L.O.S.E.R!!! That's you!"

She shouted catching everyone's attention.

Anger in my nerves, I said as I walked right in front of her, "How dare you!"

Suddenly, two guys came right next to her, one on each side. They stared at me.

"So, what are you going to do now? Punch me in the face?" The girl said confidently.

"I wi..."

"Zina, please forget about it. She's new here. Today's her first day." Evanthia, interrupted my sentence.

"Oh that's why she's stupid enough to argue with me!" Zina replied.

"What about the insult? A sorry won't cover it up!" The guy next to her said.

"Get on your knees now, girl! Get down and apologise! Now! Or else you'll never forget this incident!" Zina screamed at me.

"But..." I started to say.

"Apologise now or you'll regret it later!" Zina pressurized.

"Let it go Zina! Stop troubling her!" Evanthia said.

"Okay then, you do it on her behalf!" Zina said.

As Evanthia walked past me towards Zina, I tried to stop her ,

" Evanthia please, don't...."

But Evanthia just walked and knelt down in front of her and said "I'm sorry on her behalf. Please forgive me."

I felt so small at that moment. The girl whom I had just met few minutes ago, was ready to apologise on my behalf. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I walked away, still angry.

Later, Evanthia came to me and exclaimed "what's wrong with you?!"

"Oh really? I should be asking you that! Why did you do that? I told you that she spilt juice on me intentionally!" I replied.

"And I told you to let it go! But why in the world would you listen to me? I'm new here and you have been here for years now! Right?" She said, sarcastically.

I didn't know what to say.

"Zina is a devil. She's famous and spoiled. She thinks that everyone are losers except for her and her team mates. There's no point in arguing with her cause she makes a big deal out of everything and she'll do anything to pull you down if she hates you. That's why I told you to back off." Eva explained.

"Oh. I didn't know that. I'm sorry. But why did you apologize on my behalf?", I asked.

"You're my friend now. Once my friend, always my friend." Eva said.

"Really? Thanks a lot. I don't think that anyone else would ever do that for me." I said as I hugged her.

"Woah!" She exclaimed."You're welcome. But be a little more patient and careful next time, girl."

"Sure. Instead, I'll just let you handle it." I replied.

Both of us started laughing.

This was the start of our friendship and it really felt special.