last night was the infamous last social (dance) at school. dear god.

I remember sixth grade when I went, and I went home all confused, like, "I don't know, everyone was crying all the time, I tried to get out ASAP."

and then seventh grade - "dammit, another year here, I'll miss annie and maybe sydney." I cried a little last year when sydney started.

this year?

I sobbed.

I'm completely serious. shuddering, large sobs. it was so stupid.

the time actually went by kind of fast - we had like three snowballs and one slow song, the rest of it was all rap music and "hey hey you you I don't like your girlfriend." I was on time, emma came at like eight. before I knew what was happening, there was ten minutes left, and rachel b. was the first to start crying. then all of team bella started pouring out tears, along with emma and kayla.

I couldn't cry. my eyes were totally dry. I felt heartless, but kind of thankful, because I didn't want to just start crying in front of everyone.

and then it kind of hit me - I'm moving. south carolina. south-fucking-carolina. it's not just a we're-going-to-different-high-schools-maybe-I'll-see-you-around. this was a complete I'm-never-going-to-see-these-people-again.

and then I wanted to throw up because this is the hardest moving's ever really hit me, but instead the vomit came all out my eyes and I sobbed just as hard as jamie and holly and rachel and emma and all them.

I had started crying around the time we were supposed to be in a circle. most of us lingered around the edges and very few people actually held hands, and the circle broke quickly and easily.

and then it was.. over. they told us we had to pick up three pieces of trash and then leave.

most of the sixth graders and seventh graders left, but the majority of us eighth graders stayed - all us crying ones and a few dry eyes. I was so shocked - almost all the girls were crying (the ones who weren't: megan, krystal, paige, natalie, mckayla) and about a quarter of the boys (the ones who were: christian, matt, bryan, markus, and vance cried a little)

and we all just hung out there for like ten minutes afterwards, sobbing and hugging everyone. I hugged people I didn't think would even cry or arrive at my funeral - people I never really liked, people I had gossiped about, people who had disliked me back. I gave some people high-fives - I 'fived ben and arjun and bryan and torrey and mckayla and natalie and paige and christiane and vance, and I high-fived markus but then he held my hand and we moved in and hugged and it was weird but I kind of needed it.

jamie and rachel b and holly hugged me for the longest time, really cried on my shoulder and I found myself telling them I was sorry, and rachel told me a thousand times over not to move, please.

I even hugged christian. christian! he was crying so hard, I even felt bad for him - the boy who was never really accepted here. there were reasons why, of course, but god. I had my three pieces of trash in my hand and I said "christian" and he came over and hugged me and all I said was "I'm so sorry I've got trash in my hand" and he said "thank you."

kayla hugged me four times, emma twice. the last person I hugged was steven.

it took us literally fifteen minutes to get out of there, and then me wandering around for three minutes looking for my dad and trying to figure out how I had gotten outside.

and now I understand what it was like for all those eighth graders last year, why we sat and made fun of them, how stupid we must've looked. I swear we cried five times harder than last years' eighth graders.

and I can't believe I cried for this school.

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I also went to the boardwalk yesterday. yearbook students get to. in the morning, we got to see the yearbooks for the first time ever, beautiful and published, and we got to flip through them for like ten minutes and look for mistakes (I found like three, none of them on the pages I made yay!) and we have the yearbook assembly on tuesday, where I am supposed to speak. the boardwalk was fun - emma went off with emily because they're both these huge thrill-seekers and I hate hatehatehaaaate rollercoasters - I can take moderate thrills but things that go upside-down or sideways or something might be too much for me. so instead I spent the day with paige and christiane - paige is totally insane and loves all thrill rides including drop-zone, but christiane is more my speed, which was good.

and now I've got a sunburn where I would like freckles, please.

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today I'm going with michelle to get my graduation dress, and then we're going to try to organize some sort of sleep-over. tomorrow I'm going to emma's play at 2:30 and I have to do my homework.

this is my last weekend where I have school next week.


what?