Jaime’s first day of school was defiantly a nightmare. Jaime Vargas was the new kid at Citrus High School. He moved to California all the way from Florida halfway through his junior year. He drove to school early, got his schedule, and started to look for his classes so he wouldn’t get lost when school started. Walking down the hallways he smiled at the people and got rude looks in return. His first three classes went okay, it wasn’t until lunch started that things took a turn for the worse.

Jaime got his tray and walked around trying to find a table to sit at. Every table had people sitting in them talking with their friends. Whenever he found a table that wasn’t full he got cold stares from the people sitting at the table, making it clear that he wasn’t wanted. Jaime was walking around the cafeteria for two long minutes and started to feel embarrassed. A fight broke out and everyone, including Jaime, turned their attention to it. Unfortunately Jaime was still walking and had all his attention focused on the fight. He slipped on some spilled soda that was on the floor and threw his food all over a girl. The room got quiet, even the fight stopped, until everyone burst out in laughter. It was like the scene out of High School Musical, minus the singing and dancing. The thing that made everything worse was that the girl that Jaime spilled all his food on was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Jaime was franticly apologizing to the outraged girl when a guy, who appeared to be her boyfriend, got next to her and gave him a hard look and yelled at him to leave before something happened.
About a month passed since the incident in the cafeteria and they were still making fun of him, calling him butterfingers, life in school was not fun for Jaime. The girl that he spilled his food on was called Rebecca and the guy that Jaime thought was her boyfriend was Alex. Jaime had been horrified to see that both Rebecca and Alex were in his fourth hour class. Alex was not Rebecca’s boyfriend, he had a crush on her and Jaime had embarrassed Rebecca in front of the whole school. He tormented him every single day. Rebecca had forgiven him, she knew that it was an accident, and always stuck up for him whenever Alex made fun of him.

Jaime couldn’t help but feel lonely. Back in his old school he was popular and was always surrounded by people, and he was starting to miss that. In this school Rebecca, Alex and their friends were the popular ones, and since Alex hated him he knew he wouldn’t be popular in his new school.

One day after Jaime’s fourth hour class Alex came up to him and started being friendly to him, and to his amazement invited him to hang out with him and his friends. Jaime thought that this was his chance to be popular, resolve his problem with Alex and hopefully get close to Rebecca. They exchanged numbers and Alex told him he’ll text him later that night. School finally finished and went home and waited for the text message.

Around six pm Alex texted him saying they were all going to a pizza place and that he should go. Jaime went and met all of Alex’s and Rebecca’s friends. They were all having a good time and he was actually getting along with Alex. He was starting to talk more to Rebecca and found they both had lots in common.

It was around eight when they left the restaurant and Alex said that they were going to hang out somewhere and that he should come. Jaime, not wanting to miss his chance of becoming their friend, agreed to go with him. He followed them in his car and was confused when he saw that they were parked in front of a big abandoned house.

Alex told him that the house they were in front of was supposedly haunted, and recently people had been tagging and sneaking inside the house. The cops had been patrolling the neighborhood at night to make sure no one harmed the house. Jaime asked exactly what they were doing there. Alex told him that if he wanted to be a part of their group he had to sneak inside the house and steal something. Jaime was shocked at what he had heard, Alex told him that almost all of them had done it, and if he wanted to make it up to Rebecca he should do it. Jaime really wanted to be part of their group, he agreed to do it.

He found a broken window and went inside, the room was dark and he was extremely nervous. He had never done anything illegal and starting thinking. He was wondering if stealing something to become friends with them and be popular was worth it. Rebecca had seemed to be over the whole cafeteria incident and he already had a nice group of friends. Was it really worth it getting caught and sent to juvy to become friends with people that would only accept him if he stole something? He didn’t think so.

Jaime got out of the abandoned house and went back outside to see Alex and everyone else. When they saw that he didn’t have anything, they asked him what had happened. Jaime told him that he wasn’t going to steal anything. Alex got heated that Jamie didn’t do what he told him to do. He told him that he had to do it if he wanted to be part of their group. When he said it wasn’t worth it Alex told everyone to leave that he didn’t want to be with this loser. They started to leave Jaime alone when they realized that Rebecca had stayed with him. They asked her what she was doing she said that Jaime was her friend. She liked him more than them, and that he did the right thing by not stealing anything.

Alex told her that if she didn’t go with them she’d be out of the group. She said that she never wanted to be a part of their group. They left them in a frenzy of anger and told them that they’ll regret it. When they were alone Rebecca told him that she was happy that he didn’t do it. If he had stolen something she wouldn’t had liked him as much as she did right now.

A few weeks had passed, and life was much better. Alex and his friends had been making fun of him and Rebecca, but with Rebecca by his side it didn’t matter. Jaime had realized that being popular wasn’t everything. If stealing something would make him a part of their group, they would have never really been his friends. The group of friends he had, and Rebecca, liked him for who he was and that was truly all that mattered.