How It Starts

I don't remember much from my childhood, I could never figure out if it was from repressed memories or if I just had a terrible time remembering anything. The earliest I can think of is the time when I was five years old, and going to preschool for the first time. There was a boy I became friends with on the playground, I can't remember his name, but he had dark brown, almost black eyes, and that's really all I know about him. I can remember the teacher, a woman, and how she always got excited when I wanted to read more advanced books from kindergarten and first grade. My parents were told that I excelled in reading and comprehension from a very young age. I could always read better than the other kids in my class.

In first and second grade I got my first 'best friend', a girl, Jenna, who had a nice smile and always had clips in her hair. We sat next to each other for lunch and raced around together. I never learned much about her, our friendship was very surface level, but she was my only friend and I was happy to have someone to spend time with that wasn't family.

My sister was only two grades above me, you see, so we usually spent at least one year together at the same school before she graduated to the next school. We were close, and as I was the youngest, she was fiercely protective of me. She would let me sit with her and her friends during recess if I was lonely, and make them be nice to me.

Anyway, I wasn't very good at socializing with people my age, I was often described as 'the quiet one', 'the good one', or better yet, 'the smart one'.