“BUBBLE GUM, BUBBLE GUM in a dish, how many pieces do you wish? One, two, three, four...”

The girls were jump roping, and I was sitting on the steps by the door across from them during recess, watching. I wanted to join them so badly. Many days I wanted to hop up from the same spot where I perched and start jumping in the middle of the swinging rope. But I wasn’t invited. Only the cool girls did it. I wasn’t even asked to play tether ball with the nerds. Instead, I sat and twirled my too short brown hair around my index finger.

I wished I knew why I wasn’t part of a group. I used to have tons of friends actually. Most of them were standing in front of me laughing with the other girls. But that was when we were in Kindergarten. I’d gone to all of their birthday parties, and had played in their backyards. Then I’d been slowly weeded out. By fifth grade, I was the quiet girl who they passed notes about and wasn’t asked to a single sleep over. I’d thought middle school was supposed to be tough. At least, that’s what I’d always heard my mom say to my dad. Instead, I was floundering the year before and the only friend I had was in a different classroom.

“Hey Hadley!” Claire Montgomery, shouted my name.

I glanced up in confusion. She was waving at me to come over. I looked around to see if she meant some other Hadley, but it appears I was the only one. I pointed to myself to ask if she meant me.

“Come over here and jump with us.”

I stood from the cement step and walked towards them. When I got to the group of seven, I shuffled my feet. “Hi,” I said nervously.

One girl snickered, while another said hello back.

Claire came to stand by my side, and explained. “There’s only seven of us, and we need even teams. You’ll be on Natalie’s team.”

“Okay.” I said shakily. “What are the rules?”

“All four of you will start in the middle, and one person will jump out. When there is only one person left, you have to keep jumping until you can’t anymore.” She watched me. “Got it?”

I nodded. I was pretty decent at jump rope. Well, by myself. I did it often in my driveway at home, but I’d never tried when someone else was swinging the rope.

Two girls picked up each end, while myself, Natalie, Laney, and Sophia all stepped into the middle. Natalie listed off who was supposed to jump out first. I was told I’d be last. I gulped. Didn’t they know I might not know how to do this? What if I screwed up?

I had no time to think about it. The small cord flipped up from the ground and swung around. When it slapped the pavement, I jumped. My feet cleared. Holy crap, I did it! Once, twice, a third time. Natalie had left the line, as the three of us left kept jumping. The other four girls sang some song I’d never heard before, but quickly picked up the beat.

I was laughing and smiling as the other two girls left and I was the only one standing. Here was the test. Keep the rope moving and not let it hit my feet. I was pretty certain I could keep this up all recess, I was that confident. Up and down I hopped, moving to the beat of their rhyme. It wasn’t until I caught Sophia out of the corner of my eye go and whisper in one of the girls ears that was holding an end. When she stepped away, she nodded to the girl on the other side. My once in-rhythm jumping was now being caught off guard by the new speed the girls were swinging. I jumped at every chance I could, but it was getting too fast for me. My smile faltered and I wondered what was going on. Why were they going faster?

“Hey,” I said. “Slow down. I don’t think I can jump that fast.”

Natalie chortled. “Better keep up then.”

I was hopping so fast that my tennis shoes were slamming on the ground and the bottom of my feet were stinging.

“Not so fast guys.” I pleaded.

Claire called out, “The rules changed. You miss, you can’t play with us anymore. You don’t, then we will let you sit with us at lunch.”

I didn’t understand. I thought they’d wanted to play with me. Now they were being mean. They knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with this speed. My mind was trying to figure out how to jump out without getting hit by the rope, or tripping. Why were they doing this? I was certain they were all laughing at me. I couldn’t look away from where the rope was swinging, but I could tell more kids were crowding around to watch what would happen. A girl shouted, “Look at the loner. She’s gonna fall on her face.”

People giggled. My heart was racing and I had no clue what to do. Where was my teacher? Couldn’t she tell something was going on with everyone standing around?

The rope picked up speed again, and it was no longer a matter of if I would fall, but when. I realized I wasn’t going to get out of this without getting hurt. My legs trembled and I knew they were about to buckle. I could barely catch my breath. I couldn’t look for them but I knew the teachers were nowhere to be found. I knew that none of the kids would go and get one. I was on my own. If I stopped jumping the rope would lash the side of my leg and it would hurt. But I thought that maybe if I jumped extra fast, I could somehow get out and I would be the one left laughing.

In a brief moment of bravery, I took one quick leap as the rope slapped past my feet and flew towards my head. I tried to hop as fast as I could out of the way before it came back over again, but, apparently, I was slower than I thought. Or maybe the girls had swung it around even faster to ensure I’d fall. Which is exactly what happened. As my legs came up, the rope hit the side of my calf and pulled my legs out from under me. I hit the ground so hard, it knocked out what little air I had left.

My ears were ringing, and I was in a pile on the ground. I didn’t have to look at my knees to know they were scraped and bleeding. My elbow was on fire and my hands had little rocks pushed into my skin. All of the kids who’d been watching were now in a tight circle standing over the top of me as they laughed—mean names echoing around the small circle. Names I wouldn’t even repeat to my mom if she asked.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, trying everything in my power to hold back my tears— to not let them win and know they’d hurt my feelings. It was a losing battle. My cheeks were already wet, and a sob bubbled up from my throat. I wanted nothing more than for my mom to pick me up and take me home. I never wanted to come back here. I wanted to move far away to a place where nobody knew me. Where I could start over and make friends.

“Hadley, are you okay?”

I peered up and blinked through wet lashes. Wrigley Brooks, the most popular fifth grader, and my neighbor from down the street was squatting next to me. He was looking at me with pity, and I hated him for it. He knew I wasn’t okay. He also knew I likely wouldn’t want his help out of all the kids standing around me. I’d even prefer Claire over Wrigley right now.

“Your knees are cut up pretty bad. We need to get you to the nurse,” he said.

He slid his arm around my back and under my arms, trying to lift me on shaky legs. I hissed at the ache I felt.

“Wrigley, always helping the sad cases.” Stuart, a boy I’d hated since preschool, mocked.

“Shut up, Stu. I’ll kick your butt in front of everyone and you know I can.” Wrigley threatened.

“Whatever man, I was just kidding.”

Except he wasn’t. Stuart has always been mean to me. And Wrigley was only helping me because his mom had taught him better.

“What’s going on over here?” My teacher, Miss Sanford, asked concerned.

Oh sure, now she shows up. I wanted to roll my eyes at the coincidence of it all. Of course, it would be my luck that something like this would happen to me, and an adult would only come after I really needed them. Might as well go away, Miss Sanford. Wrigley here is already saving the day, I thought to myself.

“Just lean on me,” he whispered in my ear.

“Get her to the nurse please.”

Wrigley nodded. His Justin Bieber length hair flopped in his eyes. It was how all the boys had their hair right now. I hated it. But I had to admit that Wrigley wore it the best. Just like he did everything else. That thought momentarily distracted me from the pain. I liked Wrigley, I really did. But I also hated him. I hated that everything came easy for him. I hated that every boy in fifth grade wanted to be just like him. I hated that every girl wanted him as a boyfriend. But I hated him even more because, for my entire life that I’ve spent five houses down from him, he only played with me because our parents were friends and he had to. He had no clue I’d had a gigantic crush on him for a long time.

Wrigley was quiet as I hobbled to the nurse’s office. For that, I was grateful. When we got there, the woman whom I’d only come to see one other time because I started to feel ill back in third grade, looked up from her Good Housekeeping magazine. She caught sight of my shredded knees and gasped.

“Oh my, what happened here?”

She reminded me of my mom. “I fell.”

She kneeled in front of me to take a better look at the scrapes. “I see that. Looks like you took quite a spill, didn’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“She was outside when some girls—umph!” Wrigley’s words were cut off by my elbow in his stomach.

“I was running and tripped over my shoe laces.” I glared at him.

He looked so confused. The nurse did as well, who was opening up a bottle of peroxide and soaking some cotton balls. I wasn’t going to be a tattle-tale. Did I deserve to be made fun of? Nope. But if I told the nurse, a teacher, or my parents what had really happened, it would only make things harder for me. I wasn’t naïve enough to not realize that.

“Hmmm, well, seems the shoe laces did a number on you. I’m just going to wash these off. Peroxide doesn’t sting, but my touching it may.” She dabbed at the tender areas. I held in a hiss. “You, sir, are free to go back to class. I’m assuming you won’t need a note?”

Wrigley intently watched as she cleaned off my wounds. “No ma’am, I think they are still at recess.”

“Go on then. I’ll take care of her.” She gave him a soft smile.

He nodded then made eye contact with me. I kind of wished he could stay, even though I also didn’t want him to. For some reason, he actually seemed to care, and not because he had too. I should have said thank you, but the words wouldn’t come out. I had too much frustration and my emotions were all over the place. When he stood up, I watched him as he took steps to leave. Just before he turned the corner, he twisted around and said, “I hope you’ll be okay, Hadley.” Then he left. I had no idea that those words would stay with me as I got older, but I knew they meant something to me.A new wave of tears poured down my cheeks.

“I’m going to call your momma to come pick you up. I think a bath and some ice cream will help these scrapes feel better.” She winked at me.

While she was on the phone, the words, ‘I hope you’ll be okay, Hadley,’ rolled through my head. He’d really meant them. The hardening I felt toward him was becoming mush. Those six little words did me in. That’s when I knew I had fallen in love with Wrigley Brooks.