People always say to be themselves, and when we do they get deeply judged for it. It's the way society works now. How can we be comfortable in our own skin when we get made fun of because of the way we express ourselves? Although there is positive people in this world, but they tell us to be confident but how can we when all we get is negativity from people who want us to shatter inside? Well congratulations to them, because I more then shattered inside.

It was hard growing up with two best friends who did modeling and thought you had to be pretty to be happy in life. It was hard to disagree with them because they would cease to let my opinions come out of my mouth. I was not aloud to have any voice unless it was me agreeing with them. What made me the most unhappy was knowing they talked s*** about me, and knowing I can do better with better friends. The truth was, I was scared to leave them because I was shy on the outside, and loud on the inside. I was just like coloring in the lines except the color was them… they made me feel like I could stand out and be better than other people; except for them. Here is a very uncolored life for you.

I lived in sunny and radiant, North Carolina where every kid was snobby and fashionably rich. But there was always that one kid who knocked on kids doors all day long, looking for someone to desperately play, but instead got doors slammed in their face every time. That kid was me. I never had any siblings so I was practically alone everyday. My dad left us at the age of 3, and has never came back… for a couple months after he left, we waited desperately for him to walk back in our brown dusty front door. Years later, my mother stopped assuming he was coming back, and it took her a while to realize he never did love her as much as she thought. It was a terrible stage for her, and she hid her feelings in bottles of beer, getting drunk every night. She stopped after a year or two, after realizing I deeply needed her to become a mother to me. She has been sober ever since.

For a long time. My mom was not fashionably rich, not even unfashionably rich. Poor. We lived in the smallest, narrowest house you could find in the neighbor, and the dirtiest. We had clothes hanging off our windows, to air dry because a washer and dryer was too expensive. Mother bought expensive bars of soap though… not for my hands she said, just to scrub our clothes with. I only had a couple pairs of shorts, one pair of jeans, and five tee shirts. I was not very bothered by the fact we weren't like other families… I knew Mother worked just as hard as each rich kids mother, but she didn't get paid as much. Growing up, I got the one thing I dreamed of as a young child. A friend. Ria. She was rich, but not snobby, had funny jokes, but not mean, was very smart, but not einstein, was a blonde, but not dumb and ate a lot of rich food, but not fat. She was everything I wanted to be when I was young. The only thing that was absurd to me why was she liked me. She was a positive impact on me, and didn't judge me about how I lived differently than rich kids. I was happy being with her but never as happy as other kids. Which became hard for me to give her the positive impact she could of had. The hard part for me was knowing I was not as of a good friend as she was to me.

We met in 7th grade, and now surviving 9th grade together. 3 years. We were driving to Carowinds, all excited that summer has came. The only cheap thing Rias family had was their car… one of the seat belts in the middle row was broken, so Ria had to sit in the back of the car. She always fought her mother on sitting without it when deeply she knew she would lose the argument every time. She was strong.

Ria's mother, Baylynn, was checking to see how long Carowinds was open for the day on her phone. When Ria got slightly saw a red car coming towards us, she didn't say anything at first, then it came closer, all of a sudden Ria screamed so loudly that the whole highway could hear.

“CAR!!”
“What?!” Baylynn said confused, taking her eyes off of the phone. Her eyes widened and her mouth agaped.
Ria Sanders had died that day, August 20th, 2011.

I felt like I was imagining heaven, pieces of shiny, metallic items came flying at my face. I couldn't tell if I was dead or not. I opened my eyes to see shards of glass all over Baylynn. I had pieces of glass lying on my chest from the windows crashing onto me. Baylynn screamed while trying to get up from the glass covering her body. Her knee was shattered, blood was insanely dripping onto the floor of the car below her.

“Are you guys okay?!’ Baylynn screamed. Her eyes enlarged, and she was shaking as if she was in the snow naked.
I looked back to see if Ria was okay, and her eyes were shut, glass was shot into her face, and it seemed to me every part of her body was bleeding. That was the first time I saw that much blood in my life. The hard part was I knew she was gone. That person in that red car, took Rias life in a second. It took mine with it. More than a million tears shed down my face. A loud scream let out from Baylynne while she climbed over the seat for Ria. I screamed Ria’s name more than I could imagine. While climbing to the back seat, Baylynne ordered to call 911, she shoved her cell phone in my face. Looking back, Baylynne was wiping her tears angrily, stroking Rias soft pink cheeks, saying over and over again, “You're going to be okay”.

Baylynn knew Ria was dead, her saying Ria was going to be okay made her feel okay… she kept whispering it.
“I-I-I have an emergency. We, we, we, got into a car crash… help. My, my friend is dying” I stuttered and was shaking, I looked at Ria again and felt more tears coming down.

“We will be right there man. What is the address where you are close to or at?”

I quickly read the sign of the neighborhood next to where we were hit.

“Hunters Road”

“We will be right there. Hold on. We are sending ambulances.”