THE STORY OF MY FRIENDSHIP WITH A.ME TANG:

It all happened on that fateful September day in grade 8, when across the asphalt from where I was standing I spotted this mousy, short, little girl with a huge Hello Kitty backpack and fringe bangs.

Amy Tang was the new kid, and I, having been there for 2 years, knew the ins and outs when it came to gossip at that school. The other girls quickly disapproved of the her and her backpack, but I secretly thought it was cool how she was indifferent to everyone else's opinions. (It was kind of like the time I bared my soul in class by giving a speech about hamsters and how cool and awesome they were, and it wasn't until after when someone said my speech was stupid that I realized being indifferent to other people's opinions would not get me any friends.)

A year later, in high school, Amy and I were stuck in the same French class. Being a shy introvert, I didn't have anyone else to talk to except Amy, the girl I had seen across the asphalt with the Hello Kitty backpack. We struck up conversation and soon we were paired for a project about stolen moldy blue cheese from a museum.

Our friendship was born. She invited me over to her house where her mom made us fried rice and I gave her a Hello Kitty purse that year. We wrote notes to each other between classes and stuck them in our lockers, hung out in the library after school, volunteered to gift wrap presents, made Facebook accounts at the same time and spent a surprisingly large amount of time watching MTV on Fridays. We went to concerts together, bars, karaoke, malls, trips to Center Island and was there for first break ups. We skipped prom, classes, and sleep.

She was always A.me and I was lemon.

Even though Amy never fully understood my love for Harry Potter and I never really understood some of her quirks, she and I remained good friends after high school. We continued going to Center Island together, and continued sharing mishaps and will continue to do so.