School Lunches

I can still remember the first day of sixth grade, walking down the white and brown checkered hallway that had the little black spots in the tile that the janitors could never get off no matter how many times they cleaned the cold tile floor. I walked slow almost too slow as I was passed by almost everyone in my lunch. I was going so slow because I had been dreading this moment for weeks ever since every one of my friends that I talked to before school started confirmed my greatest fear, not one of my friends were in my lunch. There were three different lunch periods and I was stunned that they had all been placed in second or third lunch. I played this moment over in my head at least a thousand times since I had got to school. I would walk into the lunch line get my slice of cheese pizza blue carton of two percent milk with the word search on the side and my bag of carrots and celery with the red twisty tie just like the ones we used at home to keep the bread from going bad. I would get my lunch give the lunch lady my check for thirty dollars and she would look at me and say have a good day but she wouldn't mean it because I was not going to have a good day I was going to take my maroon tray with the grey lion on it and wander the cafeteria until I found the one empty table in the corner and I would sit down and look out at everyone eating lunch with their friends from elementary school and I would eat alone and then sit and watch everyone enjoy the best period of the day while I was miserable. Walking through the cafeteria after getting my lunch was the worst feeling I had ever experienced I was walking so slow deliberately putting my feet in the middle of each tile and I was just hoping the other kids weren't looking at me but I was sure that they were. It felt like there was a whole colony of butterflies in my stomach, and not just little ones those big ones I used to see on the discovery channel covering entire trees in Mexico. I got halfway through the cafeteria when I heard the greatest five words of my life, "are you gunna sit down or what." I can still remember exactly how those words sounded, they sounded light and airy like a leaf floating past your face in a cool breeze. I looked and wondered who would ever want to ask me to sit with them and then the butterflies got worse because to my right was the cutest girl I had ever seen, she had light brown hair and beautiful brown eyes that I can still see today. We ate our lunch and talked all period and it turned out to be one of the best lunches I ever had. She told me I was funny and I said that I liked her eyes and I asked her to eat lunch with me tomorrow. That two seconds before she answered seemed like an eternity but I was so relieved when she said yes that the butterflies in my stomach all but went away. we ate lunch with each other for the rest of the year and we made other friends but no matter where we sat or who we sat with we always ate together. She turned out to be one of my best friends all throughout middle and high school, and to this day I still love school lunches.