So, want to hear something scary?

Hall passed to hell.

Sometimes the friend you wish for is the one who shouldn't exist, like in this story inspired by McKinsey.

Music exist, like in this story inspired by McKinsey. Will I ever have a friend?

That's all I thought about when first grade started again.

My mom said I wasn't trying, but the truth was, I was probably focused more on finding a friend than on my schoolwork.

My grades collapsed, but I didn't care.

All I wanted was someone who understood me, someone who didn't make me feel invisible.

I didn't know it then, but the loneliness I carried like a heavy coat had already set me apart from the other kids.

They played in groups, laughed at jokes I didn't understand,

and whispered secrets I wasn't invited to. I watched, but I never belonged. One afternoon,

in a quiet corner of the library, I met her, Stella. She had pale, blonde hair, eyes, the color of shallow summer water, and the kind of dress

you'd seen in a fairy tale, too fancy for school, like she had stepped out of another world.

She sat directly across from me, flipping the pages of the same book I had, Harry Potter. Harry Potter, huh? I asked,

sliding into the chair. She looked up, and her smile was flawless. Like she'd been waiting for me.

Yeah, I'm on book three. Lucky, that's my favorite. I'm Lizzie. Stella, she said, tilting her head slightly.

From then on, we met in the library once or twice a week.

She was everything I had dreamed of in a friend, kind, funny, and attentive.

And she always seemed to know exactly what I liked before I did.

But there was something odd. Everyone liked

her, and yet no one ever approached her when I was around. We discovered we went to the same school,

same grade, same schedule. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but the more I noticed,

...