Alongside all of those female friendships, I also made two male best friends, Shane and Matthew. I must admit that I temporarily harbored a crush on Matthew, but it quickly waned. As we grew closer, I learned about Matthew's and Shane's girlfriends, who were from the next class.
After being the only girl in a boy gang quite a long time, I felt very secure and close to Shane and Matthew. A lot of Shane's and Matthew's pals gradually became mine as well. One of the few friends I made that were Shane's and Matthew's was Theo. We played "Truth or Dare" together and made countless unforgettable memories.
There were drawbacks as well; I got teased for flirting with all the boys in the class and labeled a "pick me." They assumed that if a girl and boy begin to interact, it's more likely that one among them wants to court the other, which made me a bit concerned—not because they muttered gossip about me, but simply because they didn't know anything about male-female friendship. As my fellow classmates have been brought up in such a setting, there's nothing I could do.
After Matthew and Rachel broke up and he got together with Ella, we felt a little cut off from him. It seemed like even Ella didn't tell me anything, and Matthew did not disclose anything to us. I couldn't believe Shane and I were kept in the dark about their relationship. The good news is that Matthew and Ella split up, and he reconciled with his ex-girlfriend Rachel.
Our trio remained connected after all of this, and I introduced Valerie to them. Despite the fact that Matthew and Valerie ended up becoming friends, Shane felt more at ease with Hannah and me than with any other girl. Due to this, I was the only girl Shane ever spoke to in our class, and my ninth grade came to an end. It was a memorable transition from ninth to tenth grade, by the way.