This was going to be the year things changed for me. Enough whining and complaining about my life and my looks. A shit high school experience had given me thick skin, I could deal with any asshole or mean girl that came my way. I would be better than them.

I got into West Shores University and that meant I had the chance to start over, nobody has any preconceived notions of me here. I was just Juliet, I was whoever I wanted to be. The 6 months before this school year I worked hard to lose 40 pounds. Now by work did I mean overwork? Yes but it's fine. My methods were not the healthiest but they worked and that's what mattered.

I had a need inside me to fit in, I didn't want to feel that way but it felt like I was always trying to impress people and until I changed it never worked. I tried the whole self-help book route... You know the whole "don't care what people think" and "be nice to yourself you only get one body" thing I really did. But after years of being bullied and treated like shit, you would find it hard to change too.

I was in grade ten when my "friend" Sierra came up with the nickname 'Jiggly Juliet' for me and it stuck with me for years. The tipping point was at our grade twelve pool party hosted at Warner Brooks house. He was the hotshot in our high school, built like a Greek god. Seriously, like you know those tv shows where the teenage boys look too beautiful to be true and have us wondering if guys like that even exist. Well, they exist in the form of Warner Brooks....a star athlete and so good-looking it's kind of unfair. Our mom's also happen to be friends which is probably the only reason I was invited to his pool parties.

Now it would be too good to be true if Warner was good-looking and nice so clearly, something had to give and it was his personality. The man had a giant ego and even though he was a star athlete he didn't fit the golden boy jock image. There were so many rumours about him over the years I didn't know what to believe but they ranged from him being an underground fighter to him getting five different girls pregnant so yeah I kept my distance.

However, he didn't keep his distance from me. Ever since we were kids he seemed to have an interest in me. And no I don't mean in a sexual or attraction way but that he loved to get under my skin. As kids, he would tease me and pull my pigtails and at this point, I would call him more of an arch-nemesis.

Like most of his parties, his mom invited me and my mom forced me to go saying it would be "good motivation to lose some weight". I had worn a t-shirt in the pool since I was nine years old due to my own insecurities about my weight and a mother who never let me forget it. But that day my only friend Maggie had convinced me to try out a one-piece that she thought I looked great in.

I felt confident until I got to the pool party. I had spent hours following a youtube tutorial online that showed me how to curl my hair. My hair was one of the only things I liked about myself, it was healthy because I never styled it and naturally blonde like my mom's. I was thankful that I at least got some of her genes. When I walked in with Maggie, I felt eyes on me and I thought maybe it was because people liked the way I styled my hair. Unfortunately, that was not why they were staring, they were staring because they knew I was going to be the butt of Sierra's joke that night.

I remember it well, I walked over to the pool and Sierra greeted me right away which I should've known was weird right away. She waved me over to sit next to her and sure enough, as soon as I sat down on the patio chair it broke from under me. At the time I didn't know she had her minions loosen the screws and I was mortified. Everyone in my grade was there and saw everything including the fact that even after I fell I was sort of stuck and had to crawl with a chair stuck to my ass.

Everyone laughed and I remembered wanting to die right there. I got home that night and vowed to lose the weight for good and to make everyone at that school regret being so cruel to me. I was just glad Warner didn't see it because I knew he would never let it go. All I heard about him that night was he got in some huge fistfight with Sierra's douche boyfriend.

I found out the hard way that it doesn't matter how much weight you lose or how good you get at makeup. If you hate yourself when you are overweight you will also hate yourself when you are underweight. 

No matter how much weight I lose I still see the same Jiggly Juliet in the mirror. On the other hand, my mom was ecstatic about my change in appearance. She took me shopping for new clothes and bought me makeup, it seemed that for the first time in my life she wasn't embarrassed of me.

So yes I lost the weight but I still feel like the Juliet at that pool party. So here I was unpacking my stuff in my new dorm room ready for a new start. I had a whole new wardrobe showing off my new body, I remember this being my goal but I still felt hollow. I took one last look in the mirror and fixed my hair, I had learned how to style my hair to frame my face in a flattering way. My face had slimmed out and with the help of Accutane, all of my teenage acne was gone. I didn't recognize this girl in the mirror, she looked like one of the girls who used to bully me.

I put on some gym clothes because I was going even more out of my comfort zone and trying out for cheerleading. Today I was going directly into the lion's den, it felt like I was undercover walking into the school's gym. These were the kind of girls who made my life hell and now I was receiving compliments on my hair and greeted with smiles.

I did cheerleading growing up because my mom forced me into it. She thought it would be a great way for me to lose weight and relive her own glory days as a cheerleader. I was actually good at it, I have always been flexible and my mom helped me practice in our backyard for years. 

However, when I got older it seemed I did not fit the looks criteria of the high school team. I mean sure they didn't say that out loud but considering they didn't have a uniform above a Large and nobody even watched my tryout I knew I was never seriously considered for a spot on the team.

A year later, here I was front and center at a top University fitting into an extra small uniform and everyone was actually paying attention to my tryout.

______

After the tryouts are done I go to grab my bag and I am greeted by a tall brunette. She had been trying out as well and looked friendly but I was a little intimidated. She was naturally beautiful with a button nose, freckles dotting her cheeks and a sweet smile. 

"Hi, I'm Abby! This is super random but I think you are in the same dorm as me. I am totally not a stalker I just left at the same time you did " she grinned at me and I loosened up but before I could answer she kept talking.

"And I know you are Juliet because you did amazing in your try out and they kept saying your name. You are also like so pretty and your shoes are really cute and I should stop talking before I scare you off." 

I was taken back, again it felt like I was pretending to be someone else. As if I was some fat pimply loser who put on some sort of disguise and I was tricking everyone.

"Hi, that's so sweet of you do you want to walk back together?" I keep it simple, trying not to show how nervous I was.

We walk back together and end up talking all the way to the dorm elevator. We both hit floor three at the same time and give each other a look. I smile excitedly that she is on my floor...it was like a guaranteed friend on the first day.

Things were going to change this year... a fresh start with Jiggly Juliet in the past.