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I hate you. I hate you so much!

While I didn't say those words out loud, they were on the tip of my tongue. I gave my friend an angry glare as she yelled at me.

"You're cheating on your boyfriend. That's what you're doing!"

"I am not!" I shot back. "That's a lie!"

And it wasn't the truth. In fact, the guy she was talking about wasn't even my boyfriend! And even if I had done what she'd said, I felt she was such a hypocrite. She was always flirting with other guys when she was dating someone.

As our argument heated up, a crowd began to form around my locker. Everybody obviously expected a fight. But it didn't happen. Something, I'm not sure what, put an end to the shouting match. But it didn't put an end to the bad attitude and anger I felt toward my friend. Toward a lot of people.

That scene pretty much sums up my relationship with my friends in the eighth grade. We didn't fight all the time, but our conversations easily turned into putdowns. I'd just go along with whatever they did because they were the cool ones.

As strange as it sounds, I thought I really needed these friends. Even though they were influencing me in a bad way, they were still my friends. More important, they were considered the popular crowd. And since I wanted to be popular, I put up with all the fighting, gossip and putdowns that went with fitting in.

I think my need to belong to this cool crowd had a lot to do with my background. Before I'd started middle school in the United States, I'd grown up in Mexico City. My father, a college professor, had taken us to Mexico so he could study the Latin American culture. In Mexico City, my mother, who is Brazilian, taught Portuguese at a university. I'd become very comfortable in my Spanish-speaking school and felt like I fit in with the Spanish culture. But by the time I'd reached sixth grade, my dad's mom had gotten very ill and he felt we needed to move back to the States so we could be close to her.

Adjusting to a new culture wasn't easy. I was fluent in English and Spanish, but I'd done most of my studying in Spanish. So schoolwork took some getting used to. The hardest part, though, was figuring out how to get along with other kids—and how I fit in. I attended a Christian youth group, but I never made close friends there. Instead, I hung out with the cool crowd, even though I didn't necessarily agree with their values.

At my middle school, the popular kids were the ones who smoke, drank, had sex, and who just went around with a bad attitude. While I tried not to let it happen, I soon found myself picking up some of their bad habits—especially the attitude. I found myself putting others down and making fun of them. Then something happened that changed my whole attitude. At a youth group meeting just before my sophomore year started, my youth pastor gave a talk. And this time I was really listening. While I don't remember everything he said, I do know he pointed out that if you claim to be a Christian your actions and behavior must show it.

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