Fourth Grade

Ok this will be very brief but I'll make this story as interesting as possible. (please bear with me)
So I was in fourth grade. Just a normal fourth grader at the first day of school. I had hardly any friends, so if you asked me who my friends were I'd tell you the names of my girl classmates, though they never really showed that much interest in me. I just felt that way, since I was shy and timid. No to my backstory.
I was the oldest child and only girl in my family. My name was S (yeah that's the code letter for my actual name). And being the only girl, I was surrounded by boys. I went to clubs and classes since kindergarten. I was homeschooled, and still am now. And in every single one of them, I just HAPPENED to be the ONLY girl. So as you could see, I was surrounded by boys my WHOLE LIFE. I had never made friends or, well, SEEN a girl my age back then. Boys were the only ones. So whenever I thought of a human being, I thought of a boy. Now, fast-forward to third grade.

So I came to a homeschool academy. There I met girls in my grade who absolutely HATED boys. I was confused at why they thought boys were so bad. In my past years I had never met a boy that was as terrible as they described boys to be. But I was shy and timid, as I said earlier. I would do anything to let these girls like me. So I resolved to hate boys too. Now, fast-forward to fourth grade.
On the first day of fourth grade, I stood in front of the hall, overlooking the school. It was a new year, and I felt, like, SO much older! I walked down the hall, and, I spotted the mob of boys our class had. I tried to ignore them, but I saw among them this new kid: ANOTHER boy. So, trying to stay true to my boy-haters heritage, I ignored the new kid too--even though he was super popular (but then again, I didn't like popular people)--and thought: "So what he's popular! It's not like I'm going to LIKE him!" Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong.
I quickly found out why this new kid--let's call him N--was so popular. He was the funniest, most clever person in the school! I couldn't ignore that, even if the other girls rejected him. I first asked him how he pronounced his last name, which I admit was very risky, but that started it all.
Every day at dismissal we would talk and hang out, and literally he was my best friend. Soon that led to talking along the sidewalk, during recess, and let's just leave out the unnecessary details. We were best buddies... until one day when his other friends cut it all off.
I was just running up to talk to him, when BOOM! Everyone barges in, and it seemed on purpose. First it was some tall kid, then everyone else started crowding around him. It was at that moment that I realized being friends with a boy wasn't really "cool" in everyone else's eyes. I stopped talking with him, my best friend, and tried to get back with the girls, which was even still difficult.

Now, many years later, I realized that I shouldn't have been ashamed to call him my friend. We're "back together" now, and I have a crush on him. Does he have one on me? That's what my friends say. That's what his siblings hint on. But after everything I've been through with this dude, I just want to say to everyone reading this:

Don't get discouraged if you're best friend isn't the same gender as YOU.

(Hope you liked this story. Please comment!)