Tina was crying while Bette spoke, "Kids can be so cruel. You didn’t fight back?"

Bette shook her head, "No, I was ashamed that I had given in to the peer pressure and I knew I was quite the ugly duckling and he had a right to be upset. I shouldn’t have linked his name with mine." Bette said making excuses for the boy.

Tina choked out, "But you’re gorgeous! He must have been blind not to see that"

"No T, I was a very late bloomer, I hadn’t discovered makeup yet or fashion styles, believe me when I tell you. Anyway, he was really upset with me and it was then that I realized that the boys had picked up on my "differences" and he didn’t want his name associatated with mine in any way. The word must have gottten around that I was a target because I was picked on a lot after that. I enjoyed sports so I threw myself into that, earning the respect of the girls on my teams but I was never really part of their social groups. I treated everyone the same so I was a friend to a lot of the underdogs but I didn’t have any close friends. I spent a fairly lonely couple of years in elementary school until a new girl arrived. She had come at a time when the other girls already had their cliques formed and because she was pretty she was a threat to the established hierarchy of girls in the school so most of the popular girls resented her. Luckily she sat at a desk beside mine and we started to talking. She was really nice and we soon became good friends. I went to see her one time in the summer while her parents were gone and that was when things changed for me.

She had fallen asleep while suntanning and gotten herself sunburned really bad on her back. I was trying to help her treat the burn and she took her halter top off. That was the day I knew that something was different about me then the other girls I knew." Bette said.

"So that was your first look at boobs." Tina smiled.

Bette whistled softly, "I had dreams about them for weeks afterwards. She never learned that I liked her more then just as a friend but I knew after that, I had a crush on her. I was heartbroken when we went to high school and she developed interests that didn’t include me. She was at a lower level then me academically so our classes were never the same and then she got into drugs and we parted company for good. My last fond memory of her was when we went to see the new release of Grease at the movies. All the girls were hot for Travolta but I had to scrape my jaw off the floor when Newton John came on screen in her leather outfit at the end of the movie." Bette grinned as she leaned back against her seat "Must be when I developed my love of blondes" she said and Tina laughed.