It takes about two seconds of remembering to whip me back in time to the girls’ bathroom at the synagogue, where I am engaged in that most classic and venerable of traditions: crying helplessly, locked in a stall. It is my first day of Hebrew High School. I’m thirteen, and none of the other girls will talk to me. It’s not just implied, it’s outright. They cross the room to avoid me and then cluster together, whispering.

Girl Talk: The Girls In The Clique (And How I Accidentally Flashed Them)