Suckers...

"Why aren't you going with Jonas to the wedding? He told me he invited you and you turned him down."

"He just broke up with his girlfriend and he doesn't want to go alone. I'd rather not be a fill in date, thank you very much."

"But you like him! You've liked him for years. This could be your shot."

"It's not. It's an 'I don't want to go alone' invite. I'd rather not be just someone he takes when his first option doesn't pan out."

"Who cares about what happened before! This is now!"

"Spoken like a red lollipop."

"What?" Grace loved her best friend Carla but sometimes she confused her.

"A red lollipop. Okay, people are like that basket of suckers at a doctor's office. Reds, oranges, yellows and greens. You are a red lollipop."

"Okay..."

"Red lollipops are always the first ones chosen. Everyone loves a red lollipop. You know you are getting cherry, or maybe strawberry, but definitely something fruity and sweet and lovely. The oranges are obviously orange so people choose them next. Yellows have their fans. They are either going to be lemon or if you are lucky pineapple which is like a nice surprise. That leaves the greens. The one nobody chooses unless all the others are gone. Because even though you really want that green to be an apple you know it's most likely a lime. And nobody chooses that on their own."

"And you think you are a green lollipop I take it?"

"Yep. I'm a green lollipop. We are the ones huddled together in gym class praying we aren't the last ones chosen. And even if we are better at kickball than Julie Smith will ever be, we know she will be picked first because she is a red lollipop and we are greens. We are the ones that go to parties as someone's plus one. We are included on guest lists to even the numbers. We are the fill in dates, the booty calls, the last minute plans. Never the first choice. Always the also ran."

"Well that sounds depressing..."

"It is. Horribly. When you are growing up. But eventually you hit a certain point in your life where you realize that being someone's last choice, the one they make when there aren't any choices left isn't good enough. I don't want to be the only sucker in the dish before I get picked. So I pulled myself out of the bowl."

"You can't just pull yourself out of the bowl. You are making yourself a green lollipop by doing that."

"You don't make yourself a green lollipop. You just are a green lollipop. And red lollipops are reds. And oranges are oranges. And yellows are yellows. That's just the way the world works. You just don't see it because you've always been a red and no matter where you go you will always be a red."

"I think you are just being negative."

"Okay, let's look at something that was always firmly the territory of the green lollipops. Comic books. We all read them. We all loved them. It was our thing. Sure, some oranges and yellows might slum it a bit, but you never saw a red in a comic book store. Until it all suddenly became cool. Which is great, don't get me wrong. I love that I have movies and books and TV shows and so much more now than 12 year old me could ever have imagined. But you would think that my years, YEARS, of knowledge would have put me at an advantage right? But that cute yellow lollipop will sit and talk with me for hours over which is the better X-Men story line and then leave to have dinner with the orange lollipop who says she is a 'geek' because she saw Spider-Man in the theater."

"Hey, I saw Spider-Man."

"I know, and it's adorable that you think that means something."

"Fine. So you think you are a green lollipop and Jonas only invited you to the wedding because his red lollipop left him?"

"Please...his ex is an orange at best. But yes, I know that's why he invited me. And I know that's not good enough for me anymore. The one thing I want in a relationship that I have decided is non-negotiable is that I be the first choice. I can work with anything else. But I have to be the first choice."

"But nobody at our age is anybody's first choice. We all have people in our past."

"I don't mean first ever. I'm not looking for someone with no history. I mean now. If they are presented with a bowl of candy they move past the reds and oranges and yellows and pick the green. No hesitation. No getting turned down by an orange and settling. When they have the choice, without hesitation, they choose green."

"I still think you should go to the wedding. So what if you are his second choice. Maybe you could show him that green is really his favorite and he just didn't know it."

"That's the point. I don't want to convince anyone anymore. I am tired of trying to up-sell lime. I am exhausted. I have spent too many years with people disappointed that I wasn't apple. I am lime. I am a green lollipop and I'm okay with that. And I don't want to spend another moment with some guy who was hoping for a red and settled for a green after being turned down by an orange."

"Maybe we just need to find you a guy who is color blind."

"Maybe."

Carla loved her best friend Grace but how could she not, Grace was a red lollipop after all.