Bob CollinsHere’s an item from the “Good Friends Always Have Your Back” file.
“My mom tells me, and I remember to tell my friends, ‘Look inside [to see what] counts. Not the outside. Look inside your heart,'” Lillian Skinner, 17, of Grand Prairie, Texas, says. “If you judge people’s skin, that’s bad. But look inside their heart, to who they are.”
That’s the kind of sweetness that can make you a target in high school.
And, sure enough, a group of girls told Skinner that she’d been nominated for homecoming queen. She hadn’t. It was a practical joke, the kind you live with for the rest of your life, you may recall if you weren’t one of the popular kids.
But two of her friends, Anahi Alvarez and Naomi Martinez, were nominated, Time.com says.
The two girls planned that if either one of them won the homecoming crown, they would give it to Skinner. “She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met,” says Martinez, explaining why they wanted to help their friend. Alvarez agrees: “We need people in this world like Lilly.”
As luck would have it, Alvarez was named homecoming queen in a ceremony in front of thousands of parents and classmates, but she immediately passed her crown onto Skinner, who said the moment was like “a dream or something.”
It was Arendse’s job to escort Skinner onto the field, under the guise of helping to take pictures of the homecoming court’s procession. So Skinner had front row seats for when her friend, Anahi Alvarez, was named 2014 homecoming queen.
“When she won the queen, I took a picture and she told me to come over. And I said, ‘It’s OK. It’s OK. It’s your crown, you know? My name is not on the list,'” Skinner said.
Slowly it dawned on Skinner what was really happening, according to the others in attendance.
“That’s when it was just, the moment itself took over,” Arendse said, still smiling four days after the fact.
“Seeing the look on her face and the way she reacted toward it, it was priceless,” said Martinez. “I knew it was the right decision.”
Skinner did not know what to think as Alvarez placed the crown on her head.“I was like, ‘Wow, really? Like, wow! Like, is this a dream or something?'” Skinner said Tuesday, pinching her arm as she did.
As for the girl who got the most votes Friday, she said she would gladly do it all again.
“Well, for me, I want to say, and I always say, ‘Lilly won. I just ran in her place, in her position,'” Alvarez said. “When they ask me, ‘Were you homecoming queen?’ I say, ‘No, Lilly is homecoming queen.'”
