When I was younger it was my dream to become a famous actor. I would go on Google, find monologues for children, memorize them and practice them to myself in my bathroom mirror. On my family computer, I would Google things like ā€œauditions in New York for 9-12 year oldsā€ or ā€œtalent agencies in New Yorkā€ and beg my mother to take me to whatever I had found. I was determined to make my dreams come true and I prayed and prayed for an opportunity to drop in my lap so that I could begin my acting career. God had answered my prayers on one summer afternoon in the year of 2011. My grandma was the principal of MS 61 in Brooklyn and my twin sister Indya and I were staying with her for the weekend at her house on Long Island. 

She came into our room and said ā€œGirls, do you want to go to this acting workshop Iā€™m having at the school on Saturday?ā€.

ā€œYes!ā€ we both screamed excitedly. 

She explained to us that the teacher would be Ben Harney, who played Curtis in the original Dreamgirls Broadway production in 1981. This was a huge deal to my sister and I because Dreamgirls the movie, which starred our favorite singer Beyonce and the amazing Jennifer Hudson, was one of our favorite movies at the time. We knew every single song and could quote several lines from the movie. The workshop would last all summer and at the end we were going to put on a production of The Wiz. She even said we could sit in on their meeting and get to meet him beforehand. To say we were excited would be an understatement. After their meeting, I walked into the auditorium excited and anxious there were about 20 other kids sitting in random spots throughout the seats. Indya and I sat next to this really shy looking girl. I figured she was shy because of how she looked at me and awkwardly smiled at us when we sat next to her. I noticed that she and I both wore glasses, we were wearing a similar outfit and were even the same skin complexion. We would later go on to jokingly say that she and I looked more like twins than Indya and I. Alexis and I instantly gravitated towards one another. Mr. Harney had instructed us to get on stage and split into groups of 4. Me, Indya, Alexis and this other girl named Christiny all huddled up in a circle together and began introducing ourselves. I quickly learned right away how kind and warm Alexis.Her voice was soft and she had the cutest laugh, it almost sounded too cute to be real but I could tell it was. I donā€™t remember what we talked about but I do remember being in awe of how nice she was. Every Saturday that summer, we grew closer and closer. It started with all of us talking after rehearsals and quickly graduated to pizza parlor outings where we all talked about the silliest things to that new artist Adele or the ranking of the boys in the program from cutest to not-so cute. We were dreading the day of the play because we knew it would be bittersweet. We had become inseparable and couldnā€™t imagine having to go back to separate schools without each other. We managed somehow. We would message each other everyday on Facebook and if we werenā€™t messaging each other we were on the phone talking about our middle school drama. Iā€™m 20 years old now and we are all still the best of friends.Our pizza parlor outings have turned into fancy BFF dinner dates. We have grown and learned so much with each other. Alexis is one of my oldest and closest friends and I couldnā€™t imagine having to navigate through life without her.