Every single one of us has something that got us through high school, whether it be a band, a movie, a book...something exists. Something was there for us to turn to while struggling to figure ourselves out, or even just to survive. For me, this was We Are The In Crowd, a band of fun-loving friends from Poughkeepsie who were thrown on Warped Tour before even having professionally recorded music...as if that would stop them.

The first "alternative" concert that I ever went to was for this band. Unfortunately for me, they played first, and I arrived too late. Their EP, "Guaranteed to Disagree," was my favorite album at the time and I loved how much fun they had together on stage. It was at that show that I preordered their first full-length album, "Best Intentions," which would soon be on repeat for most of my 15-year-old life.

I entered sophomore year of high school listening to "Best Intentions," and I can confidently say that was the worst year of high school. I was breaking out of my shell and exploring who I was, something that made my parents nervous and defensive, and that quickly turned my home life into a battle. I cut all of my hair off, began to wear "boyish" clothes, and came out to my friends as bisexual. This realization was, in part, because I realized I had a huge crush on We Are The In Crowd's female singer, Tay Jardine. While everyone around me alienated me for how I dressed and what I was interested in, We Are The In Crowd preached how great it was to be a weird kid.

During that year, their bassist, Mike Ferri, had tweeted a request for one of their fans to draw them in the funniest situation possible. Being an artist and clearly a huge fan, I whipped something up really quickly and he was so into it. For the next week, he would send me funny requests on Twitter, and I would reply with a drawing of it -- it was pretty much the coolest thing ever, especially coming from people who I, in a way, considered to be heroes.

It wasn't until my senior year that they would release a new album, "Weird Kids." This album was less pop-punk and more pop, and had a lot less of their male vocalist, Jordan Eckes, which upset me a bit since I was initially drawn to the band due to their unique dynamic of having two vocalists and therefore two sides to every story in their music. Even so, there were songs on "Weird Kids" that struck a chord with me. I will never shake the memory of one of my best friends texting me and telling me that she thinks of me each time she listens to "Don't You Worry," an anthem that belts lyrics of "Don't you worry about a thing my sister."

At that point, I still wasn't allowed to go to concerts more than once or twice a year, but never on school nights. I remember sitting in the art room on the day that We Are The In Crowd were in town for their first headlining tour, upset that I couldn't be there. I'm still unsure what hit me, but I stood up and declared that I would make it to the show, no matter what it took. I devised a plan with friends in the room so that I could at least get to the meet and greet that the band was having before the show, and then got to work on a giant, rainbow batik banner in the likeness of the album art for "Weird Kids." I took this to the meet and greet and gave it to them, and as soon as I mentioned to Mike that I was the girl on Twitter so many years ago who had drawn him all of the silly things, he flipped out and hugged me and gave me free merch. The band even wanted to call my mother and demand that she let me stay for their set (I talked them out of that one).

I never actually got to see them live until Warped Tour that summer. I remember being kind of far back in the crowd when my friend turned to me, grabbed my arm and said, "You've waited too long for this." We then proceeded to shove our way as close to the barricade as we could get (which was pretty damn close) and I finally got to see my favorite band live. In a way, I'm kind of thankful that I first saw them at Warped Tour rather than an indoor venue. In my head, their image is very fun and summer-y, most likely due to all of the photos I would see on Tumblr of their first ever run on Warped; you know, back when they only had one EP. I met them later that day as well, and gave Mike more silly drawings. I had no idea the first time I would see them would also be the last.

At the time that I'm writing this, I must admit that I can't remember the last time that I listened to We Are The In Crowd; it happens far less frequently now. Even so, I must say that I am utterly torn apart. I've already cried, and I can guarantee that more tears will be shed in the coming days. We Are The In Crowd may have been a small band, but they were a huge part of me, and a major factor in shaping the young woman that I am today. Their music holds a strong sense of nostalgia, and a splattering of the colorful daydreams I held as a freshman in high school who was discovering the pop-punk scene for the first time and realizing that this was it, this was the place that I fit in.

"We are the only friends we have,

And if there’s nothing left,

And I fall, we don’t fall apart.

We’re all just weird kids in the end."