Things have changed though. (Well, not on the job front. I'm still searching, but that's another story.)
I'm now the mother of a High School Student ! Yes, it's true. I'm getting old.
High School. I've had a whole term now to let that sink in.
Cheyenne seems to have adjusted well to the new routines and to reading timetables (both school and bus). She's joined the choir (she still loves singing even though she's given up on playing the flute), tried a new sport (beach volleyball), and she brought home a much improved report card at the end of term. She even got an A for Japanese, which is one of her favourite subjects.
She has some of her old primary school friends at school with her and she has made a few new ones.
The only blip on the horizon is a certain girl from primary school - who shall hereafter be referred to as X - a toxic little Narcissist who, for the last three years, used to be one of her "besties", although I use that term loosely. Her particular brand of friendship includes emotional blackmail, manipulation, hot/cold mood swings, "boyfriend" (another loosely-termed label) stealing and just plain bitchiness. The original Mean Girls have nothing on X.
That girl needs a good slap. Across the face. With a Besser block !
The problem is Cheyenne is too kind-hearted and kept giving X chance after chance to redeem herself as a good friend. Yet every week or so it would blow up in her face again.
For the past year, I have been consoling Cheyenne with the idea that when she started high school she'd have the chance to make a whole new lot of friends from other primary schools and never have to deal with X again (unless they were in the same subject classes). The year started out well. The grade 7s had their camp in the fourth week so they could get to know each other. Cheyenne made a few new friends and things were going great until X broke up with her latest boyfriend and started running him down on the group chat they have on iMessage. Cheyenne had the - gasp - audacity to stick up for this boy (since he was one of her new friends) by telling X that she shouldn't be so nasty about him. X decided this was the ultimate act of betrayal - "I thought you were supposed to be my friend!" - and has doled out her usual revenge. She has systematically turned most of the new friends Cheyenne had made, against her. X has manipulated them all with rumours and/or her fake charm. Even the nice girl who invited Cheyenne to her birthday sleepover now looks through her as if she doesn't exist.
The sad fact is that none of the new friends know X well enough to know who/what she really is, so they've been sucked in to her web, and by the time they finally realise the truth, it'll probably be too late for Cheyenne. She's nothing if not resilient, though. At least she does still have a few loyal friends from primary school who have stuck with her (because they know the truth), and she has overheard some girls in one of her classes complaining about how rude X is, so it seems there ARE still some people out there who don't think the sun shines out of X's arse. Maybe Cheyenne can become friends with them too.
In the meantime, Karma had better hurry up!
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