You are frenemies. Not friends or enemies. Frenemies. You and Sara have known each other for over three years. She can do whatever she wants, but remember, you’re in control. She won’t have an effect on you. You’ll have an effect on her.
You walk into the stables, and you see her sitting on top of her horse in the arena. You’re always happy to make a horseback riding friend. When your trainer introduces you to her, you smile and she smiles back. She has pale skin, brown eyes, and long blonde hair. There’s not any makeup on her face, and she expresses innocence. You expect the friendship to be great, for she seems like a kind and friendly person.
You have a couple of lessons with her and she is fun to be around. She always tells you jokes and makes you laugh in general. You aren’t close but that’s okay. You’re glad to have a friend.
Whenever you ask for a favor, she accepts, or when you need help, she appears. It’s difficult to remember certain times she wasn’t.
You ride a horse named Markie one day, and someone is recording you. You later meet that someone, and it turns out to be Amanda. She is somewhat of a “scene girl” as you can see by her looks. She wears dark clothing, always has dark eyeliner on, and has four lip piercings. Her hair is awkward because it’s layered but way too short. It’s jet black, but you can tell it’s dyed. You’re frightened at first, but when you get introduced to her, she greets you with a wide smile. She’s energetic and always laughs in a loud, giggly way. You never expect her to do anything bad. You are relieved, and think of the cliché saying: Don’t judge a book by its cover.
You don’t know it currently, but she will have a great affect on Sara. It will be a while before the change happens, so you’ll have time. Amanda and Sara hate each other right now. You are with them separately at different times. All you need is the last person; Makayla.

Makayla has moved to your ranch while Sara is out on a trip in France. When you meet her, she greets you with a smile filled with braces, and you smile back with the same. You hit it off immediately with her and you have a good day riding, messing around, and talking. She trips over herself and laughs over simple things. She has light-brown hair to the middle of her back with dazzling hazel eyes. She’s a bit chubby with some acne.
Sara comes back from France, and you ride with Makayla for a couple more days then decide to take a rest day. This will be the day that the two of them meet. This will change Sara’s attitude a bit but not enough for you to notice.
You come back to ride again, and you see that Sara and Makayla are great friends. You feel like a third wheel, but you’re alright with it. At least you get to hang out with them.
Amanda and Makayla have already met and this will start a chain reaction. Makayla introduces Amanda and Sara to each other, and they become great friends. The three of them are a close group, and you feel left out. Like a fourth wheel if that was possible.
A day comes when something is different about Sara.
She’s wearing dark makeup, and lots of it. From then on, she continues to wear the same make up each day.
You think of a day when you three talk about before when you were all friends.
“Remember when you and I used to hate each other?” Amanda asks. She giggles at the thought.
“I do!” Sara replies. She laughs hysterically as if it was the funniest joke in the world.
“Yeah, but now, thanks to me, you two are great friends!” Makayla implies.
You sit there, wondering what they were talking about. Then you realize that Sara and Amanda were not friends before and Makayla had made them. NOW they are great friends. You thought they were this way the whole time.
You notice Sara’s attitude is different. She’s not as friendly to you, and doesn’t like to share with you anymore.
Amanda is out on a trip, while you, Makayala, and Sara are cleaning a stall for your trainer Donette. Amanda has come back, and you are excited to see her, so you leave the stall to see her. You greet her with a hug. She smiles at you, Icee in hand (of course you drink some). You are talking with Amanda when Sara shouts at you for leaving in the middle of a job. You feel bad for your actions and return to continue.
When you arrive at the stall, you find your rake missing, and you ask Sara and Makayla if they know where it is.
“I put it back,” Sara replies.
“Why?” you ask.
“Well you were talking with Amanda, so I thought you were done. Go get it. It’s in the back.”
This angers you a bit, thinking about how much Sara’s logic was so correct (in a sarcastic way of course). You walk to get your rake back and you reach the stall.
“It’s too late, we’re already done. You were too slow,” Sara says.
This pisses you off more, now that you think she is trying to make you feel bad. You keep it in and continue with the day.
This same attitude continues for a while until you realize that Sara is treating you like dirt and she seems to hate you. You think of all the times she called you a bad rider, or blamed you for something you didn’t do. The only time she’s ever nice to you is when you two are alone because you’ll have to do when her other friends aren’t around. It was all an act.
It is a day when Sara isn’t out and you, Makayla, and a new girl; Robin, are having lunch. She asks you three about Sara because she’s noticed some things about Sara and wanted to see if you noticed as well.

You three start going on rants about Sara.
“She’s disrespectful to the horses. One time she punched O’Sheen for no reason at all,” Makayla states.
“I see her always beating Remi when he doesn’t listen,” you say.
“She doesn’t do any of this when you’re not here Donette,” Robin says.
“Okay. I’ll do something about it,” Donette assures.
You hope it works but know Sara is hard to change.
After you come back from your annual trip to China, you find out that Sara has been suspended from the ranch for two weeks and will return next Thursday. While she is gone, you have a much better time with Amanda and Makayla.
A couple of days before you see her again she apologizes for everything she’s done. She says that she won’t do it again and is sorry for the way she’s been treating you. Over text message that is. You hope she is true to her word but expect her not to be any different than before.
You arrive at the ranch on Thursday for your usual lesson to see Sara is there. She greats you with a big bear hug and a wide smile. It all feels fake but you go with it. You have a good ride that day, and hope she will stay like this from now on.
Some days go by and Sara is with Makayla, Amanda, and you. She has changed back to the way she was. You admit to yourself, you did enjoy those three hours she was nice to you on that day. There’s nothing you can do now.

Something else is different. Sara’s wearing Amanda’s clothes. It took you a while to notice that Sara was now wearing dark clothing with different rock bands on them. You wonder why she is starting to act like Amanda.
You think of a strange conversation between them, and you happened to be there.
“Wanna smoke tonight?” Amanda asks.
“Of course,” Sara replies with a slight smile.
“Wait, what did you guys say?” you ask.
“You heard nothing!” Amanda says. She and Sara laugh as if there was a joke said.
This was no joke.
You are shocked to find that Amanda has been doing these things. You expected her to never do this. You guess the cliché “never judge a book by its cover” was right. Except Amanda’s cover wasn’t her physical traits. It was her personality.
Sara now had all blue hair, dyed by Amanda herself. Next she has red. She now looks to be a “scene girl” as well.
A day comes where Makayla suddenly has a different color in her hair. There were now blue streaks down her bangs. Was she now becoming like Amanda as well? You relax when later she dyes it back to her natural hair color.
You don’t come out for a few days and when you return, you find that Sara has been banned from the barn. You aren’t surprised much, thinking she had it coming but feel slightly bad for her. After her banishment, all contact with Sara is lost.
You think of Sara one day, of how she was doing. You decide to go on Facebook and check. You gasp when you see her profile picture. It was her, of course, but to your eyes it was a different person.
Sara had a dark shirt on, with jet black hair and a lip ring. Her eyelids plastered with eyeliner and eye shadow. She has multiple pictures of her and Amanda, as long with members of a rock band. This has spiraled out of control, and she no longer person you thought she was.
You are on YouTube one day, and you see a video has popped up on Amanda’s channel. It has the title “Road Trips”. You play it, and watch to see Amanda, Sara, and two other boys that you don’t know driving around in a car. There are multiple clips where they are together, drinking beer and hanging out. You are disappointed in Sara, thinking that maybe she could have broken through, but no. She wanted to be like all the other “bad kids”, and she got what she wanted.
Sara’s personality was the same (as it showed in the video) but her decisions were not. She was now smoking pot and drinking beer. She was a different person than she was three years ago. She never will have that pretty blonde hair and the kind brown eyes again. She will forever be changed. You hope someday, someday, that she will realize what she has become.