New Friends, New School.

I started middle school with a positive attitude. I saw seventh grade as an opportunity to make new friends in a new school. I was hoping that my pattern from elementary school wouldn't follow. Every other year I would have plenty of friends. I had a tendency to make friends with people who moved or ended up going to a different school. Of course some friends I just lost touch with. So middle school seemed like a great opportunity to drop the past and perhaps reinvent myself. I had decided to force myself to be a little more outgoing and sociable.
I've always been on the quite side and found it hard to just jump in and start a conversation. So I figured I didn't have to be the quite girl know one really knew anymore. I could be sociable to. Thinking back being shy and staying that way for another grade would have been wise.
Anyway I met my soon to be "friends" outside the school through someone I had been friends with in elementary school. She and I didn't share any classes but she she knew someone who did. Her name was Natalie (name has been changed) and we decided to go to class together. Our first class was math.
It was in that class that we met up with Natalie's friends Aubrey (changed) and Ember (changed). We discovered we shared all the same classes and the same lunch period.
I figured I had just started the path to three great friendships. In my view we were friends. We walked to classes together. Ate lunch together and talked and gossiped with each other. I was the new one in the group and still a little reserved, but talking was awkward for me. I was still learning to socialize. While it comes with ease to many, for an introvert socializing is not a natural thing. Maybe it was because of this that things would eventually take a darker turn.