Ever-Changing World of Friendships

By Sue Norris Janetzke

Last year was a whirlwind for sixteen-year-old Serena, when she and her family moved for her dad’s new job. She was angry and unhappy, and it took her some time to accept the move as part of God’s plan.

Now she’s more settled and happier in her new home—but her junior year still begins with challenges. Her two best friends Tom and Shauna, are still in the picture, but he is away at college, and she is still healing. Serena has work and a new volunteer interest in the Center, and school classes bring their own complications. She faces confusion about romance, school, and more, and only time will tell whether she’ll continue to rely on her belief that God has a plan—or turn from that, make her own decisions and face the consequences. If she takes matters into her own hands and succumbs to peer pressure, she may wind up making choices she’ll regret.

In this novel, the second in a series, a high school junior encounters a new set of difficulties in school, romance, and friendship and must choose whether to look to God for help.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664284388

Sue Norris Janetzke

Sue Norris Janetzke is a mother, grandmother, and retired teacher. A resident of Michigan, she holds degrees from Western Michigan and Michigan State. She has previously written plays, skits, and church curricula, and her first book, Friendship? Who Needs It Anyway?, was published in 2021. She began writing Serena’s story when she had three teens of her own, and she hopes young readers will find some answers to their own struggles in her tale.

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EVER-CHANGING WORLD OF

FRIENDSHIPS

Sue Norris Janetzke

Copyright © 2022 Sue Norris Janetzke.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

844-714-3454

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-8437-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-8436-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-8438-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022924100

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/30/2022

This book is dedicated to my parents who taught

me about God’s love and grace, and to my husband,

our children, their spouses and grandchildren

who taught me to love unconditionally.

Thank you to three special friends; my dear friend since

the age of our story characters, Pam Parrott Harry, who

assisted with critical editing, and to Jamie Losche, a beloved

friend and collogue’ who along with her daughter Jordan

Losche, read Serena’s story from a mom’s and daughter’s

point of view helping me to make Serena come alive.

CONTENTS

Chapter 01     A Healing Summer

Chapter 02     College Life

Chapter 03     The Game

Chapter 04     The Accident

Chapter 05     Morning at Northern

Chapter 06     The Scare

Chapter 07     Too Many Questions

Chapter 08     Junior Year Is Here

Chapter 09     The Center

Chapter 10     Classes, Life, Changes

Chapter 11     Rah, Rah

Chapter 12     Home, Center, School, Practice, Repeat

Chapter 13     Overwhelming

Chapter 14     Tryouts

Chapter 15     Musical Practice

Chapter 16     Something’s Up

Chapter 17     Prepping for Thanksgiving Break

Chapter 18     Thanksgiving Break

Chapter 19     A Full Plate

Chapter 20     The News

Chapter 21     Plans Revealed

Chapter 22     Northern, Practice

Chapter 23     Counseling, Practice

Chapter 24     The Break

Chapter 25     New Year’s Eve: It’s Showtime

Chapter 26     Spring

Chapter 27     Homecoming

CHAPTER 01

A Healing Summer

W

hat a summer I have had! Has it only been three months since I completed my sophomore year? Moving here to Grand Rapids, Michigan, at fifteen, just a year ago, I hated it and felt depressed. I was determined to be miserable, and for a while, I was. There was so much drama that fall, with trying to make new friends and starting to date. Dating caused a multitude of other problems, most notably falling in love, losing that love, and then finding a best guy friend for life, Tom.

It was difficult getting adjusted to this place, but after gaining some courage, I tried out and got a part in the high school musical. All the things I thought I was missing here, I wasn’t. My dance lessons, back before we ever moved here, helped as I made the cheerleading squad too. I began to learn about friendship and what a true friend should be like. I finally stopped feeling sorry for myself and began to meet people, see the good in this place, and make another good friend, Shauna. We have been inseparable ever since.

Soon I will be starting my junior year, and I just turned sixteen. The summer is nearly over, and I have been busy. I even completed and received credit for an online required government course. I aced it!

I am proud to say that I have done a little growing up since my sophomore year when I was angry about everything. My best girlfriend, Shauna, and I did this growing up together. Shauna is my neighbor, fellow cheerleader, and confidante. She is beautiful on the outside, has long, blonde hair, is physically fit, and looks good in everything. More importantly, she is honest, caring, and would stand by me always, as I would for her. She is beautiful on the inside too. Throughout this adjustment, I learned a lot about myself, my family, standing up for my beliefs, and how to be a supportive friend.

Shauna and I continued throughout the summer with our volunteer work we started last year at The Center. This is a safe place with a professional atmosphere where men, women, girls, and boys can get expert help with problems of all sorts at no cost. We are there, with the help of experts, to listen and help others, especially teens who may have experienced trauma. This gives a troubled teen a listening ear of someone their own age.

We have been trained to listen and to be compassionate without judging or giving advice. Dealing with the trauma from last year with Shauna, she and I decided to do some volunteering there after they helped her. Now don’t get too concerned because we are under the watchful eye of adult psychologists and trained counselors who are on call for these young people; The Center just calls on us to listen with and support them as we are allowed. We had to sign a binding contract of privacy, and our parents had to cosign since we are both under eighteen. It states that no matter what a person confides in us at The Center, we can tell no one outside of the adults in The Center who are in charge of them. We have been volunteering here two days a week all summer, and I am going to miss it when school starts.

Some good things have come out of this volunteering. Shauna has been on the pathway to self-healing, and helping others has helped her to grow and heal. After an issue where a boyfriend took advantage of her, she has taken a while to feel safe again. Both of us are considering going into the field of counseling, psychology, or something similar as we find this work of helping others very fulfilling. We hope to continue to volunteer, maybe once a week or once a month in the school year. Schedule to be determined later. We have also decided to petition the counseling office to see if we can get credit for the volunteer work as an elective class and continue it all year. I assume we will need to do a paper of some kind, have our bosses from The Center sign for us, and maybe do a presentation of some sort. Credit or not, we plan to continue supporting The Center.

Along with that, we both got part-time jobs at the mall. Bloomgardens, where we both work, gives its personnel a 10 percent discount on clothing, and we love to shop there. This makes it hard to save money sometimes, but we got some excellent purchases to wear to class. It’s fun that we wear the same size and can trade clothing sometimes. We have grown as good friends. Bloomgardens is considering keeping us on interchangeably, as we both cheer and often can’t work after school. I will certainly try out for the musical again too. We have been able to cover for each other. Since it worked out so well this summer, we will try to continue doing it during school. Time will tell.

Dating hasn’t been something we have done much of. Shauna has not wanted to date at all. After her trauma with her then boyfriend, Allen, she has not wanted to be alone with any guys or go out on any dates. Her parents have stepped up to be there when needed. Mental healing is happening as I hear that bubbly warmth returning to her laugh. She is dressing more like she used to, wearing makeup, and looking as good as ever. She is coming around and has even started to act interested in practicing cheers with me.

I haven’t dated much at all either. I miss Tom, my best guy friend, so much I could cry all the time. He graduated from East and is at Northern Michigan with a scholarship to play football. At the end of the school year, we decided we loved each other very much but were too young and too good of friends to hurt each other by actively being in love. Instead, we admitted that we loved each other deeply, were confidants and best friends, and would keep in touch. His first football game is in a couple of weeks, and I get to ride up there with his parents to see it as a friend. I can hardly wait.

His calls and texts have sounded like he likes it there, is enjoying the team, and is prepping for classes. Our visit will be overnight, at a motel with his parents, and then home. They are so awesome to take me along. I think it is his and my parents’ way of letting us keep in touch so we don’t go over the deep end and elope or do something foolish. I appreciate that all parties are supportive of our friendship. Ours is a friendship for life, and I don’t ever want to take a chance of losing it as we almost did last year.

That is another story. We started as friends and then fell hard for each other; things could have gotten out of control, and they almost did. It happened after the cast party of last year’s musical, Babes in Toyland. We had the lead romantic parts opposite of each other in the same cast and had been seeing each other under the guise of practicing our parts, so we were spending a lot of time alone together but not actually dating.

Because of our growing love interest in each other, we went to the cast party together as our first real date. We left the party early, both still on a high of excitement from the show’s success. Tom had been pressuring me in many ways to give in to his romantic advances and drove to a starlit, quiet area and parked his car where he started to pressure me. Even though I really thought I loved him, and he me, I chose not to give in to his advances or pressure and got very mad at him so he drove me home, where I slammed the car door and didn’t look back. We had barely started going together when we broke up badly, with anger and no talking. After months of ignoring each other, we made up, decided we were awesome friends, loved each other, and wanted to remain friends forever. We