Friends are priceless at any age

Mystic and I played an online mafia game together, it was a kind of bonding thing between us as well as a way i could make sure to keep the freaks away. We had our computers side by side on the desk so I could see who she chatted with, make sure they knew she was only 14yrs old, and have my friends watching her if she was online and I was not. She made many friends on the site actually, sometimes to the point I would have to remind her that she still had a bedtime.

A few months before her mother passed away she met a boy online. Kyle was sweet, he played the game a few years as well so he was able to guide her along and have a partner in crime. Sometimes its nice to have someone help you that's around your own age and not ancient like your step mom. The game has a few functions that are unique to most online games. It has in game marriages. She was popular so she got many proposals but Kyle was the only one she wanted. I didn't have a problem with it, we are in Kansas and he is in Canada. A marriage made in heaven for me and he cant get her pregnant through a computer screen so he was already safer than any of her classmates. Considering that the high school she goes to has a built in daycare center and 4 of her junior high classmates were pregnant last year I was happy to see she didn't want any of the local boys.

When her mom passed away Kyle stuck by her. Most of her friends, real and virtual, had abandon her when she needed them most. Her father and I were there but your friends are who you lean on. Kyle would listen to her cry and talk out all her feelings. He would even stay up till the wee hours of the morning if she needed him. Being that he was 19 he was more mature than any of her "real life" friends but still a kid too. He had some experience with death before so he wanted to make sure she was OK.

Kyle was raised by wonderful parents. They taught him the importance of an education and hard work gets you were you want to be in life. He was my best back up when it came to making her go to school. With all the deaths she had to deal with coming so close together it was nearly impossible to get her up in the mornings to even go. The school was not very supportive or understanding of her needs so getting help from them was nearly impossible. They just wanted to kick her to the alternative school and that was only going to happen over my dead body. That school would teach her new skills... breaking and entering, how to roll a really tight joint, whats the best cream to shoplift to prevent pregnancy stretchmarks. Not really something I felt she needed to learn. After dealing with them, I had a new found respect homeschooling and the mothers that do it.

I finally found a little known program to keep her in her school but she would only have to go from 1:30pm - 4:30pm. It was perfect, it eliminated the early morning fight, she would work on her projects from a computer and no other kids in the class would taunt her about her mom and grandparents being dead. She liked it too because she could talk to Kyle before and after school. Kyle would also torture her by threatening not to talk to her that day if she didn't go to school. I loved him for that.

As the end of the school year rolled around she really wanted to meet Kyle. They talked on MSN as well as IRC through the game and web cam as much as they could. Even her father got on web cam to talk to the young man who had captured his little girls heart.

JR is old school. He doesn't believe in computer love and had too many bad experiences computers because when he was married to Cathy, she would meet guys online and eventually kicked him out to move one of her online boyfriends in. As you can imagine, this was his worst nightmare come true. He lost a wife to some stranger online and now he feared losing his baby girl. It took a while, but I finally convinced him it would be OK for them to meet as long as it was supervised. I would be there, we would stay in a motel, and he lives with his parents so its not like he was some creepy old dude with a bachelor pad waiting to prey on his daughter. He was just another teenager who was my biggest help when it came to trying to heal her emotional wounds. Besides, after all we had been through just this year, I needed to get out of town and away from the depressing view that was my life's routine. Canada was going to be pretty this time of year.