The halcyon days //friend

Cheryl's school days weren't the best. According to Kaufmann, the psychiatrist, "if you really want to screw someone up, (...) send them to high school." In Cheryl's case, and as said before, it only worsened her situation. Though this page is labeled "friend," it is unknown if Cheryl ever had any. I find it hard. Her situation made her introspective and passive, so much that, even in the therapy sessions she doesn't speak, only nods or shakes her head. One could say it's just the way the creators found not to expose Cheryl as the game progresses, but I prefer to think it has to do more with her personality.

In fact, other students acted rather aggressively towards her. Cheryl was a major target for bullies: she had been photographed while on the shower, and with a teacher she was rumoured to have an affair with, something that also led to the suspection that her good grades may not have been earned from merit. She may also have been one of those who were lured to take part in the "Choking game" which consisted in putting her own life in danger with the promise of achieving some kind of pleasure. Her bad reputation would also be worsened by her accused "frigidity."

But even if she didn't have friends, she had someone with whom she went out. Cheryl was receiving, to add to her misery, some bad influence, maybe the consequence from her moving out from a good neighborhood to a supposedly bad one. We can see she got completely wasted in the sequence of messages "Party in the woods" -- which would have an end with Cheryl tearing apart all of her clothes. Cheryl was sinking each time deeper.