You're My Past, Present, and Future

YOU’RE MY PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

WRITTEN BY LAUREN PACACCIO

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this book are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 NexGeneration Digital Publishing

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form without written permission.

Published in the United States of America.

To my family:

Mama Lori, Papa John, Hayley and Jonathan

Thank you for encouraging me to always pursue my dreams.

And thank you for letting me sit in my room, on the couch, or at the kitchen table for hours on end with my computer. Little did you know, I was creating this book.

So thank you.

I love you guys so much.

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Well, would ya' look at that. You see, kids. I told you moving here wouldn't be too bad. Look how lovely all of these…farms are. As I paused my iPod, only getting the last part of which my mother had been saying. Because of my dad getting laid off, and his company telling him about an opening somewhere else, we had to move literally cross-country.

Before the move, I was living in gorgeous New York City. Now, guess where my family and I, which includes: my father, mother, and two little twin brothers had to move to. If you guessed Georgia, you are correct. Yeah, what a change right; moving from a huge bustling city to an overly-quiet rural environment was going to be quite hard to get used to. Well let's just start out with getting to know who is now…speaking, I guess.

My name is Torrie. Since I've been doing basketball pretty much my whole life, I've been in shape since I was 3. I'm 16, and it's the end of my sophomore year that my move was taking place. My hair is about down to my elbows; red and straight. I was trying to grow it down to my waist, like the high fashion models do. It also looked really cool when I jumped in the air to throw the ball into the basket. Freckles cover my face to a point that I was still attractive…well, I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty darn gorgeous. I'm pretty tall compared to the average girl. I'm about 5'10, which comes in handy while being a basketball player. My mother had thought that since the beginning of summer was so close, we would be leaving, in the car, so we could hold more of our things, to drive to Georgia.

I felt something vibrating next to me. I looked down and saw my phone lighting up and slightly moving from the car's movements and the vibrations being emitted from it. I picked up my phone and quickly read the text. It was from one of my great friends, Annabelle.

Hey! OMG, I can't believe you are moving ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY!

I quickly typed a reply back.

OMG! I know! I'm going to miss everyone sooo much!

A tear slid down my cheek. I quickly wiped it away.

My brothers are both 14 years old, identical twins. Their blonde hair and freckle-less complexions made them look like I was in no way related to them. They're about 5'8, also tall for their ages, but the doctors say they probably won't be growing much in the next few years. The one with blue eyes is Thomas, and the one with green eyes is Trey. Notice the T trend? Yeah, it's both of our parents' favorite letters. Don't ask. LONG STORY.

Well, as I was saying…a tear slid down my cheek, and I quickly wiped it away. Apparently, I didn't wipe it as fast as I thought I did because I heard Thomas, the sensitive one, say, Aw, sis. Don't worry. Everything is going to turn out fine. I promise. He reached around to drape his arm around my shoulders to give me as much of a hug that he could in a packed car.

I turned to my right, and picked his arm off of my shoulders, and said, Well, everything may be alright with you because you just finished 8th grade, but me, I was in my sophomore year. I had to leave all of my friends, my familiar places, my HOME.

Trey, the not too sensitive one, quickly pulled out his earphones and said, Hey now! We had to leave our familiar places and OUR HOME, too. Not just you, alright?! I had a girlfriend that I had to break up with because of the 'long-distance.' My rage seethed down, and I nodded. I had forgotten about Abigail. She was Trey's first girlfriend, and he liked her a lot.

I tried to cheer him up, Well, darn. I'll admit that I forgot about that, but you have to know that there will be girls here, too? Right? I gave him a playful nudge as a slow smile formed on his face. Yeah, I know, he said, but, it's still hard.

All three of us nodded in agreement. My parents had been oblivious to this whole conversation ironically; they usually never let us out of their site or gave us any room to breathe.

Thomas turned on his iPod, popped his earphones in, and leaned his head against the window. Trey did the same. All I did was put back in my earphones, press play, and let the music drown out all of the things my mother and father were saying about the lovely scenery and the privacy that we would be able to have.

Privacy. That was another foreign concept that I had to start getting used to.

Buzz, buzz. I glanced down at my hand, which contained my phone, and saw that Annabelle had once AGAIN texted me. Don't get me wrong, I loved Annabelle's texts, but at the moment, I really didn't feel like crying again. I opened it anyway, and convinced myself to have a conversation.

It is going to take so much time to get used to the fact that MY BEST FRIEND isn't going to be here with me.

I sniffled, and typed back a reply.

You have no idea how hard it's going to be to be without MY BEST FRIEND. I'm going to Georgia, of all the places, without YOU. Promise to text me every day?

I waited for her to reply; I thought about all the fun times her and I had had together. There were so many, it was really hard to keep track of which ones were the greatest. Yet another tear slipped down my cheek. I quickly looked for my sunglasses, slipped them on, and read and replied to the text that just came in. it had said:

Well, DUH. I was about to TELL you that I was going to do that without you even asking. Ha ha. Gosh, I'm going to have to go because I'm starting to cry…again, so how about I just text you later?

I sniffled, as I re-read what I had replied:

Yes, text me later. I'm crying, too. I love you, Annabelle. Talk to you soon.

I waited awhile for a reply, and I realized that she probably didn't answer because whatever she was going to say would have made me start gushing tears. That would not be good. I would have enough time for that later whenever we finally found this house that my parents had been raving about. They said that it's the perfect size for our family, and just enough land for us to each have our own little space to have alone time.

Needless to say, I was shocked when they had said that. My parents were very protective, kind of like I stated earlier. The new move must have softened them up a little, because letting us go in the front yard back in New York would have been a huge stretch. For them to actually let us go out where they had no idea where we were kind of made ME nervous, and that's saying something.

I soon saw a house that matched the picture they had graciously shown to us, right before we left. I shook my brothers awake, and filled them in on what was going on.

They nodded tiredly and started getting together the things that they had taken in the backseat with them. I started to do the same.

Things like a big move aren't easy to get used to. Good thing this wasn't the only surprise that I was going to get this summer.

Chapter 2: The Woods

Well, my mom was right about one thing. The house was the perfect size for my family and me. I was now roaming around the vast land, looking at the scenery. I had brought my sunglasses (which were now on my face), my phone (which was in my pocket), and my iPod (which was in my other pocket).

As I said, I was roaming around our vast land, thinking things like 'Whoa, I don't know who is going to cut all of this grass. This is crazy.' Or 'I haven't seen this many trees, well except in Central Park.'

I took out my iPod to change the song. It was on shuffle, which is like the ONLY way to listen to an iPod. Decode by Paramore, the acoustic version of course, came on, after I had clicked next.

I put the volume up higher, and subconsciously started singing along. How can I decide what's right, when you're clouding up my mind? I can't win your loosing fight, all the time.

I, being the terrible singer I am, started to laugh at myself, when one of the high notes came. Then, even through the very loud volume on my iPod, I knew I heard something, like footsteps somewhere behind me. It was almost like, whatever it was, it wasn't trying to be quiet. It seemed like the thing or person didn't know I was there or frankly didn't care.

I pressed pause on my iPod, took one of my earphones out, and tried to listen. I heard a few twigs cracking behind me. I took my sunglasses off, to get a better look as I turned around and said, Um, alright Thomas or Trey…good job. You scared me. You can come out now, I said, at almost a whisper. How stupid was I to go out in these…woods all by myself?

I listened, whatever was now in front of me, must have realized that someone else was there. There was no noise. I looked around cautiously, and shrugged. Whatever, I mumbled, those dweebs can sit there all day for all I care.

I put