I know who you are -Mac Coyle

Heart to hearts

"None of you move! Are you underground?" Underground? But we're above the ground?! "Whats.....what's underground?!" Erin shouts, panicking. The assassin is taking turns pointing his gun at each of us. I shoot my hands up in surrender, like the other girls. Kj has her hockey stick held up in front of us, protectively. The man's aim lands on her. "Stop! Don't shoot her please! Please!" Erin shouts. "Come on man, please!" The gun is now pointed at Mac. Before I know what I'm even doing, I push Mac behind me, standing in front of her. He readies his gun. "NO!!" I hear from behind me. I close my eyes. Suddenly Kj let's put a shriek, lifting her hockey stick, whacking the guy across the face, before hitting him again, making him fall to the ground. I stand there, wide eyed and in shock. That guy just tried to kill five teen girls. Kj falls to the ground whimpering, obviously in shock at what she's just done. I can't help but feel sorry for her. "Is he.....is he...is he..is he dead? Is he..." "Holy shit...he's not moving" Mac moves from her place behind me, to look at the body. Way to make Kj feel better. I finally snap out of my daze and crouch down beside Kj. "Shhh it's okay...it's okay...you probably just knocked him out and you saved us, okay Kj? You saved us" Mac grabs my shoulders from behind and slowly pulls me back. The other girls are doing the same. I wonder why until I see a woman in the same white suit through the bushes. She's holding a gun too. She walks over to one of the guys who helped us, flipping him over with one quick kick of her foot. I turn my head to the side where Mac's arm is wrapped around me, hiding my face into her canvas jacket. I can't watch another person die. The gunshot rings out, without hesitation. We all carefully back away as quietly as we can. Erin said something about her house being close by, so we started running.

The sun is just about setting as we all sprint through field after field. My legs are on fire. I keep glancing behind me to make sure no one's coming after us. I feel slightly relieved every time i don't see a white suit in the distance. "It's this one right here" Erin breaths out as a bunch of houses come into view. I takes Erin a good two minutes to get the door open. But it finally opens and we all burst through, closing the door behind us. "Mom? Missy?" No one answers. "Take your shoes off" Tif shoots me a confused look and I simply shrug my shoulders, as I do what Erin says. Mac flips on a light switch, illuminating the room. "Good, the powers back". "Mom? Mom? Missy!" Erin continues shouting. "Hey, who's there?" Someone answers from the staircase. I cautiously walk up behind Erin as a middle aged Asian women appears from behind the wall. "I'm calling the cops!" "That your mom?" Mac asks. "No" please don't tell me Erin got the wrong house. "What are you doing in my house?" The lady asks. "I live here" "no I live here" okay what the actual fuck! "Erin you need to see this..." Tiffany points to a collection of photos, hung up on the fridge. "No....no no no no no...that's NOT possible" Erin backs away in shock. I finally am catching on to what's going on here. "Oh my gosh ...that's her" "what the fuck are you talking about? She's her!" Mac says. "Oh my god....this can't be"
WE'RE IN THE FUTURE?!?

"Maybe time travels just a normal thing in 2019?" Tiffany suggests after the woman who's house we broke into ran away upstairs. This is too weird. "Oh yeah, that makes sense, cause back home, we were meeting friendly future robots and civil war soldiers all the time" Mac's being her usual sarcastic self as she roots through Erin's fridge. Well... older Erin's fridge? As everyone freaks out, especially Erin, I just try to take in the house. There is so many weird things laying around. I pick up a little white box on the counter. I flick the lid open curiously, looking at the little contraptions inside. They look like the top of the headphones to my dads old Walkman...but...where the rest of them. "Maybe we're dead?" Mac suggests. I drop the little box back on the counter abruptly and turn around to face her with a worried face. Oh no. That's it. I'm dead. I died when Mac shot me. This is hell. I am literally in hell. No no no no. Mac's face drops and she walks up to me, placing a hand on my arm. "Hey....are you alright?" I just continue to stare into space. I don't know what I am.

Everyone turns there attention to Kj as she freaks out about the guy she thinks she killed. Erin returns back into the conversation "if we really did time travel...." "This has to matter....whatever it is" I manage to look up at Tiffany as she's holding the little square device one of the freaky looking guys gave her back in the forest. I have to keep my head on my shoulders. For now at least. "Dude for all we know it could be a futuristic drinks coaster" Mac turns around to face Tiffany and I make my way over to the kitchen island. "I need to sit down for a sec" I say, more so to myself. "What about future you up there? Maybe she could call someone?" Kj suggests. "Who's she gonna call? Time travel 911?" Again Mac with her sarcasm. "Do you want to call 911?" I scream and so does everyone else as this little cylinder beside me speaks. Still running off pure adrenaline, I swipe the talking cylinder right off the counter, it falls to the floor with a big smash. At least it stopped talking. "Great, Julia just killed a robot" I shoot Mac a glare and she goes back to drinking her capri-sun. Erin suddenly takes off up the stairs after drifting into the living room. I jump out of my seat to see what she was looking at and so does Mac. "Oh Fuck" we both say in unison, staring at a memorial for Erin's mother, who I presume she doesn't know is dead yet.

As Erin has a much needed heart to heart with her future self. I head over to the couch and am stuck in my own thoughts once again. So much has happened in the past few hours and I'm having trouble comprehending it all. In only a few hours, I've been shot, time traveled, ran from futuristic freaks with guns, watched people die and amongst all that I can't stop thinking about one person; Mackenzie Coyle. Why I can't get her out of my head I don't know. I'd get severely punished for even swearing in front of my parents but this? To them, this would be unforgivable. I drop my head in my hands trying to process it all. "Can I sit?" I lift my head up to see Mac.

No matter how much I try to distance myself from her, she keeps popping back up. The truth is, funnily enough, i still feel myself wanting to be near her too. I nod my head with a small smile and move over slightly to make space for her. We sit in silence for a moment, slightly awkward silence. I can tell there's something she wants to say. "Look...I just wanted to say that I'm sorry...like REALLY sorry. I should never have taken my dads gun out in the first place, and even when you told me to stop, I didn't and I should have" she looks down at her hands as she fumbles with her fingers. "For what it's worth I'm glad you didn't die Julia." I look up at her with a serious look at first, but soon it drops into a smile. "Awhhh you called me Julia" I say prodding at her. "Fuck off" Mac rolls her eyes, but I can see the smile she's trying to hide. "You owe me a new track jacket though" I say, nudging my shoulder against hers, trying to lighten the mood. "Ummm I think the fuck not" I look at her intrigued on what she'll say now. "How much are those things again? Fifty bucks?...I'm surprised your even wearing something like that. Anytime I see u around school your always in some fancy Nancy fucking dress" my smile slowly falls. "Yeah moms idea. God forbid I wear something other than dresses or skirts, it's like being at church 24/7 in that house" Mac's eyes meet with mine, her eyebrows are furrowed together in a sympathetic glance. "Don't let them take away who you are" I think that's the most deep thing I've ever heard come out of Mac coyle's mouth. She's still looking at me. I'm still looking at her. She sees me. She REALLY sees me. No she can't see me. I can't let her see me. I rip my eyes away and stand up abruptly. "Um...I should...I should go get changed into clothes that don't have....you know...blood all over them" Mac looks confused and disappointed all in one. "Yeah..yeah whatever" she says looking down. Shit.

After getting into some fresh clothes, which consisted of an oversized, worn out, navy crewneck and grey sweatpants, I sat on the floor of old Erin's sitting room, with my knees curled up to my chest. "You guys ate all my pickles" old Erin says passing out some blankets and sleeping bags. "And you broke my brand new Alexa" she adds on. "Your brand new what?" I ask from the floor. "Never mind". I take one of the sleeping bags that old Erin gave to me and walk over to Mac, holding it out to her. "I'm good" she says as she pushes it back towards me, putting her headphones on and blasting music from her Walkman. Why was she acting like that? Did I do something? "Mac come one you need something to sleep on" I insisted but she couldn't hear me over her rock music. I decide to give up on pleading with her to take it and I just make her a bed myself. I roll out the sleeping bag and take one of the pillows from the funky patterned arm chairs and try make it look as comfy as possible. Mac doesn't say thank you but I guess the small smile she sent my way when I went back to sit down, was her way of thanking me.