Once Upon A Forever (Preview)

Chapter Two

If I told you that I love you,

Would you stay?

Emma

Four Years Ago

I stared out of the car window in silence, as the world I knew became a small speck, a memory I added to many others. I was tired of moving. Tired of making new friends. Tired of making up excuses. Like always, my opinion didn't count.

"It's going to be great. There's a beach, and an amusement park," my mother said, gripping the steering wheel with one hand, while the other flicked a cigarette out of the car window, red nails sparkling in the sunlight. "And the world's best hot dogs."

"I can't wait," my sister said, pointing her turquoise polaroid camera toward us. Mom leaned over to get in the shot and gave a peace sign. The camera hissed. In an instant, a memory had been created.

Meet my sister, Elizabeth. The kiss-ass. My mother's favorite. At only sixteen years old, she's unaffectedly innocent, irresponsible, and never directly involved in an event yet suffering its consequences. Growing up, strangers assumed we were twins because 1. My mother liked dressing us in similar outfits during Christmas, Easter, and birthdays and 2. We were exactly nine months apart. However, nothing about us was remotely similar. While she had light brown hair, mine was jet black. She had big round eyes. Mine were small. And, while her body developed at the ripe age of eleven, I was seventeen and flat-chested. Okay, I wasn't totally flat chested. I was a B-cup. But, compared to my sister's D-cup, my breasts looked more like mosquito bites than actual breasts.

"It's going to be the best summer ever," Elizabeth beamed as she stashed the polaroid in the sun visor.

I rolled my eyes at her enthusiasm and keep quiet. As if being a new kid wasn't hard enough, we had to do it twice in one year, in High School. Elizabeth didn't understand my complete absence of hope because she lived in a bubble. A world intensified by my mother's enabling.

Luckily, summer had just started. So, I didn't have to deal with school or making friends for another two months. I didn't care either way. I'd made a promise to myself the moment I hauled the first cardboard box into the car. I was going to ride out the rest of high school like a hermit, unseen, and unheard until graduation. Then, I was leaving. For good.

The thought of leaving my family wasn't a big deal. Not to me. It wasn't like I was sitting at home crying about it. I'd just never felt like I belonged. Not even in my own family. I knew I was different before I knew the meaning of the word. And, it was my being different that automatically turned me into the outcast. It was okay. I enjoyed being alone, with my thoughts, and my words. Words were all I had. Words were my salvation.

"Emma," my mother said. "You off in your dream world again?"

"No," I lied, closing my journal and stuffing it inside of my army green satchel.

"I told you, dreams never come true," she said. She was right. She had told me. A million times. But, she was telling me for her sake. Not for mine. See, mom had given up in her dreams long before Elizabeth and I came into this world. When she had met dad, a lot of things had been pushed aside, and the first were her own dreams.

I had always wondered how someone could do that. Put his or herself last. I could never become the passenger in the vehicle of my life. That's why I vowed to never fall in love.

Ever.

A few hours later, we arrive in Ash Falls. It's a perfect little picturesque town, with only one of everything; a post office, high school, diner, mall. I loathe it from the moment our beat up station wagon crosses into town. Not because I didn't like it, but because I did.