Before You Know It

Chapter 1

Everyone dreams of the safe return of family the second they depart from us. We pass through the days just waiting and hoping that they are going to soon come back to us all in one full complete piece. My name is Anne Hanssen. I am currently 17 and I live in a small town in Colorado called Telluride. This is the story of my life. I never thought that I would want to share my life with others, but people change I guess. I want to show people how your life can easily be normal one day and then the next, you could be living in a completely different world.

Normally on Fridays I am dying to get to school just so I can leave and not have to see those people for two days. But today wasn't a normal Friday for me. I couldn't help but keep thinking.

Today is the day. My day. The day I get to finally see my mom again.

She's been gone forever it seems like, but in reality it has only been 6 months. She often has to work out of state. She works in the military and they seem to deploy her a lot more often now so she will be gone for a long period of time. During the time she's gone Ive gotten use to being on my own. But my sister is always around for me.

My sister's name is Jan and she has been married for about 9 years to a man named John. They have two boys together named Jace, 8, and Daniel, who is 5. They're really the only other family I have besides my mom.

I've missed my mother so much though, I already lost my father years ago to cancer. It had taken him when I was only ten. He had a beautiful brightness that he brought everywhere he went and as he laid on that bed slowly dying, he never once stopped smiling and enjoying life. After that trauma, I can't imagine my life without my mother.

Every time she gets back she always takes me out to dinner at our favorite diner called The Infernal Instruments and we will just sit and talk for hours about everything that happened to us in the time she was gone.

I'm currently walking the back roads on my way to school. Since I walk this path everyday, it has become instinct and my body to just goes this way without me remembering where I am. And to avoid where holes are. Looking down at the path I have noticed that from where I have walked every day of school since I was 7, the grass has been killed and there lies dirt from the constant wear. In the distance I hear a familiar voice calling towards me.

"Hey A.H, what's up."

Without even a glance at the person I already know who it is, no one in this world calls me that horrid nickname except for Sophie, aka my best friend and only friend in this crazed world.

"Well, welcome Soph." I said smiling at her.

We have walked everyday to school together ever since we were 7. Looking at her I notice that today she has her hair in a messy bun, and she is wearing blue sweatpants-

"Hey, are those my sweatpants!?"

That stealer, she totally stole my sweatpants.

"Why yes they are, they fit much better on me don't they?" She responded with the biggest grin ever on her face showing a perfect row of white teeth.

Well it's not particularly the first time she has stolen my clothes that my mom bought me that I don't like.

"How'd you get them?"

She snickered at me as if I asked the most obvious question out there.

Still half laughing at me, she replied with, "You left them at my house the last time you stayed over. Not like I broke into your house just to steal a pair of sweatpants- or did I?"

That woman, can't stand her sometimes.

We walk in silence for a few feet before she's already starting another conversation.