In Another Life

1

"ROAD TRIP!" Denise screamed out the passenger side window of my old royal blue Trail Blazer, as we headed out of our small town. The windows were down, the music was blaring, and me and three of my closest friends were headed to the event of a lifetime. Playlist Orlando. "Necee, what the hell?" Sarah asked from the back seat, laughing as Denise hung her head out the window. She pulled herself back inside, and looked back at Sarah, grinning while she pushed her long brown hair back from her face. "What? I'm excited!" Kenzie leaned forwards from her seat behind Denise, and grabbed a hold of it with both hands, shaking it. "Meeee toooo! I can't believe we're FINALLY going to Playlist! After waiting all of these years, It's finally happening!" I laughed along with the rest of them. "It's finally happening girls! We're gonna meet Sam and Colby!!" I yelled, beating my hands against the steering wheel, letting their energy fuel my own. "Okay T, calm down. You're driving. You can't do the crazy thing yet," Denise replied, grabbing the steering wheel, when I let it go. 'T' that's what Denise and my friends called me most of the time. Short for Terra. Terra Rayne Brooks. Necee (Denise) said that Terra was too much to say with how fast she spoke most of the time. I couldn't really argue with that. I had to make her stop and slow down sometimes just so I could understand her. "I'll be crazy if I want too!" I exclaimed, pushing her hands off of the wheel. "I've got this!" I glanced over at my best friend of almost 3 years and thought back to how my life use to be before her. When I was around 16 or 17 years old. I had friends, quite a few, or so I thought. My weekends use to be full of partying, missing curfew, drinking, other things that I shouldn't have been doing. I thought those people were my friends though. Turns out, they weren't at all. They only wanted to hang out with me because my parents had status in our small town. Which meant that we didn't get into too much trouble for breaking into abandoned places to party, or even for drinking underage. My parents were usually gone, business trips and so forth, so the house was empty a lot, which meant more parties. Unfortunately, they came home early one night and busted us in the middle of one of those parties. Guess I had pushed my luck a little too far, because they came down on me hard after kicking everyone out and calling their parents. Soooo, I was grounded, no leaving the house, no phone, no laptop, nothing but my tv. They did let me at least watch tv and read books. So I stayed on YouTube, closely monitored by my parents. I watched so many different creators, trying to keep myself entertained, but it just wasn't working. I was bored out of my mind. No amount of beauty gurus or pranksters was going to fix it. So there I was mindlessly scrolling through YouTube yet again, when I came across a channel called TFIL. It looked interesting so I left it there, and picked up my journal to write for a little bit. It was my only friend at the moment, so I tried to keep up with it. "Yo, I've always wanted to be a hamster," is the first thing I heard and I glanced back up at my tv, seeing a hot buff guy with a man bun. I couldn't help but laugh, as the camera panned to a cute blonde guy, and a baby faced guy with brown hair. "We're gonna die," baby face replied. I got sucked into the video, laughing and imagining what it would be like to go on adventures like that. That was the beginning of something that I didn't realize was going to change my life so much. Being grounded gave me ample time to literally absorb every video that I could come across with Sam and Colby, TFIL, and everyone close to them. I became obsessed. Why not though? I had nothing else going on. I only spoke to my so called friends at school, and they weren't really interested in anything I had to say unless it had something to do with me helping them party. I eventually stayed to myself, growing away from that group of people. Instead of socializing with the traitors around me, I made a fan page for Sam and Colby and started socializing with others that I could share my love and appreciation with. By the time my punishment was up, I didn't care about going out anymore, or partying. It just didn't interest me, because I wasn't friends with those people. I guess I never was. It did hurt that they dropped me just like that, to know that they were just using me, but I just buried myself in Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, becoming part of this amazing fandom that I hadn't known existed. My page steadily grew, and one day, I did a "ask me questions" story on my Instagram. Someone asked where I lived so I gave out the name of the little town. Probably not a great idea, but I wasn't really thinking straight. Next thing I knew, Denise popped up in my DMs, saying that she lived here too. We started talking online first, then realized we even went to the same school. I started hanging out with her and her two other friends soon after. It was amazing to be able to share my love for the guys with other people in real life. We had sleepovers just to re-watch old videos, listen to goofy ass music that the guys and their friends made, and just to imagine what it would be like to actually know them. I didn't even miss my old life. Now, 3 years later, we're out of school, grown, and on our way to meet these incredible humans who changed all of of lives. It seemed like a dream. I guess it was.