Things Change

     I was a Neopian Times addict. I'd search every issue for interesting articles, short stories, comics, or new series, read the next parts of other series, and I'd also scour the bookstore on a regular basis for a new book. Before I started writing my own stories, I liked to draw. I'd draw a thousand terrible pictures because I couldn't decide on just one thing to draw. I wanted to draw everything. Both of those skills combined helped me write my story, "The Last Goodbye", to help me get rid of my negative emotions towards Jordan's leaving.

     He announced his move in the middle of the year, but he didn't leave until the last day of school. I wore the bracelet he sent me every single second, except in the bath. I was grateful I still had the Fab Four.

     I began to miss the happier days when we were all playing with our Usuki dolls in the hollow trees or blowing bubbles in Annabel's backyard, or when we went on a field trip to Pizzaroo, and we made our own pizzas, despite Juliet's obnoxious fear of the chef.

     Back when we were trapped in a tent at Terrah's party and thought we were all going to die, and how I screamed when the "monster" was Terrah's Spardel, and we all laughed.

     We were growing up, but I was stuck in the past. All this time, I'd been in a hurry to grow up, and I missed out on being a kid and enjoying my childhood. I was a seven-year-old playing with my plushies, longing to be thirteen, and now I'm a ten-year-old walking down a huge mountain in the middle of the night, longing to be a seven-year-old or even nine.

     Maybe if I just sat here long enough, willing for some disaster at the space station to send me back in time to relive all the good old days exactly as they'd gone before and really live in the moment this time, it might actually happen. Wouldn't that be nice?

     Maybe when I saw Jordan, everything would go back to normal, or at least I'd feel better. I'd go back, and all my friends would apologize and it'd be fine, and I'd start living in the moment. Every moment from now, I will be living in the moment.

     One by one, pieces of my past flashed before my eyes:

     Eating lunch with Jordan that one time, when his bag of crisps exploded and they all fell on the floor, so I offered him some of my veggie crisps, tricking him into thinking that they didn't taste like dung, and watching him spit the chewed up pieces onto the pavement beside his crisps when he found out, and playfully smacking me.

     When none of my friends voted for me for class president last year, Jordan was there for me, even though he was one of my opponents.

     The girl who won, Maryann, the red Shoyru, had this whole big campaign about her poor family and her sister with Ugga-Ugga, and won the sympathy vote—even though there was literally no cash prize—to help her family. I wanted to rip her head off and throw it across Neopia. There were better candidates than her, besides me, and there were worse candidates than both of us, but her campaign was far from the top 3 in my mind.

     More flashbacks. They wouldn't stop.

     That one time I forgot my lunch, and Annabel shared hers with me and bought us a pastry to share from the snack line.

     When the girls consoled me after an argument with the evil lunch lady.

     When we all hid from an annoying blue Techo in our class named Hestia, and once when Annabel and I hid in that one huge stall in the washrooms, and just laughed under our breath and shushed each other for maybe ten minutes. Annabel and I hid there again when I was hiding from the evil substitute teacher.

     When Annabel and I made our own special hideout on the playground.

     All our sleepovers, and the times hanging out in her front yard with everyone.

     When Juliet and I hung out on the jungle gym the day Lola and Annabel were absent.

     When all 4 of us had gotten braces at the same time and how Annabel chewed gum all the time, despite the food rules.

     When we went to the art gallery and painted these awful pictures that were so cool at the time.

     Walking Annabel's Puppyblew around the bazaar and popping into shops just to look at things.

     Swimming in the community pool and running into the popular pets and trying to hide from them.

     Telling secrets and staying up all night talking, or playing with Usuki dolls, plushies and other fun toys.

     Reading our favourite Times stories and playing games together, trying to beat each other's scores, dressing up and giving each other makeovers, venting to each other, consoling one another, having trouble with homework, making up silly stories together, riding bikes and scooters, playing with each other's petpets and dissing all the mean teachers and staff...

     When my allergies acted up, Jordan walked me to the nurse and stopped by my house to make sure I was feeling better. Last year's Neovia theme day was when we all dressed up and played games, ate crumpets, read stuff from the printing press, learned Neovian-style dances, and did other fun activities. Not to mention the many field trips.

     And I was still looking forward to the open house when we got to present our projects at the Neopian Worlds Day. I'd worked so hard on my Faerieland project. I even went there with the Fab Four to research. We tried to sneak into Fyora's castle, we played Cloud Racers, won twenty thousand Neopoints on the Wheel of Excitement, and so much more.

     The field trip to go surfing in Shenkuu next month, even though I literally had no clue how. I had originally planned to ditch claiming that I had a doctor's appointment, but the girls convinced me that it'd be fun. The career day. This year's talent show. Graduation. The graduation party. The rest of the camping trip. Neopia Central Junior High. Going to middle school parties.

     Stop. Stop looking into the future. Live in the past, or live in the now. Live in the moment, as I said before.

     Right now, in this moment, I wanted to find Jordan. I wanted to prove to my friends that this was right.

     Suddenly, one of the songs from that Twisted Roses CD started playing in my head. Why was the song stuck in my head now, of all times? I needed to concentrate.

     *Try to move on and try to be strong, sometimes things can go your way, but more often they go wrong…*

     Make it stop! No, who am I kidding? The song was right. But I didn't want to move on. I wanted to go back to happier times and live there forever. I didn't want to be strong. I just wanted to either find Jordan now or go back in time.

     I sat down on a rock and put my stuff beside me and pulled out my pencil and my notebook: the same fuzzy notebook I had been writing in for almost a year, starting with "The Last Goodbye." Maybe if I had never written that stupid story, this whole mess with the paparazzi and my friends and me allegedly bragging could have been avoided altogether.

     May 14-

     I hate this. I might have lost all my friends, and I'm gonna have to go back. I'm gonna have to tell them that I failed, and they were right, and they'll all say 'I told you so', and never let me live it down that they were right and I was wrong. Forget about finding Jordan. I can't do this alone. I don't even know what time it is. I knew I should've brought a watch.

     I wrote on the side of the mountain next to me: SAGE GAVE UP HER DREAMS AT THIS VERY SPOT. You could barely see the pencil on the rock, but that was probably for the best. It felt too dramatic after I wrote it, but I was afraid the terrain would get my eraser too dirty.

     I felt tears, but I refused to cry over this. Not this. There was only one other time I'd cried, and I intended to keep it that way.

     "Don't cry," I told myself.

     But wait…that didn't sound at all like me. Or anyone I knew. Or even a girl.

     I turned around to find a plushie Shoyru standing before me.

     "My name's Stitches," he said, "are you okay?"

     I couldn't remember what I said. All I remember is my face hitting a rock as I blacked out again.

To be continued…