then to now

This is a story about a guy named Greg. He has a stressful life and has had to deal with adopted parents, since he is only 13 years old. He doesn’t like to talk about his birth parents that died in a tragic car accident. He tries to get it through people’s heads that he doesn’t want to talk about them but they can’t let it go. He has low grades in school and works hard to bring them up but just can’t manage it. His adopted parents tell him that they have to move and he has to come too. He thinks to himself that if I go to a new place I will have a new start, so he is pretty happy to leave his old town. He is very sad to leave his friends, but thinks to himself that he has a chance to make a better life and meet new friends.

Greg moves and finds the new town an ok place. He is settling in with all his stuff and his adopted mom found a school that he will go to and he is excited. Through the day he has thoughts that he is going to do great, and he will not fail. After school he goes to a field that is near his school and lies down on the soft grass by the trees and looks up at the blue sky and hums to a song in his head. He hears a crack in the words like a branch braking under someone’s foot steps. He gets up and turns around quickly but no ones there. He whispers to himself,

“It’s ok, it’s just an animal, a…small animal, I hope.”

He closes his eyes and thinks of good things. He hears footsteps in front of him. He opens his eyes and looks at a girl with features that look different from our time. She was 5’3, has long hair tied up in a big white bow, a white dress, no shoes, and scratches on her arms and legs. She didn’t look like a girl would look like now. Greg blinked hard and opened them again, she was still there.

“Uh, hi are you lost or something?” said Greg.
“No, not at all, I come here all the time, you look lost to me,” she said.
Greg eyes widened and he looked around and said,
“Wow, I am not lost I came here today to think and clear my mind, what’s your name?” “It’s Grace, yours is….?” “Mine is Greg”.
She looked up in the sky and sat next to him and smiled.
“Your really cold, do you have a jacket?” said Greg. “No, I don’t.” Greg took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders. She smiled and said,
“You really need it more than me”
“No I don’t”.
He started to laugh and he said,
“If you didn’t wear a dress you wouldn’t be so cold.”
She started to laugh and she smiled softly.
“You just moved here, I can tell”. Grace said. He nodded and said,
“I live here now with my adopted parents, I was doing horrible in school and no one wanted to be my friend, then I moved here and still waiting for my grades and friends”.
She nodded and sat up and brushed the dirt on her dress,
“Well have to get going it was nice meeting you, Greg” “Wait, will I ever see you again?” said Greg. “Yes, maybe”.

She walked into the woods and disappeared, Greg thought to him self. She lives in the woods….here? And she just disappeared? He got up and walked home thinking about Grace. The next day, things were different, really different. Greg met so many new friends that came up to him and talked to him that day. There was a pop test today and Greg knew he was going to fail.

“But I’m not ready,” Greg said to the teacher
“No one is ready for a pop quiz, because it is a POP quiz” the teacher said to him.

He walked back to his set and picked up the test. All of these questions seemed…easy to him. He smiled and took the test. At the end of class when everyone took the test, the teacher handed out the quizzes. She handed Greg the test and said

“Very good, I told you, you could do it!”

Greg flipped over the quiz and almost started to cry he got an A! He could not believe his eyes. He aced the test! He could not wait till he went home and tell his adopted parents. School was over and he ran outside and on wheat field and ran to the spot where he sat yesterday. He yelled,
“Grace!” and looked around for her.
“I have great news to tell you!”

He looked around and waited for her. One of his new friends named, Jack, ran over to him and said,

“Who are you yelling at” and he laughed. Greg turned around and said,
“Oh this girl I met the other day.” It grew silent.
“Ok” Jack said as he went beside Greg.
Greg turned to him and said, “She said she comes here all the time”
Greg looked puzzled. “Well maybe she’s not here today, can you come over to my house for dinner?” Said Jack
“No I don’t think so; I have to go home and show my mom the grade I got on my quiz, but give me your number so I can call you when im done so we can talk.”
They both gave each other their numbers and said bye. Greg ran home and showed his adopted parents the quiz and they were very happy for him.
“Can I call my friend, Jack?”
“Your friend?” said Greg’s adopted mom.
“Yes, I met him at school.”
“Go ahead” she said as she smiled. He ran up stairs got the phone and called Jack. They talked for 30 minutes and said bye.

Three Weeks went by and Greg had so many friends and such good grades, all through those weeks he was thinking, was it the school that helped me get good grades, was it the friends, or was it Grace, his first friend. Everyday he went to that field and waited for her, she never showed up. He begins to become worried and then he forgets about her. Another three weeks passes and he started not going to the field every single day. He starts to slip on his grades and starts to lose friends. He does not understand what is happening.

He goes up to Jack and says,
“You’re still my friend, right?”
“Yes, of course I am, really more like your best friend,” said Jack.
“Oh, good,” said Greg as he walked away. Jack run up to him and said,
“Why? Are you my friend?”
“Yes I am, I am your best friend.”

They both smiled and Greg went home. Two weeks passes and he is starting to fail. He doesn’t understand at all what is happening to him. He starts to think about Grace, and he sighs and walks out the door and breathes in the fresh air. He walks to the field and sits by the tree and looks up at the sky sighing, and waiting for Grace again. He turns around and she is standing there. Grace, she’s here, standing in front of me, in the white dress she was wearing the last time. Greg gets up and goes to Grace and holds her hands.

“Where were you?” Greg said. Grace starts to cry.
“I’m so sorry, my dad didn’t let me come here, I came up here awhile ago and you weren’t there…”
“I’m sorry too, Grace….”
Greg looks in the distance and sees a black hole starting to get bigger.

Greg points to it and says,
“Grace, what is that?”
She turns around and looks at it and turns back to Greg looking sad.
She starts to cry and she says to Greg,
“That is my Father and I’m not what you think I am, I’m not like you.”
“Of course you are” Greg says confused.
Grace looks at him and says, “I’m not, I’m different.”
“Well everyone is different you don’t have to say that, I’m different too.”
Grace blinks at him with a teary face and she says, “No, you don’t understand!”
She turns around to the black hole and she looks at Greg
“I have to go, now”
“Greg, I’m going to tell you what I am, but don’t tell anyone”
He looks at her looking so confused
“I am not alive, I am dead, you can’t see me anymore, I have to go, I’m so sorry.”

She runs and the black hole sucks her in and disappears. Greg says to him self in a sad voice, “…I didn’t even ask her my question.” He looks down and at his hands that were sealed tight and he feels something poking him. He opens his hands and there was blood and a locket in his hands. He thinks, “The blood must have came from me, but where did this sharp heart locket come from?”
He looks at the field and feels like Grace is there with him but…she’s not. He looks up and whispers and again,
“The locket was from Grace!”
He holds the locket close to his heart and smiles. He sighs, “She’s here with me” and he looks at the locket.

One year later he is in the same school. He has the locket around his neck tucked in his shirt, and always remembers Grace. He still has great friends and great grades. He goes in his first class and sees a new girl. He walks over to her, smiles and pulls out his locket and rubs it and smiles at it. She looks at it and gets wide eyed, and then smiles.
Greg says to her,
“Hi my name is Greg.”
She says back, “I’m Grace.”
He looks at her thinks of the Grace he use to know and looks at the new girl and she looks just like his Grace but not as pale.
She whispers to him,
“Greg it IS me, Grace from the field.”
Greg whispers lower,
“I thought you were dead”
Grace looks at him and smiles,
“I found a way, Greg.”
He smiles and hugs her and sits next to her. They spend forever together and Live happy life. As for Grace she lived a full second happy life.