A/N: Hey, y'all! This is a next-generation FanFiction about The Truth About Forever, which introduces new characters as well as characters from the book. This considered, I'd like to point out a few things. First: this is a NEXT-GENERATION FANFICTION. It's about a new character discovering her past and coming to terms with who she is, and the old characters from Truth About Forever won't be introduced right away. Don't worry; they'll still be major parts in the story, but they'll just be introduced a few chapters from now. Secondly: this is a sad story. I'm not gonna deny it. To be honest, The Truth About Forever is a sad story. So while this might be a sad story, I still hope that y'all enjoy it and get to the happy parts. And finally, thirdly: I am an amateur writer, and would love for people to give me feedback, negative or positive!

Disclaimer: Nope. Not Sarah Dessen. Don't own Truth About Forever.

Rating: T (PG-13)

Summary: Fifteen year-old Iphigenia Norton has never had a normal life. Growing up under the care of an abusive foster mother, her only family was her protective- and often wild and self-destructive- older foster sister Meghan and oddball foster brother Greg. When Meghan leaves their small backwoods town of Brookestone, Maine, for college, Iphigenia decides to take a chance. Running away from the only home she's ever known, Iphigenia goes in search of her birth parents, hoping against hope that they'll take her in and shelter her from the misery that she's had to undergo. What unfolds is a heartbreaking, twisting drama that will either have Iphigenia packing her bags or living a happily-ever-after.

Family is not an important thing. It's everything.

-Michael J. Fox

ONE

MEGHAN WAS LEAVING.

She had left before, of course. Over the years, it had amounted to about six or seven times- once or twice in middle school, a few times in high school. After the fourth or fifth time, I stopped counting. It became too painful to think about all the times that she had left me behind, grasping at straws for reasons she might have left me. But this time, Meghan was leaving for good. And it wasn't just to get away.

I sat on the edge of my bed in the room that Meg and I shared. We had divided the room economically when I was seven and Meghan ten, using a roll of yellow duct tape. A stripe of yellow went through our room, all the way from the floor and across the ceiling. It was a bit jagged and crooked, but Meghan and I still obeyed it religiously. Most of the time. It was the one piece of our room that had changed since I moved into it a decade ago and Meghan moved in thirteen years ago. Our shared beat-up dresser, deteriorating bathroom (chipping floor tiles, mildew-growing shower, and all), and small, creaky wooden beds were still the same. We had grown up here, us evolving and changing while the room stayed the same. And now Meghan was leaving for good.

Meghan had been packing for only a half an hour, but it was still nearly done. Our belongings were precious little: a few pairs of clothes, a sentimental object, a pair of beat-up gym shoes, some school supplies, a blanket, and a pillow. Our belongings were nearly identical.

All of her things had been unceremoniously dumped into a suitcase. Meghan was never one for neatness; that was me. I was a bit of a minimalist. Even if I had money to waste, I never bought anything that I didn't need. What I did need, I bought with my own cash, but there wasn't much.

"Are you sure that you've remembered anything?" I asked her now. I was anxious for more than one reason. Part of me was heartbroken for the simple fact of my foster sister leaving, while the other part of me was worried about her safety. Meghan had never been especially smart- in book smarts or in street smarts.

Meghan threw me a look. "You know," she said dryly, "I am three years your senior, Nia. You don't have to babysit me. I know how to take care of myself. Trust me, okay?"

"I'm trying, Meg," I said, walking over across the yellow line. Meghan glared at me, a bit petulantly, I thought, but I disregarded it. I unzipped her suitcase and began to repack her clothes, folding them neatly and stacking them in piles. "But you don't make it easy."

"Oh, thanks for the vote of faith," Meghan said. "Look. I'm gonna be fine. I've worked my ass off for the last year and a half to get here, and I'm not going to blow it now. I promise."

It was hard to see the faults in Meghan when she was so earnest. Luckily, I had plenty of practice dodging Meghan's notorious puppy-dog ways and immoral shortcuts. "NYU isn't going to be like Brookestone, Meghan," I said. "You aren't just going to get your way with a snap of your fingers."

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Mom." Meghan rolled her eyes, snapping her Double Bubble chewing gum. I wrinkled my nose as the sickly-sweet aroma of bubble gum wafted over to my nose, glaring at her. She held up her hands in surrender. "I'll be fine, alright? I promise."

I wasn't so sure. Meghan might have taken care of me when I was a child, but her sacrifices for me were different than my sacrifices for her. Different didn't always mean more, and I wasn't sure if I would still be alive today if it hadn't been for Meghan's protection, but I was grown up now, while Meghan wasn't a day older than thirteen.

My lips tightened. "I mean it, Meghan. New York City isn't some backcountry small town where you can get away with just about anything by flashing some state troop patroller."

"That was one time!" she said exasperatedly. "One time!"

"I don't care if it was one time or a thousand," I told her. "It won't matter once you're in New York. If you try and flash a cop, they'll have you arrested and fined before you can even blink. You're a dime a dozen in the Big Apple, not one in a million."

She flopped down onto her bare mattress. "Always charming, darling."

"I'm not saying that I'm charming. I've never been charming. What I am is truthful. You can't hide from the truth, Meg. It's physically impossible. You can't lie and cheat and bargain your way out of every situation. Rules are different down there."

"So you've told me," she said. Meghan just rolled her crystalline-blue eyes, shaking her long mane of honey-blonde curls. "Look, Nia. I understand what you're trying to do for me. But I'm not that girl anymore. I've changed. Ever since I started trying to get into college, I started changing. You saw it. Greg saw it," she said, referencing our foster brother. "Even Julie saw it."

I thought about this. I had seen it. Julie, our foster mother, had seen it, too; and it hadn't just been the liquor bottles that were missing from her cabinet. Meghan had begun to try. And for a while, she worked hard.

But all good things had to end. As soon as Meghan got accepted into NYU, she started reverting back to the person she had been before she saw a future. I worried about her. Constantly. We looked out for each other, Greg and Meghan and I, and with a crucial link missing from our puzzle piece, I was concerned that just she wouldn't fall apart. Greg and I would fall to pieces, too.

This wasn't something I could bring up, though. Meghan was leaving our tiny town behind with big goals, and I couldn't stop her. I had always been the practical one, the person who was both a Debbie Downer and a Practical Prudence. It was why I never got the boys while Meghan got them in spades.

But working hard and consequences was something that Meghan would have to learn for herself. So, as I forced a smile, I said, "Of course I saw it, Meg. And of course I trust you. I'm just worried. Okay?"

Meghan's face softened, and she kissed me on my forehead. "I'm gonna miss you, Nia. Really. It just won't be the same without you."

I shrugged. "Eh. I don't know- I'm not even sure if I'll notice that you're gone."

"Hey!" Meghan threw a pillow at my head, and I fell off the bed as it collided with my head. I moaned, and Meghan laughed, outstretching her hand to help me up. She had done the same thing so many times before that I couldn't even begin to count the numbers, stretching out that hand to help me up. I figured the least I could do was give her the benefit of the doubt.

I accepted the hand, letting her pull me up. "I'm really going to miss you," I said. "A bunch. Though you won't have to worry about me, I promise." I pushed a piece of my dark hair out of my eyes. "As soon as you get out of here, Greg and I are both going to hightail it somewhere else."

"So you've said." Meghan sat down on her bed for a moment while I sat on mine, a thoughtful look on her face. "Where are you two going to go? I mean, I don't want to be That Girl, but I've tried to get outta here more times than I can count. How are you going to pull it off?"

I shrugged. "I don't know about Greg. He's got his own agenda. You know him: awfully secretive, no matter what's going on." I bit my lip. "And I've got my own plan. It's a bit harebrained, but worth a shot."

My foster sister arched an eyebrow. "Are you going to tell me about it?"

"No," I told her, as her face contorted in surprise. I smiled a bit, and went over to my desk. Pulling out a yellow Post-It note, I scribbled something down onto the piece of paper and handed it to her. Meghan took it with an incredulous look, somewhere between worry, calamity, stress, anger, and disbelief.

"'Seven-oh-seven Emery Lane'?" she asked, reading the paper. "'Atlanta, Georgia'?" Meghan gaped. "Iphigenia Norton," she said, using my full name. I winced. "Did you buy a place? Without consulting me?"

"No," I said slowly. "Not exactly, anyway. But if you need me, this is where to find me. Just come to this address. I'll be there."

Meghan snorted. "I still can't believe you're shooting for Georgia. You'll never make it past New Hampshire. You're out of your frigging mind if you think you can somehow hitchhike from the north to the south. Out of your mind."

"Okay," I said simply.

Meghan just shook her head. "I'll never understand you, Nia," she said. "After ten years, I still don't get you. You're an indecipherable puzzle, never to be solved. I'm sure as hell not going to keep on trying."

"Whatever you say," I said, lying back on the bed and looking up at the ceiling. "But I know you love me. Whatever secret resentment you might have buried in your soul, you've got love stashed in there. No matter how deep."

"Of course I do," Meghan said. "We're sisters."

I propped myself up on my elbow, looking at her up and down. We were as different as could be. Meghan was beautiful, with long, honey-blonde curls, eyes the color of the sky, and full lips. Her face was round, her body soft and thin. She had been a heartbreaker even before she became beautiful.

I, on the other hand, was striking. There was a difference, I had learned. I wasn't especially pretty, or beautiful, like Meghan, but I still caught attention. My cheekbones high and sloping, my lips small but full, my hair a dark curtain that hung to my knees. Meghan and Greg had always teased me about my 'Rapunzel hair', but I loved my hair. I was skinny and all angles, with tan skin and freckles across the bridge of my nose. I didn't know what genetics had produced such an effect. I wasn't even nice to look at. I just drew attention.

We looked nothing alike. Acted nothing alike. Shared no blood.

And yet, we were sisters.

Looking at Meghan, just minutes before she was set to load her precious little belongings into a taxi on a one-way trip to New York City, I relished one of the last moments I would likely ever have with her.

"Yeah," I said. "We are sisters."

I ARRIVED IN Brookestone, Maine, when I was five years old.

It was after the surgery, and I was still a bit uneasy on my legs. I was behind on my schoolwork, behind on my physical therapy, and behind on life. There was a forty percent chance that even with the plus of the surgery, I still wouldn't regain use of my legs. It was a scary thought.

In the end, it was Meghan who saved me. The foster care system dropped me off in Jules Norton's house without a second thought, letting me assume her last name and filing me under the Resolved folder. They probably thought that I'd be back in a few years, as most kids were. With Meghan, Greg, and I, though, that was never the case.

At the time, I was five, Meghan eight, and Greg four. We were a motley crew, but we were still a crew. As the oldest of us all, back then, Meghan took responsibility for us. She shielded us from Julie, taking the blame for every tiny slip-up or mistake. It was her, most of the time, who got slammed against the wall or went to school with a black eye. Every once in a while, my first grade teacher would ask me why I limped, or the librarian would inquire as to why Greg had a black eye.

Meghan always made up the excuses. This, in itself, was destructive. Greg and I didn't know it back then, but to some extent, Meghan did. She was a little bit selfish. She wanted a family, and Greg and I were the closest thing that she got.

"Oh, that?" she'd say to my teacher. "Nia just fell off the swings on the playground. It was right after it rained, so they were all slippery. She just wasn't being careful enough." By then, I had known never to voice anything. I stood by her, knowing that it was bad to lie but sometimes worse to tell the truth, bowing my head in silent agreement.

Then, to the librarian, Meghan would reply, "Oh, that? Greg just had a little accident in T-ball. A ball nailed him right in the eye." She'd smooth over Greg's mousy brown hair, planting a kiss on the top of his head. "Poor thing. We made sure to get some ice on it right away."

These statements each had a degree of truth to them all. She just wasn't being careful enough. This was true: I knew better than to leave the liquor cabinet unlocked or leave a crumpled napkin on the table, and I definitely knew better than to come downstairs when Julie called for me. We made sure to get some ice on it right away. That we did. After Julie calmed down, either going out for a drive or locking herself in her room with a bottle of whiskey and her late-night sitcoms, we all had a system.

I remembered the day that I arrived in Brookestone. Meghan had brought me and Greg upstairs- we had been a package, my foster brother and I- and knelt down. "Things aren't easy here," she told us softly. "I'm glad that you came. I always wanted a brother and sister. But you gotta know: it won't be easy."

At first, I didn't know what she meant. Greg didn't, either. But slowly, over time, we learned. There were rules in our household. They weren't laid out by parents, like normal families. No; instead, they were laid out by Meghan at first as what we called Survival Rules, and later, by me, with what we called Common Sense Rules.

The Survival Rules were brutal, and a learning experience. For instance: never, ever, leave the small bungalow that we all shared messy. Clean everything up. Make it pristine. Fortunately, I had always been a neat person. I could spot a speck of dust on a blanket from a mile away. That had always been my job.

Never, ever come down when Julie called for you after she got home. If that happened, it meant that she was angry. Meghan always reacted swiftly to this, noticing the slurring of Julie's words. She gathered Greg and I up into her arms, bringing us into our room and locking the door. She opened the window, and we all snuck out down the tree.

"It'll be like a game," she told us. "We have to climb down the tree to get outside. Whoever does it the fastest wins." She grinned at us, as if it were the most fun thing to do ever, climbing down a tree in the freezing dead of night.

"But I don't wanna," Greg had said that first time. "It's cold."

"Tell you what," Meghan said, frantic. "I've got some money stashed away. Whoever gets down the fastest will get a hot cocoa at the diner. We can go there after we climb down. Sound good?"

Both Greg and I agreed without preamble. Our house was three stories but tiny, and it was difficult to climb down without getting hurt. Once, I fell from the branches onto the ground. It was when I was seven years old, but I knew better than to cry out. With my foot broken, Meghan and Greg carried me all the way to the small clinic.

The doctor had asked what had happened, but Meghan had just used her charm. Even then, at the age of ten, she was a beauty. "Oh, that?" she'd said. Meghan always began the lie of our injuries with those two words. Oh, that? As if it were some trivial, silly thing. "It's nothing. We were just climbing a tree and Nia fell. Just a silly little accident. Mama was too busy with work, so I thought I'd just run down here."

"Well," the doctor said, uncertain, "I still need a signature..."

But Meghan just flashed him that award-winning smile and, like every other crisis that fell our way, we sidestepped it. I arrived home with a cast and a medical bill the length of my arm, and went to school with all shades of blue, black, green, and purple. But it was averted. I worked off the medical bill, with the help of Greg and Meghan, and the accident was erased.

With the exception of the time that I had fallen, though, we always made it to the diner. We spent many a night at that diner, and Meghan eventually even stashed a hiding place for a change of clothes and essentials. Once or twice a week- or sometimes, two weeks- we'd head down to the diner and drink hot cocoa, falling asleep on the vinyl seats.

Greg and I didn't belong in that house. Neither did Meghan. And, in the end, it was Meghan's fault that we ended up there. She was selfish, and didn't want us to leave. She wanted so badly to have family that every single time that Julie got mad, she stepped up, brave and defiant as ever.

By the time that Greg and I realized what Meghan had done, we didn't want to leave. Meghan, Greg, and I were thick as thieves, and we were a united front against Julie for four years. And then, without warning, everything changed.

Meghan ran away for the first time.

It was after Christmas, when Julie was on one of her roughest benders. Meghan packed a bag and left in the dead of night. When Greg and I woke up, she was already gone. I had never seen Julie move so fast before. In a flash, she had called the cops, and Meghan was brought back to our house within an hour.

That was when everything changed. Meghan was no longer the protective sister. I, at the age of nine years old, had to be there, just as Meghan had been there at eight. I had a year on her. And from that day on, I did my best to keep us together. My Common Sense rules came into play. Don't get drunk, I'd say. Curfew is until ten. Be careful. Don't cheat on tests.

Greg was never much trouble. He was a good person in his heart, where it really mattered, and though he started smoking in sixth grade, that was one issue that I never bothered him on. I had tried my best to get him to quit, but in the end, Greg made the choice to continue. And so I let him. But otherwise, he had straight As, just like me and Meghan- though hers were for different reasons-, played soccer, and was college-bound.

Meghan, on the other hand, was a wreck. She became wild. A slut. I always thought it might have been easier if she wasn't so beautiful and if she didn't have a D-cup and a size-0 waist, but those were the facts. She was a magnet. In a town with the population of one thousand, she was truly extraordinary, and everyone knew it.

She slept around, with boys her age, boys not her age, and even, in a few occasions, teachers. It was always kept on the down-low, but I could always tell. It was when I told her that I disapproved that she stopped, and I used my power only in extreme circumstances.

Meghan came to school smoking joints. She earned her straight As not in academia at first, but in flashing her breasts not just as state troopers but also at teachers. It was the kind of behind-the-scenes drama that no one could ever prove but was happening anyway. She was drunk most of the time and had remnants of a high.

I tried my best for four years of my life, from the ages of nine to thirteen. But it was when I gave her the college packet that she really started to change.

"College, Nia?" Meghan had said, woozy. "I don't think so, hon. I'm just not cut out for it."

"But you could be," I had insisted. "You have the grades, and you can start earning them. This could be your ticket out, Meghan. You could get out of Brookestone. Make something of yourself. You don't have to be this person."

Still, she hadn't been sold. It was when I said, "Meghan. You don't have to keep on posing for the Gun Shop ads anymore. You can go to New York City, or Paris, or wherever. Show the world who you are. Meet boys. Live your life. Not everything's up to Julie. Your life's not over yet. You can still salvage it."

Meghan had looked at me. Really looked. "Do you really think so?" she said skeptically.

"There's not a doubt in my mind," I told her. "You can get into one of those schools, Meghan. I promise you. The foster care system's gonna kick you out at eighteen. Where are you going to go? Do you really want to end up like Julie?"

Meghan flinched. "Sorry," I said. "Maybe not exactly like her. But you know what I mean."

"Yeah," she had said quietly. "I do."

And after that, I had really succeeded. At the age of thirteen, I had rescued a girl and a boy from total destruction. I had put them before me for my entire life. They had always been the priority. Not me. In those four years that I tried to rescue Meghan, and the year and a half that I succeeded, I was paying back Meghan for those four years of shielding me from Julie.

Her reasons for keeping Greg and I there might have been wrong. But I couldn't say that I didn't understand them, and neither could Greg. We both wanted a family, and that's why, every time that Meghan left, we brought her back, saving her from her own personal anarchy.

Here's the thing: family isn't some black-and-white concept. It doesn't depend on blood, or genes. I never knew my parents. They could be bankers, or fishermen, or Greek gods, for all I cared. Just because they weren't a part of my life didn't mean that I didn't have family.

Over all those nights of hot cocoas at the local diner, with five year-old me coloring with a ballpoint pen on a legal pad that one of the waitresses had loaned us, with four year-old Greg passed out on the red vinyl seat, and eight year-old Meghan watching over us with a kind smile and a couple of dollars that she filched from Julie's liquor stash, we had become family. I couldn't say when, exactly, it had happened. But it still came true.

Meghan and Greg were my family. And now, with Meghan gone, and Greg and I leaving in the morning, I didn't know if I had any place to go. Greg and I couldn't stay at Julie's, that was without a doubt in my mind.

After Meghan left, I laid on my bed, just looking at my leather satchel hanging off the desk that Meghan and I both shared. Inside the satchel were my provisions for the trip: a Greyhound bus ticket to Atlanta, a Starbucks gift card, and fifty dollars. It probably wouldn't be enough. But I hoped to God that it would be enough to get me to my destination.

Life moved fast. The part of my life with my family was already over. It was far too long and far too short, and as I sat there in my bed and cried, thinking about all those nights of hot cocoa and Kraft macaroni and cheese, I could hear Greg's sobs from the adjoining room.

We had been a family. But that was over now. It was time to move on.

And so, with a Greyhound bus ticket, a Starbucks gift card, and fifty dollars in my back pocket, I prayed to God, Muhammed, the Vishnu, Jesus, and all deities above that I would arrive in my new family, with my new destiny.

I hoped to God that I'd make it to Atlanta.

There was nothing left for me in Brookestone now.

Not with Meghan gone.

A/N: A sad story, but I hope y'all still liked the intro! Please review!