Disingenuous

5. The Sun

May 21, 2018

Jackson woke up with a pounding headache. He kept his eyes closed for a moment and told himself he probably deserved it. When he finally did open them he had to squint.

The clock on his nightstand said it was almost 5 am. He didn't seem like a morning person, but he'd  been one for quite a while. 5 am was late for him. Normally he was already wide awake by 4, but in his defense the previous night had gone late. Since Dylan had left, he went to bed much earlier and he told himself it helped even though he didn't know what it was helping.

He let himself blink awake for a moment. His bed frame was acrylic and glowed with multicolored LED's that were always less fun to look at in the morning than they were at night. The far wall of his bedroom was made completely with floor to ceiling windows and he could see it was still mostly dark outside, but there was definitely a warm glow rising up over the hills in the distance. He still had plenty of time.

He forced himself out of bed and into the attached bathroom. His stomach turned when he saw the toilet and he felt bile rise up in him. He considered vomiting again, but steeled his nerves and stepped into the shower instead to rinse off the grime of the last nights unpleasantries. The shower was cold. He was so fast that the water never even got warm. He avoided looking at his body in the mirror even though he knew his tattoos covered everything. He brushed his teeth, flossed them, and then brushed again.

By the time he'd pulled on clean sweats and a plain long sleeved shirt that was probably Dylan's, he felt like a new man. He could even pretend that the the shirt didn't smell like Dylan at all. Maybe the previous night had just been a nightmare. Maybe everything would be fine today. Maybe she wasn't even real. Maybe none of his problems were real.

He frowned at that thought. The girl with his eyes and Amanda's smile was real. She was only a few doors away, likely fast asleep in the room that he'd pointed her to. Actually, he'd stumbled to bed while Seb showed her to the room he'd offhandedly mentioned in a drunk mumble. That was just a technicality.

Maybe he wasn't feeling much like a new man after all.

He was quiet as he creeped through his house. He'd learned over the previous few months that nobody actually appreciated an early riser. He ignored the red painted door completely and pretended he didn't know who was lying asleep in the bed in there. He lumbered down the stairs skipping the one that made a weird noise, and he pretended that every step wasn't sending a new jolt through his head that make him resent himself for the night before. As he passed on the lower floor, he peered into his living room and found David snoring softly on the sofa. He'd watched Patrick and Roosevelt leave the night before, both of them sharing very awkward goodbyes with him and well wishes for his situation. Apparently David hadn't felt inclined to excuse himself from the intrusive family matters. Also, he was in no state to drive after the game. Jackson knew that. He crept past the man asleep on his sofa, grabbed a bottle of  vodka off his booze table, and then continued on to his kitchen.

His coffee pot was dirty, so he settled for a mug placed directly under the coffee spout and waited for it to brew. When it finished, he dropped in a spoonful of sugar, peppermint creamer and an excessive amount of the vodka from the glass bottle he'd retrieved on his way. Now she'll really think I'm an alcoholic, he thought to himself.

Such father material.

He finally made it to his back porch just in time for the sun to start blazing over the horizon. It must have only been 5:30 at that point. That was about when sunrise was scheduled for that week. He'd checked.

The wooden sprawl of his back porch was probably the only part of this house be hadn't moved to update or change in some way since moving in. As he'd remodeled things with Dylan and then again in Dylan's absence, he just didn't feel the need to disrupt it. It was old and wooden. The floor creaked uneasily. It made a crackling sound on windy days. He stood at the edge overlooking the trees and hills of the horizon with the Portland skyline in his view, watching the sun as it rose over everything and everyone. It was cold, but the cold bore into him in a welcoming way. It woke up his bones and pulled the last bits of sleep out of him. He loved mornings like this.