Second Chance, Second Choice.

Chapter 12 - Shattered

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Second Chance, Second Choice

Chapter 12 – Shattered

No one's POV

Tori, up to that moment where Jade confronted her in the alley, thought she had it all figured out. She was going to see to it she never dated Jade and be even bigger and better than before. After all, she had convinced herself that Jade never really loved her anyway.

Tori for some time had operated in her own bubble of reality. So, when she found herself in her 17 year old body, she reacted accordingly.

And things went well until Jade in one tear-filled speech, shattered her illusions and ripped her heart in half.

Left alone in a dark alley, all Tori could do was sob. Jade loved her, still loved her and even forgave her before, vanishing. The experience left Tori devastated.

After continuing to cry for several minutes, Tori got up and walked to her car. She was still half in a daze as she vainly attempted to reconcile what had happened. Getting into the car, she just drove aimlessly.

After an hour of driving up and down the city streets, Tori realized she was only ½ a mile from her home. Not the one in 2016, but the one she had left after the fight with Jade; her home.

Not having anywhere else to go, she drove "Home".

But it wasn't there. In the space she once knew as her and Jade's home, sat a boarded-up hotdog stand. A few feet away was bright new sign, advertising the new beachfront homes that would soon be built there.

The slogan on the sigh itself, "Not just a home, it's a dream" seemed to mock her pain.

Still Tori got out and walked up to the stand and sat down at one of the green wooden picnic tables that surrounded the stand.

There, under a half moon, Tori sat there, staring out at the ocean. After a moment she was reminded of a similar scene in Back to the future, where Marty McFly finds that his subdivision hadn't been built yet.

"Damn you Marty! You're almost as big of an asshole as I am. Damn you to hell." Whispered Tori.

"Either way, I can't go home again."

Emotionally shattered, Tori sat there mulling over what Jade had said.

"You were so angry, so lost"

"I gave up on you."

"Forgive me"

"I still love you."

"I forgive you"

After an hour of staring at the sea, Tori tearfully concluded. "All these years, I blamed her. I blamed her for wrecking things. I only did that because I couldn't face the fact that I was the monster, not Jade. The accident left me an angry shell of what I once was and I took that anger out on Jade. My beautiful loving Jade. I drove her away, made her hate me. Then I find myself here and end us before we even started. But even then, she still loved me. She still came for me."

After a moment a quote from the play Richard the III, by William Shakespeare came to mind.

"And therefore, — since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days, —
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days."

Tori knew once and for all she was the villain. Of course, Jade was not blameless in all of this; even Tori knew that to still be the truth. But there were no more illusions as for the first time in many years, Tori could finally see herself for what she was. She was a bitter and angry ex-singer, who tormented the woman she loved, ultimately driving her away."