The Sun's Too Bright

One

🎵 I Was Jack (You Were Diane): Jake Owen

"The human heart may plan a course, but it is Yahweh who makes the steps secure." Proverbs 16:9

I live in my head. I think about the past. I think about the mistakes I made. How if I chose differently, I wouldn't be living the same life that I am now. I think about how good my life was and how I didn't appreciate until now, when it's all gone. It's an obsession I have. I wish I could go back. I dream about going back in time and doing it all over again, fixing the people I've wronged. It's too late though.

My name's Elle Walters. I took my middle name because my real name's too me. But that's a story for another time.

I find myself at the gas station, the same one that I used to go to when I was a little kid, eager to spend the five dollars I made by washing the car, on candy. I've lived here forever. Here, as in a small suburb of Chicago. Most of my friends moved away after high school, went to college, got jobs, got married. They got away from this place since everyone knows everything about everybody. Me, I didn't have a plan. I never knew what life truly had in store for me.

It wasn't always this way. I was the type of girl who had her whole future mapped out for her at age fifteen. She even knew who she was going to marry. The lucky guy was Jack Morrison. He was my boyfriend from junior high all the way to my senior year of high school.

Jack and I were a happy couple. We rarely fought. I loved who I was around him. He had confidence that radiated off of him like beams of light. It made me confident too. Whenever I was around him, I wanted to be myself. I loved that.

Don't get me wrong, Jack and I had our differences. He was naturally popular and optimistic, while I had days where I hated everyone in sight. Sure I was nice to the people around me, but it was a fake nice. The kind you feel when your boss acts like an ass, but you need to avoid getting fired from the third job you've had in the last month so you shut your mouth. Yeah, just like that.

I got fed up with acting like that and Jack got fed up with me. After graduation, he went to college and I stayed home. You see, my mother blew all of our money away on drugs after my dad left. Yeah, that also happened and it sucked. Spare me the sob story.

After Jack and I broke up, he looked me right in the eyes and told me to take care of myself. His eyes were filled with so much care and although we were both hurting, he was only concerned about me. I just nodded.

Since then, I haven't seen him and I haven't fulfilled my promise to take care of myself. I moved away from home, into some slummy apartment. I found work at a breakfast restaurant and spend my nights at various other jobs.

Sometimes, I think it's for the better. I'm not the type of person that could live with one cliché high school romance for the rest of my life. I'm honestly better off alone. That's what I thought until tonight.

It was like any other night, except Jack Morison decided to show up right as I needed help.

"Hi Elle." I freeze at the gruff voice that only comes from that of a smoker. Unfortunately for me, I know exactly who that smoker is. My heart races, but I can't disclose my panic, it's a sign of weakness and this particular person views weakness as a sign to take advantage of me. Not anymore.

He puts his hand on my shoulder. That causes me to ignore the fear I have and whip myself around. He leaves his hand on me, but he trails it down my arm. I feel a shiver run down my spine. I slap his hand away and turn to the gas pump.

"Elle, I haven't seen you in a while. Don't you want to catch up?"

I've done my share of "catching up" with Mason Woods within the past few years. He was the jerk that I hated in high school and that hatred became an outlet for my sadness when Jack and I broke up among other things that went downhill in my life.

The last time I was with Mason was a month ago. I promised myself I would never go back.

"How many times have I told you that we're done?"

"How many times have you said that, yet still went back to me."

He's not wrong. I haven't been myself for the past couple of years.

"Well now I'm serious."

He sighs. "You've repeated yourself numerous times. Why don't you just face it, I'm irresistible to you." Now, his hand lands on my waist.

Mason was very popular back in high school. He always had a different girl on his arm. He got away with stupid things like that. Now, all he does is look fondly at the past while he works at his dad's hardware shop and smokes a pack a day.

"I told you to leave me alone."

"And I told you that we had some catching up to do." His other hand lands on the other side of my waist.

I open my mouth to yell at him, but another voice cuts me off. "She asked you to leave her alone."

I feel my heart stutter. That voice. No, it can't be. But there he is, standing a few feet away from me is Jack Morrison.