Heartbreaker (Mileven AU)

change of heart

Jane sat down at the breakfast table with a glum look on her face as she watched the clouds. Her father was serving out eggos, glancing at her with weird eyes while she simply looked up at the sky. Her deep caramel orbs ran over every cloud, trying to distract herself with all of the different shapes that she could create with her mind. After a few moments of failing to take her mind of the persistent dilemma, she turned to the chief with a sigh. 

"Do you think doing a bad thing automatically makes you a bad person?" she asked him sadly, drawing patterns on the wood with her finger. 

The chief looked up at her with raised eyebrows, "Not always, why?"

"What do you mean?" she persisted. 

He sighed deeply and waved his fork around to emphasize. "Well, sometimes people do bad things without thinking of the consequences or without meaning to hurt anyone. It doesn't make them a bad person, but it doesn't exactly make them smart either."

"Oh" she looked down. 

He egged her on. "Did you do something bad?"

She nodded softly, unable to swallow her small bite due to the awful feeling suffocating her chest. The chief watched her for a few moments, scanning her small frown and sad eyes, her chin always looking like it wobbled slightly. She looked as if she was about to break down at any moment and it broke his heart. 

"Is it something really bad? Like illegal or something that would get you into trouble at school or-" she cut him off quickly. 

"No..." she frowned, "...nothing like that."

He placed his hand overs hers in order to give her some form of comfort. "Then what?"

Jane felt tears prick her eyes and shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I-I just regret doing it, I didn't mean to hurt anyone and I just know it will end terribly. I didn't think things through before going into it...now I'm not quite sure what to do..."

"That sounds tricky..." he rubbed his beard, "...like you're conflicted."

She looked down and bit her lip gently. "I just don't want them to get hurt...I did a stupid thing to someone and when they find out..they won't ever speak to me again. I-I never meant for things to go so far and I care about them a lot, Dad. I just don't know what can fix everything, I just want to go back in time so that I never did it."

"You can tell the truth" he mentioned softly. 

Her head dropped slightly. "That is what everyone else keeps telling me..."

He nodded. "Even if it doesn't seem like it, the truth makes everything better. If you don't have truth then you don't have trust...and trust is everything, Jane. If you care about this person a lot, I am sure that they deserve the truth."

"E-Even if it hurts them?" her voice was weak. 

The chief squeezed her clammy hand and sent her a reassuring smile. "If you explain it in the right way, then they will understand why you did it. If you feel awful and regret doing it, just give them some time to come around. It always better to let the truth out instead of hiding things, it just makes the process even longer and more painful. The truth is always the way forward, Jane, whatever it brings."

Jane finished her breakfast, his words echoing throughout her mind like a music tape stuck on repeat. She knew that her father was right like he usually was, but her fear of hurting Mike and seeing the look on his innocent face just kept holding her back. As much as she hated to admit it, she knew that she had to do the right thing. 

She knew that Mike deserved the truth. 

...

Jane walked the hallways with a new purpose, trying to keep her strides strong and focused as she searched around for Mike. She knew that she needed to tell him before this continued any further and as much as it was going to kill her inside, she knew that it was the only thing that she could do. The sounds of the other student's chatter filled the air and seemed to intensify as if she was in a film with all of the sound effects in the background. Her breath was shaky, her knees weak as her chin wobbled with fear of what she was about to do.