The Elected Stranger

Upon the star-filled night time, was a girl and boy walking together along the shoreline. The night was young and love serenaded the night. While together, they talked about things they wanted to do together in the future. They were the stereotypical high school love birds. They had a fixed mindset on what they passionately believed in- having a family. Jackson was his name, he was the Quarterback for his high school. He was deeply in love with Halie. Halie was a varsity cheerleader. They had been friends since the sixth grade and their friendship soon ended and sprouted into a well respected and loyal relationship their freshman year. They are seniors now. Halie loved to go to all his games and support him in everything he did. Jackson loved her for all that she was doing for him. He never had someone like that in his life, his parents were divorced and did not pay much attention to him growing up. As he got older he was always on a search to find someone to love despite him not getting shown love in the past. He knew what he wanted. Because he grew up with traumatic events and disconnection in his life, it was hard for him to express his feelings to anyone. He was suffering things he did not mention to Halie or anyone. She felt sometimes, she was the one to blame when she was not able to get Jackson to communicate things she wanted to help him with.

Christmas time was just around the corner and it was Halie's favorite holiday. She wanted to go on cute little dates with Jackson. Her ideal holiday date was going to visit fancy museums with sublimed graphic art that rich people attended. Jackson was in love with that idea, they both got ready for the night. He drove over to her house and got out his car to knock on the door. When she opened the door, Jackson's eyes were locked on Halie. She had a black tight and sophisticated dress with sparkles that made her brown eyes light up even brighter than they always did. He said to her "Do you know how beautiful you are?" She twirled and smiled while saying " Just for you my love. " He gave her a kiss on the cheek and had his shoulder towards her to hold and said " Shall we?" He opened the car door for her and closed it shut. He got in the car and they both were on their way to the museum. When they arrived, he opened the door and walked with her towards the entrance. Jackson got a call from his father and told Halie to head inside and that he would be there in a minute. He said "What is up?" to his father. His father was known to drink and blame things on him a lot. His father said " You messed up my life when you were born! You don't have value or meaning in this life... if it was not for me you would have nothing!" Jackson continued with tears running down eyes and exclaimed,"Dad you don't understand how much I care for you... I want to be the son you take pride in having but you don't pay attention to me anymore. Ever since you left mom and I you made your own life and forgot about me." Halie watched from the inside of the museum he had been talking to someone on the phone and was concerned for him. She went outside and said "What it wrong Jackson... is everything alright?" He hung up quickly and wiped his tears and did not want to show her he had been going through things she was going to worry about herself as well. He did not want that to happen. She grabbed his arm and held him close and said " I want to be the one you tell your exciting, saddest, memorable and happiest moments in life" He said "you would not understand." She grew with tension and said " What will it take to make you trust me, love.?" He did not respond but had an empty expression on his face. She was confused and broken. She had a growing suspicion he had someone else that had his heart. She ran off in the distance and Jackson ran towards her to stop her and stopped abruptly. Halie was sobbing wondering what she had done to deserve what she did. She went on her knees in the rain and prayed to God that he would realize her worth for him. Jackson ran to his car and a man dressed in black dropped a black mysterious book in front of him and continued on. He picked it up and yelled " sir you dropped you book! " The man dressed in black turned around and softly said " You'll miss the things you had when you pushed them away. Jackson was left bewildered and drove back that night looking for Halie and could not find her anywhere. He was in distress the entire night and cried until he fell asleep. In the morning the book appeared on his night stand.

The morning was crisp and gloomy, he looked outside his window and recognized the book had been sitting on his night stand. He remembered he left it inside the car but did not think anything else of it because he was still worried about Halie. He opened a page in the black book and it said "The art of love is not given twice, you must cherish it before it gets taken away too soon." Jackson got an unsuspected call from Halie's mother. She said " Come to the hospital right now..." Jackson ran to his car without changing or eating. He felt sick to his stomach and raced to the hospital. There he met Halie's mother and she said "Halie has passed away... last night." Jackson's heart stopped and hugged Halie's mother tightly and closed his eyes as tears ran down his face in regret of the night before. They stopped hugging and she says " the doctors said she had died from unknown causes. "

A week had passed and Jackson had not stopped blaming Halie's death on himself. His room was surrounded with dirty clothes, pictures of him and Halie. The funeral was scheduled to happen that morning. He forced himself to dress in the tux he hadn't worn since the day Halie and him had gone to the museum. He starred in the mirror as his dark circles under his eyes were darker than the day before. He went back into his room and got his keys and headed to the funeral. When he got to the church where it was going to be at, he sat in his car and stared blankly. After a while, he got out and set out to meet with the rest. As he sat down he noticed someone familiar towards the side of the church. It was a man dressed in all black. He noticed it was the same man who had dropped the book. The man pulled his hat down further covering his face. Jackson rushed toward the man and the man was walking away faster. Jackson caught up to him and grabbed him by the shoulder and shouted " Who are you? What do you want from me? " The man in black smirked and gave him a note and left. Jackson read the note as it said " page 4 " He had no clue what this meant and then he remembered the book. He went to join everyone else in the prayer for Halie and was contemplating on what had just happened. After everything was finished, he went back home to find the black book. The book was laid by the photos of him and Halie. He slowly sat down on his bed and turned to page 4 of the book. The page said " Hello jackson, I realized I could not be the one to love you and give you the happiness you had been looking for.. I was just another person and I realized I could not be with someone who did not love me the same as I loved them. I want you to be happy now that I am gone. Do the things you have always wanted to. Go search for happiness..Here is $20,000. Heal from the things you don't talk about. Love yourself again, without me love. I wanted to love you... but you would not let me. Once you lose the people who loved you deeply, you don't get it twice. I live in our memories together now, allowing me to be there only when you want to think about happiness. yours truly, Halie. Jackson in tears with his heart aching faints from what was said in the page. When he woke up he was surrounded by doctors, he was asking why he was there. The doctor said " Someone called the ambulance for you, Jackson..." Jackson said "where is Halie?" The doctor continued with " she is someone who you had been dreaming about for days in your sleep. Your stress was making you dream about this girl named Halie. She is not real. I'm so sorry." Jackson was left in awe. His dreams had felt like reality. He got up from the hospital bed and checked the time it was 4;30pm. He noticed a paper on the side of the bed, he reached for it and had writing on it that said "The art of love is not given twice, you must cherish it before it gets taken away too soon."