Dear Jack (Visual Story)

Alternate Ending

Three years later

Dear Diary,

It's been a while since I wrote here, but let me tell you what's happened:

It's been a wild and crazy three years. Just when I thought I had finally healed, something else came along to remind me that I would never truly heal until I got all the answers. And boy was answers what I got.

I finally found out why my father killed my mother and then himself, leaving me behind in this world. I also found out that Jack's death was no accident.

My father worked for a criminal organization and when he decided he wanted out, he knew they would come him. He had worked for them under a fake name and none of them knew a thing about us. My dad was very careful that way. He took my mother and himself out of the equation so I would be safe because as long as one of them were around I would never fully be safe. He covered his money and assets under our names so it would look as if he (the real him) had nothing, and had simply disappeared. Only a select few people were privy to the actual truth. None of those people had kept up their end to look after me. I sometimes wonder if my dad knew what I had to go through, if he would still have made the same choice.

In a letter to me, he apologized for what he had to do and whatever trauma I faced because of it. He had to make himself look like he went crazy or the money would never go to me. It was all just one big elaborate scheme apparently and my mother knew nothing about it. She only suffered the consequences like I had for his poor choices. That's what happens though, people don't realize how their choices affect others until it's too late.

It took me a while to come to terms with that and with the circumstances surrounding Jack's death. All Jack had been trying to do was protect me, chasing my story. Just like a true journalist would. I don't even know how Jack found out about the money, but he spent a year tracking it down. If I had gotten rid of our house, I never would have known about any of it. It's funny how things work out sometimes. The way life throws us curveballs.

Tyler and I had broken off our relationship three times during the course of it all, but we always seemed to come back to each other because somehow we were destined for each other. Two very broken people, who in the end could only fix each other.

Jake and Mindy got married right outside of graduation and we're now expecting their first child, a little girl, and Sophie finally decided to give poor John a try. Not that she didn't make him work for it, because she did. Poor guy had to spend a whole year proving to her that he was worth a shot and only recently she gave in. They seem happy. I truly hope it works out.

Matt even settled down, with some girl named Laura. They're engaged now, the wedding is in a month.

Tyler and I decided we didn't need a piece of paper to prove our love and that marriage wasn't for us. We already live together, and have been living together since our six month anniversary. So technically I guess we are married.

It's been close to four years now that we've been together. Off and on anyways. Our off periods never lasted long because we truly can't live without each other.

I got a job as a psychiatrist in a mental health facility and Tyler worked as a resident psychologist at the local hospital. We each specialize in the children and teens who have the same problems we had, hoping that we can help others to not have to go through what we did.

We cashed in my dads money and bought a house, and we've been living comfortably off our incomes and the money from my parents ever since. I also get royalties from dad's company. I decided I didn't want to run it, because all it was for him was a cover, but I still get the money. Tyler cut off his father and stopped accepting his money long ago, and it was only then that he allowed himself to heal. As for Nina, well let's just say I pulled some strings with my contacts and she is now facing life in prison for sexually assaulting a minor. Tyler wasn't her first, and he certainly wasn't her last. I can only hope the others are able to heal the way Tyler did.

At the court hearing, he had to describe in detail for a jury of his peers exactly what she did to him. I didn't think I would make it through it without choking her to death. After his testimony, and the testimony of another, the jury returned verdict in less than five minutes.

She got sentenced to life without parole.

Tyler and I still have our external and internal scars, but they are a reminder that life, while sometimes shitty, can always get better. You just have to find what makes it better. We had found each other, and in the end that was what we both needed to move forward.

Tyler hasn't attempted suicide since that night I found him, and I haven't cut myself a single time since Sophie found me. Love really was the cure all. At least it was for me.

I visit Jack's grave once a year on his birthday with flowers, thanking him for everything he did for me. Tyler visits it with me, thanking him for bringing me to him. If it wasn't for him getting Jack's number, we probably wouldn't have ever gotten together.

I never would have given him another chance if he didn't read all those texts and know everything he knew about me. Tyler thinks Jack was the one who orchestrated it all, from beyond the grave. Me, I think miracles can happen, but regardless of how it happened, I'm just thankful I have Ty.

He is my one true love and nothing and no one could ever take that from me. And regardless of a piece of paper or not, we've committed to each other until death do us part.

And even then, we would somehow find each other.

Always,

Piper