“Is it Max?” I whispered, in a last desperate attempt, selfishly hoping that the news he bore on his face was that something had happened to my best friend as opposed to the only option left.
Jax shook his head again.
“I found the phone,” Jax whispered.
Just five small words. That was all it took to make my world come crumbling down.
“You didn’t turn it on, did you?” The sudden rush of anxiety took over. I lunged myself at him, my hand diving for the lapel of his cut. “Please tell me you didn’t turn it on!”
Jax pulled at my wrists, moving me away in a gentle yet firm push before stepping away from me. “Why didn’t you tell me, Ronnie?” Jax shook his head, brow knitted together even tighter as his face screamed at the lack of comprehension from my actions.
“You really don’t understand?”
Now it was my turn to be confused. I stared, gobsmacked, at the man who looked as if he were innocent of any sin. As if he didn’t even know why I couldn’t tell him. Why I had to hide this from him. Why it was the one thing I couldn’t be honest with him about.
“No, Ronnie. Why—”
“Because you abandoned me!” The scream was sharp and burst from my lips as if from nowhere. It had risen from somewhere deep and dark inside of me, a well in the depth of my soul that I had spent the last eight years of my life pretending didn’t exist. But now… it was overflowing. “I was all alone, Jax! I had to survive. I learned that I couldn’t trust anyone. That nobody had my back, and nobody ever would.”
“But what about now?” Jax shouted back, his boot taking a heavy, weighted step forward. “Do these last few months mean nothing to you? Have I not proven enough already that I wanted to mend things with you? That we can be—”
“Just like before?” I cut him off, aware of the sarcastic venom dripping from the words. “You think I would be able to just waltz back in here and confess every single bad thing that has happened to me and that you would be able to make things right for me? You didn’t even want to see me. You didn’t even care when I turned up here. Who’s to say you wouldn’t abandon me at any second?”
“It’s not like that now, Ronnie!” Jax ran a hand through his knotted dark hair, tugging on the mass, his lip pulling at the movement in a short snarl. “You know you can trust me now. You could have told me—”
“Told you what? That my life was a mess. That I became an empty shell, surviving day by day in a loveless marriage where I was useful only for bearing children. My mind had been so trampled on that the only real time I felt alive was when I could pretend to run away on my best friend’s back. When I could pretend that, one day, you’d come back for me!”
“You really married?” Jax paused, the tension in his shoulders seeming to sink as the words set in.
“Don’t sound so surprised, Jax,” I accused. “If you saw the phone, you saw the ring too.”
Jax didn’t flinch.
I stood my ground, my face beginning to ache from the tight pull of my brows as I stared at him in disbelief. “You think I spent forever waiting for you to come back? Pining over the boy who had never glanced in my direction for even a single moment?”
“But I just thought—”
“I waited at first,” I cut him off, my eyes dropping to the piles of clothes scattered around on the wooden floor. My eyes stared holes into them, but I wasn’t looking at them. I was looking into the past. To the girl whose head turned at the sound of a motor on the road, waiting for a dark-haired man to come to her rescue. To the girl who chased every storm as if the rain that took the boy away might bring him back to her. To the girl who thought her world wouldn’t turn without him there.
That pathetic girl….
“I thought what I did to you was wrong. That I betrayed you. That it was all my fault that you left. I spent the last eight years believing I committed the sin, and I sent you away. And I regretted it.” I shook my head, the clothes wobbling in front of my vision. “To think it took this long to realize that I wasn’t the one at fault. I didn’t scare you off or send you away. You abandoned me….”
“Ronnie—” I heard the hoarse croak in Jax’s voice, but I didn’t look up.
“It’s all your fault,” I whispered. “Not mine.”
“Ro—”
“You never came back, Jackson.” I turned, lifting my head to see him. My tears rolled down my hot cheeks, and I let them fall from my chin to the floor, staring at the face of the man I had spent years waiting for. My hero. My savior. My everything. I didn’t recognize it because this was not Jackson. He stopped being Jackson the moment he turned his back on me. “And you never will.”
Tears rolled down the edges of his cheeks. This fearless, reckless man who rode his bike faster than anyone would dare and wouldn’t hesitate to take a bullet was standing helpless and silent in my presence.
The sin of his past.
“I think I’ve said enough for tonight,” I breathed, my mind numb. Whether it was from the stress, the pain, and the heartache, it didn’t matter; they all became one heavy weight on my shoulders. “Goodnight, Jax.”
I turned, grabbed a pile of my clothes, and stared down at my moving feet as they carried me down the stairs, out the house, and over to the barn.
Max stared at me with unmoving eyes as I entered. Judging me quietly.
You said too much.
“I don’t need your judgment tonight, okay?” I snapped, earning a huff and a grunt from Max as she turned to face away from me.
Even my own horse didn’t want to look at me.
I laid down on the bench where Jax had confirmed his feelings for me, staring at the back of a brand-new shovel reflecting the puffed, red face glaring back at it. It only took a second for me to turn onto my other side.
I didn’t want to look at me either.
Not even as my tears dampened the hay. Or as my sniffles and sobs filled the quiet barn, wondering if I was crying for Jax or for me.
Probably both.
It wasn’t long before I heard the rumble of Jax’s bike fading away into the distance, leaving me behind once more. I buried my face into my arm and pretended that I didn’t hear it, hoping to fall asleep and leave all this heartache behind, even if for a moment.
But I didn’t sleep that night.
Just like that night.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jax
“Jackson,” Ronnie cried over the howls of the rain, tugging at my arm. “Wait!”
“We don’t have time, Ronnie.” I sighed, grabbing her wrist and tugging her behind me. She didn’t struggle, but I could hear the weight of her feet splashing through the puddles.
My body halted, whirling to see her heels dug into the ground, boots and jeans covered in more mud than they should have been. Rain fell over her wet cheeks, and the headlights of the car beaming through the rain glinted off her face.
I could hear my heart pulsing loud in my ears, impatience pumping adrenaline through me as I glanced back to the waiting car.
“Come on, Ronnie. We have to get going before my father realizes what’s up!”
“But the farm….”
“Leave it, Ronnie,” I snapped in exasperation. “We’ve already talked about this. There’s no hope here.”
“But Max—”
“We’ll come back and get her when we’re settled elsewhere.” I sighed. I took a step into her space, the damp puddle filling the small hole in my boot as my socks soaked up the muddy water. I reached up my hands to cup her cheeks, bringing her small, oval face up. Her dark lashes collected beads of the rain, and the droplets running down her cheeks only highlighted that childish cuteness. “Ronnie.” I reached forward and pressed a short kiss to her forehead. “This is it. Our only chance to get away from here at long last. What are you waiting for?”
“I….” Her voice faded into a mumble, eyes searching mine. The dark green dulled by the night, and pink lips paled by the cold rain.
“Come o
n.” My hand trailed back down to her wrist, and with a reassuring smile, I turned back to the van and began to pull her along behind me.
She didn’t move.
My frown deepened, the rain squeezed between the wrinkles of my brow as I looked down at her. Through the blur of the rain, her head had fallen, eyes staring down into the mud. “Ronnie?” I couldn’t hide the waver in my voice. The confusion and concern. “You’re coming, right?”
I gave her another testing tug on her arm, but her feet only dug in deeper. “Jackson…,” she whimpered, head shaking. Her quivering lip mumbled, but the impatient rev of the truck’s engine drowned it out.
“Whatever it is, we can talk about it in the car, Ronnie!” I yelled, readjusting the bag weighing on my shoulders. Full of the bare minimum it would take to get by. Just to get started. We would get more things later. “We gotta go!”
I turned back to the truck and managed to pull her a few steps before I heard the cry of her voice.
“I can’t.”
I froze.
It felt like the rain slowed in the air. The stuttering engine of the truck became a deep tick. My body moved as if it were treading swamp water as I turned to face her.
Green eyes bleached by the truck’s blinding lights, my looming shadow darkened half of her face. “What?”
“I…” Ronnie gasped, her chest stuttering with a struggle for breath, her spare hand tightening around the damp flannel around her collar. “I can’t leave it behind, Jackson.”
“Ronnie….” The word was torn from deep down in my chest. I felt my legs sinking into the mud beneath me, my own breath slow and natural, as if this wasn’t happening at all. As if she hadn’t just said that to me.
“No,” I growled. “You can’t do this to me, Ronnie. Not now.”
“But, Jackson—”
“YOU PROMISED!” The roar bellowed through the rain. It scratched my throat all the way up like liquid acid that exploded into the air. I felt sick to my stomach. A hot burning began to rage inside of me.
“I know, Jackson,” Ronnie cried. “But now we’re here… I can’t give up on it. I can’t give up on the horses. I can fix the farm!” she pleaded, her hand jumping from her shirt to mine, clinging to the limb like she was dangling on the edge of a cliff.
But it was me that was blindsided. It was me that felt like I was hanging on the edge of everything and nothing.
“You can’t fix it! I’ve tried. For years and years, I’ve tried. But my parents can’t be changed!” I screamed, my fist squeezing around hers, as if I was trying to push the thoughts through to her.
Her arm bent, trying to relieve pressure in her arm, but I didn’t care that I was hurting her. I didn’t care if she was in pain. “You need to listen to me, Ronnie. You need to come with me. We can start a new life. We can start up our own farm and let it be everything we want it to be!”
Ronnie shook her head.
“RONNIE!” I cried. My frustration and pain and betrayal crying out alongside me.
Ronnie flinched, as if the sound struck her.
But it didn’t change her mind.
She didn’t hesitate. And with the sob breaking through her lips, her head shook even harder. “I can’t….”
“Ronnie,” I whispered, the bag falling from my defeated shoulders as it slapped against the wet earth. I stepped into her space, my hand coming up to cup her face and turning her to look at me. Her wet skin was warm against the touch of my palm, eyes bleached a paler green against the white light as they flickered up to me.
“If I leave now, I’m not coming back,” I vowed through the broken and defeated ache of my voice. “I will forget about my parents. I’ll forget about this farm. And I’ll forget about you.”
Her sob jerked her face in my hand as she shook her head.
“If you don’t come with me now. That will be it for us. Whatever future you hoped we’d have, whatever love you had for me. Whatever feelings I might have grown to have for you in the future… everything… I’ll leave them behind and I’ll forget about them forever.”
I brushed a fallen strand of hair from her face. “Will you still choose to stay here?”
Her sobs broke into a heavy cry as her head broke loose of my hold, tears falling to the ground as her shoulders slumped in defeat.
“Fine,” I croaked, my vision beginning to wobble. “Goodbye, Ronnie.”
As if I was in concrete, my legs ached in pain as I turned from her, reaching with my hand to pick up the fallen bag and stepping away.
Her hand clung harder to mine as I pulled away. “Jackson!” she cried, tightening her wet grip, as if trying to hold me there. But she couldn’t. If she couldn’t follow me… I couldn’t stay.
“Jackson! Please!” she begged. I didn’t stop.
Not even as I felt her wet fingers slip from mine.
The faint sound of a snapping thread rung in my ears, but it didn’t stop me. Each step didn’t get easier, and as her cries grew louder and louder from me, all I could feel was the empty hole growing in my heart.
I had been betrayed.
I didn’t look back once. Not even as I heard her knees crash into the dirt. Not even as I heard her breath struggle. Not even as I heard her whispering plea for me to come back.
I climbed into the cab, wiped my wet face, and nodded at the driver.
“The girl—”
“She’s not coming.”
I hoped she would never change her mind. I hoped at that moment she would never come for me. I hoped that I would never have to see her again.
Never see the friend who followed me everywhere. The friend who had loved me as long as she’d known me. And the friend who had betrayed me.
Because if I were ever to see her again, if she ever came looking for forgiveness, or to make amends…
I knew I could never forgive her.
* * *
“I’m an idiot,” I grumbled, kneading my head into the wood of the bar, as if grinding my skull could erase the painful memory.
It had plagued me since I saw her back turn on me and not look back.
The metallic aftertaste of my words sat at the back of my throat as I realized just how bitter karma was.
When I had left eight years ago, I had been so caught up in my own frustrations and selfish desires that I had ignored hers. It wasn’t like I didn’t know. The cautious, weary expression on her face whenever I had talked about getting away from there. The doubt and the worry, hidden behind her small green eyes. I pretended not to see them. I pretended that the only thing she cared about the most was me. That she would abandon every stubborn and prideful part of herself to follow me like any other normal girl. But Ronnie wasn’t normal.
In hindsight, I was able to realize how childish I was.
It was one thing wanting to escape for me. It was what I needed, and seeing where I ended up, I didn’t regret leaving. I found myself at the club and found a place to call home, and people to call my family. Leaving was the right option for me.
But for Ronnie….
I should have known she wouldn’t abandon the horses her mother loved and her father stuck around to protect.
I shouldn’t have pressured her to leave like I had. I shouldn’t have pushed my feelings onto her and forced her to agree to leaving with me. Even though I knew about her feelings for me, it was wrong to use them against her. To leave her with that kind of regret, and to arrogantly never question my own actions. If I had, I would have realized sooner the kind of mistake I had made.
And If I had realized… it made me wonder what I would have done differently.
Would I have gone back for Ronnie? Would she never have gotten married? Would she be happier if I had gone back for her?
I hoped I would have gone back for her.
I hadn’t realized how much it had hurt when Ronnie said she had stopped waiting for me. As if a selfish part of me hoped she would have never given up on me. Never blaming me like I had blamed her.
&nbs
p; But she had. And unlike me, she had every right to hate and blame me.
Even if I had to leave, I didn’t have to do it like I had. I didn’t have to hurt her like I did.
“I wish I had a time machine,” I grumbled, rubbing my head even harder into the wood, the friction causing a slight burn, which was pathetic compared to the huge beating I deserved.
“Trust me, the butterfly effect is too much of a hassle.” Anna’s quick quip poked at my side, along with a sharp fingernail.
“Ow.” I jerked up in my seat, glaring at her. My hand cupped the rib she jabbed, knowing it would leave a bruise.
Her little blonde eyebrow cocked at my reaction before it was finished with an eye roll. The pint-sized girl saddled up onto one of the empty stools beside me as she reached over the counter for a cold beer and pulled it up onto the counter.
I waited until she popped the cap on the side of the bar with expert ease before snatching the thing out of her hand and chugging it in one go.
A loud burp escaped my lips before I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and placed the empty bottle in front of her. I fixed her with a glare. “You know better.”
“So your eyes do still work.” She crossed one leg over her knee as she readjusted her tight T-shirt. “I wasn’t going to drink it anyway. It was for Wolf.”
Shit. I opened my mouth—
“I’m telling him you stole his beer, no matter what.”
“Fuck,” I groaned, not needing another person angry at me.
“Not even if I was protecting his pregnant girlfriend from alcohol?” I tried my sweetest smile.
“Not even,” She shook her head as she reached over the counter for another beer. This one, she didn’t uncap and just left it to sit there, the condensation rolling down the side of the glass and collecting on the surface of the bar.
“I will trade you, however,” she said with the most pitiful frown on her lush red lips.
Jax: Black Angels MC, #3 Page 30
