Jag (Pandemic Sorrow #1)

by Stevie J. Cole

  My phone rang. I couldn’t believe she’d actually called me back. Drawing in a sharp breath, I answered. “You better explain everything to me.”

  Stephanie was crying, already panting into the phone through shameful moans. “I’m so sorry. I honestly thought he was yours. It was only once. Only once. I just thought the chance was so small.”

  I sat silently, trying to control the uncomfortable feeling of my heart pounding and flooding my skin with warmth.

  Stephanie sniffed a few times. “He didn’t know what he was doing. God. He didn’t know.”

  “How the hell did he not know? Don’t try to cover for his ass. I deserve the fucking truth from you for once!”

  “You remember that time when we were all in Seattle and Rush had gotten some GHB? It made you sick and you passed out.”

  I snorted. “Oh. Yeah, I blacked out. It was before I had a drug problem and hadn’t learned how to handle stuff. I’d actually not wanted to take the shit, and we got in a fight. Yeah. I remember that.”

  “It happened then.”

  “Okay. So, he still fucked you. When we were supposed to be together, when I was still a decent fucking human being. Makes him a pretty big piece of shit, if you ask me,” I huffed out.

  “Jag. He was so fucked up. His eyes were fluttering. He could hardly even move.” She paused, and the disgrace in her tone thickened. “I did it. I undressed him. He wasn’t even really conscious. When I climbed on his lap, he mumbled, ‘What’s your name, babe?’ He had no idea who he was screwing.”

  I had no idea what to say to this sick bitch. Shaking my head, I pulled the phone closer to my mouth and shouted, “What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you do that?” If there was any way I could’ve gone through the phone at her, I would have.

  “I thought you’d cheated on me,” she whispered.

  “I never fucking cheated on you. Never!” My hand gripped the phone tightly, and my entire body shook with anger and resentment and downright hatred.

  “I saw the way you looked at that girl the night before. The one who got to come backstage. I watched you flirting with her. Watched you fucking her with your eyes. God knows how many girls had gotten backstage and messed around with you.”

  I yelled into the phone, “You have issues, Stephanie. It’s part of it. I wasn’t gonna sit there and be an asshole to fans. I can’t believe you. You’re a lunatic. All this time you kept telling me I had issues. You have fucking issues. You use people.”

  She was sobbing now, guttural yelps ringing through the phone. “I’m sorry. I loved you.”

  “You can go to hell. I swear to God. If you didn’t have a kid, I would drag your name through the fucking mud. I would rent damn billboards and plaster your picture all over them, letting people know what a worthless whore you are. Fuck off!”

  I pulled my arm up and glanced over the tattoo on the inside of my arm, my breath rushing through my nostrils as my pulse throbbed in my temples. That woman was evil and sick and demented. Staring at that tattoo, I realized that I was okay with it. It represented the lowest point of my life, and I needed that reminder. I had to fix myself. Russell had told me to find someone that believed in me – the only person who saw through me, who really knew who the hell I was, and quite possibly better than even I did, was Roxy. The one thing I knew could bring meaning to my life was her.

  Chapter 45

  I sat in my car. My leg shook uncontrollably, and that need for something crept up inside me, pricking its way over my flesh in the form of a cold sweat. The windshield wipers groaned over the glass, and rain pelted against the roof of the car. Outside was dreary: grey, cold, and depressing.

  Gripping my steering wheel, I had to talk through it. “You don’t need it. You own yourself. You don’t need it.”

  The fact that I was alone in my car talking to myself infuriated me. I was so damn weak and barely what I would call in control of anything. I turned the ignition off and opened the door, putting one foot out on the wet pavement, only to stop. I fiddled with the keys and covered my mouth with my hand. Can I handle this?

  My fingers trailed down my jaw and I sat back in the seat. If she didn’t let me in, I was just going to sit my worthless ass outside her door. I’d sleep there if I had to. She’d either come out eventually, or call the cops. I was going to make her talk to me, make her look me in the eyes and listen to me. Could I really handle her rejecting me, screaming at me and telling me I’d never have anything to do with her or the baby? When that happened, how badly was I going to crave that release, that blissful numb that came from a high?

  I took several calming breaths and climbed out of the car, shutting the door gently before darting across the street. The rain was cold and became harder just as I reached the breezeway of her apartment building. The closer I got to her door, the heavier my feet felt. My pulse picked up and my head grew dizzy trying to think of what to say to her. Reaching toward the door, I paused, wondering one last time if it was too soon. The back of my hand tapped the door, and then, fearing I’d been too quiet, I banged my full fist over it.

  The sound of the chain sliding from the door almost brought tears to my eyes. I was an emotional fucking wreck, but I didn’t want her to know. I wanted her to see me as a man, and for some damn reason I’ve always felt like men can’t cry. Maybe that’s why I’d rather cut myself and bleed the pain out, because I wanted to be a man.

  The deadbolt clicked and then the knob turned. My heart shot into my throat. I was terrified. I was either getting a second chance, or having every last piece of hope ripped from my needing hands. If I really had lost her, I feared nothing could keep me safe from myself.

  The door swung open and there she stood, in a t-shirt and pink pajama pants. She’d dyed over the pink strip in her hair and she wasn’t wearing any makeup, but she looked undeniably gorgeous. I watched her chest rise and stall before falling. Her eyes quickly drowned behind tears, and she directed her gaze to the floor. “I wanted to call you. I wanted to hear your voice, but I was terrified.”

  I glanced down and noticed the small round bump poking the bottom of her shirt out, and my knees almost buckled. Before she changed her mind, I made my way in and shut the door.

  “I fucked up. And you are so much more than I deserve, but I love you. I’ve never loved anyone – never needed someone like you. You –” I had to stop to control the shaking in my voice. “You’re mine. I’m sorry, but you are mine and I refuse to let you go. I will fight for you, I will fight this. You are the only thing that can make me happy. You’re my meaning –”

  I stepped closer to her and took her face in my palms, gently forcing it up so she would look at me. Roxy’s eyes were shut tightly, tears weeping from her thick lashes and streaming down her pale cheeks. She opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was a heartbreaking sob. I covered her mouth with mine, and the salty taste of her tears crept into my mouth. My thumb felt over her warm skin and I pressed my lips harder against hers. When I tore away from her, she crumpled into my arms and her head slammed against my chest. Her entire frame shook with the cries she released. I pulled her into me, and that little bump pressing against me sent another wave of violent emotions shooting inside me.

  I lowered my face to her ear and whispered, “I swear to you, I will not let you down. I will not lie to you. I will love you in a way no other man ever could. You are my entire damn world. I may be fucked up, I may be a mess, but you are my salvation!”

  Roxy moved away from me. Her eyes were red, and large round drops of hurt beaded down her face.

  “I can’t…” she choked back a sob, and loss crushed me.

  That’s not what I wanted to hear come from her mouth. She drew in a labored breath and tried again. “I can’t not love you.” I released the air I’d trapped in my lungs, and my body grew weak from relief.

  Roxy grabbed my chin and whispered, “I’ve tried. You ruined me. I can’t be with anyone else. I never envisioned my life with someone
like you, but you –” She took a step shook her head. “I know, deep down inside, you’re not the person you make people believe you are. You are Jagger. You just pretend to be that Jag Steele guy. You’re my perfectly flawed, shattered fucking mess.”

  She kissed me, slamming her lips over mine while crying. Her hands grabbed onto my face and my fingers fanned out in her hair. The kiss was painful. It held a thousand different feelings. Agony, longing, want, fear, and life. It held our fucking lives in it, because without each other we were just broken people, we were shells. Everybody’s broken, chipped, damaged, and we just have to find the one person that can accept our flaws and love them, the one that can take the ugliest part of us and paint something beautiful with it. When you find the person who can create hope and breathe life into you – that’s the person you can’t let get away.

  Roxy pulled away from me, wiping the wetness from her face before inching back toward me. “Sometimes it takes loss to make people realize how big of a mess they are without someone,” she whispered against my mouth. “I thought I lost you. I don’t want to feel that way again. That was death. When I thought you’d died, I died inside. I realized that whether I’m with you are not, it won’t take the hurt away; it won’t protect me. I’m safer with you than without.”

  My hand cautiously felt over her stomach, slowly following along the small, rounded curve, and I no longer cared. Knowing my child was inside of the woman I loved, the woman who could accept me, and who believed I was real; that brought me physically to my knees. They hit the floor hard and I looked up at her as both my hands caressed her tight abdomen.

  “I promise you, I’ll never hurt you. I’ll never leave you. And I promise you I’ll stay clean.” I was talking to both of them. And Jagger Steel always kept his promises.

  Chapter 46

  A week had passed since she’d gone against everything inside of her and taken me back. There I laid in bed, her head resting on my chest, and my hand gently rubbing her stomach. My hand stilled and I felt the baby move. It was like a little ball rolling underneath my palm, and that sensation caused my chest to tighten. I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve her – but I’d be damned if I was going to argue it. Roxy Slade was my life, she was the one thing that I needed more than a high, more than fame, more than any fucking thing else. I’d tried to think of what exactly it was that made me love her, that made me need her, but I couldn’t figure it out. The only conclusion that I could come to was that she was just her. My inability to pinpoint the one thing that made her so important to me pissed me off. But then again, love isn’t really something you can explain. It’s just an urge, an instinct. It’s something beyond my comprehension, and I’m okay with that because I know it’s her I belong with, because there is nothing else when I’m with her.

  “Jag,” she softly said, her fingers trailing over my arm. “You really have no idea what I’ve done. You have no idea how hard this is for me.”

  “Then make me understand.”

  Roxy sat up and closed her eyes. “My life has never been easy. It’s never been fun, or normal, or bearable. I’m fucked up in a different way than you are. I’m damaged, and one more broken promise won’t break me – it will murder me.” She paused to open her eyes and look at me. That pain she’d been so magnificent at hiding was raw in her eyes, hurt welling inside as she grabbed my hand. “I love you. I don’t love people, and I love you. You are the only thing in my life, the only person aside from Layla, and I’m not even that close to her, and that’s on purpose.”

  I narrowed my eyes on her and she shook her head.

  “I’ve avoided people to avoid hurt. Honestly,” she blew a hard breath from her nose, “I feel like I’m a curse.” Her voice cracked as she choked back sobs. I sat up and wrapped my arm around her shoulders, but she jerked away. “I do. Jag, how could I not? Every person I loved crumbled – because of me. My father, Sean…I know part of why you lost it was because I just blocked you out. If I love someone, it’s like a death sentence.” Roxy grabbed my hand again and placed it on her stomach.

  She stared down at our hands laid over her rounded belly. “I want something different. I’m not asking for a fairytale. I just want anything besides a nightmare. I want a family; for the first time in my life, I want to know what that fucking word means. And how am I supposed to make that happen when I have no idea what it is? I can’t really remember my mother, I grew up without one. How can I be one? I want to give this baby things we never had. I don’t want this little thing to know what broken is. Complete; I just want everything to be complete. I want us to be complete. I want to know that we’re enough for you. I need to know that I mean more to you than a high, Jag. I have to know that.”

  I stared at her. She was desperate and vulnerable, scared. She was absolutely terrified because she was giving me all of the control. “I swear to you,” my hand ran over her stomach before reaching for her face, “this child will never know the feeling of not belonging. I will be here, with you, the two of you – the three of you, however many kids we end up with – I’ll be here with you forever. A constant. I will be a constant in both of your lives. You mean everything. I would give everything up for you if I had to. Fame. Money…anything. And, princess, I fully intend to give you a fairy tale. A fucking unbelievable, beautiful life complete with a fucking pumpkin carriage pulled by rats, if that’s what you want.”

  Roxy forced a smile, and I knew she doubted me.

  “I’ll give you Jagger. A sober Jagger. I promise you,” I said in the most serious tone I’d ever heard come out of my body.

  She kissed me, sniffling as she pulled away, and I sat there, just staring at her. I was scared, still uncertain I could actually do it, worried that I would fuck up like always and lose her. I wanted to stay sober, I wanted to do more than just exist, but the reality was addiction is ugly when you try to fight it. I dreamed about cutting up lines, I relished in the blissful high in my sleep, and woke up in absolute panic from the fear I’d actually done it – with worry that I’d lost her.

  Using wasn’t a habit, it was an addiction; it had been engrained into every fiber of my being. And I couldn’t pull each curved, gnarled thorn out because too many of them had been embedded in me. The only thing that gave me hope was Roxy. She was my reason for trying. The one thing I could say was that my addiction to her was stronger than the one I had to drugs.

  We lay there in silence for several more moments. I tried to reassure myself I could pull this off – that I was stronger than that demon, and I’m certain she was trying to reassure herself that she belonged with me, that I did love her.

  Abruptly sitting up, she panted, “Can we go somewhere?”

  “Sure.” I moved my arm out from behind my head and rubbed along the small of her back. “You got one of those crazy pregnant lady cravings or something?”

  She shook her head and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I just want you to understand who I am. I need you to understand how badly I need you to keep your promise to me.”

  ****

  “Turn left.” Roxy pointed out the window to a dimly lit street. The sign was crooked, and the car jumped over the uneven pavement.

  I swallowed as I peered through the windshield at the small concrete housing. My pulse quickened when I heard a loud pop behind us. It took me a second to determine that it was just a car backfiring and not gunshots. “Uh, you sure this is a good idea? I mean, we are in the fucking ghetto, at ten at night, in a Lotus. And I don’t own a fucking gun, Rox.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not scared.”

  Shaking my head, I mumbled, “Well, good. That makes me feel better.” I jerked the wheel and attempted to turn around.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going back to Beverly Hills where it’s safe. You’re fucking pregnant. This is not somewhere we need to be driving around fucking sightseeing.”

  She huffed. “It’s right there.”

  I followed her finger to a small house
. The paint had faded from the cinder blocks. The front door was warped and the window had been taped over. There were several pathetic excuses for bushes lining the front, and the wrought iron railing that at one time had lined the stairs was hanging from the side of the porch.

  “That was where I grew up.” Her voice shook and her gaze was set on the tiny, rundown shack.

  I pressed my foot on the brake and stared across the street.

  Her breathing grew heavy and I glanced over to see tears streaking down her cheeks. “That was where I fucking grew up with a father who was a meth dealer. In a house where I was abused by strangers, raised by my brother, and was witness to shit that would have most people committed to an institution.” She pulled in a breath and I grabbed her hand, squeezing it. I sat there because I knew she needed this. I just needed to keep my mouth shut and let her purge herself. She wanted to see this place for a reason, and all I could do was be here for her.

  “This was my life. That house was my nightmare. It was – everything in it was,” she paused, swallowing back the memories, “filthy. It was disgusting. The only place that was clean was Sean’s closet, because that’s where he would take us to escape. He’d tell me and Layla stories. He’d decorated the inside of it with pictures out of library books. You know, cheerful and colorful pictures of castles and fairies and princesses and princes, things that made me feel like there was something better out there, somewhere.” Roxy cut her eyes over to me. “Jag, this was my life. I didn’t have a childhood. I didn’t get to play outside. I helped weigh and bag meth. I didn’t have birthday parties with balloons, I didn’t have sleepovers. I just went to bed every night praying that I’d wake up, that I wouldn’t be murdered in my sleep like one of the pissed off dealers had sworn to my dad would happen. I was that kid that went to school at times without having taken a bath because our water had been cut off for the past week. DHR was in and out, but never took us away. And you know why? You know why I was forced to grow up in this hellhole?”