by Laura Day
“You should know that that scar doesn’t make you any less beautiful.”
Maple smiled, but it was a smile that suggested she didn’t quite believe him. “This scar is a reminder of everything I was… sometimes I feel as though… I’ll never be able to escape my past. How can I… when it has been ingrained on my face?”
“Don’t give it that power over you,” Jax said, leaning forward. “Only you can control your life. So don’t let your past dictate who you are now.”
She nodded slowly, as though she were taking in his words carefully. “You’re right… I know you’re right. It’s just… hard, that’s all.”
“I know,” Jax nodded. “Trust me, I know better than most people.”
The waitress interrupted them; she came over carrying a plate filled with hot pastries. She set the plate down in the middle of the table between them. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked in a high spritely voice that was the opposite of Maple’s calm, soft tone.
Jax raised his eyebrows at Maple. “Maple?” he asked. “Would you like anything else?”
“No,” she said immediately. “Thank you.”
“Sure?” Jax persisted. “Another cup of coffee?”
She looked down at her mug. It was almost empty, but she looked up and shook her head. “I’m fine, thank you,” she said, as though she didn’t want to trouble anyone.
“Two more cups of coffee, please,” Jax said.
“Right away,” the waitress replied and walked back to the main counter.
Jax watched how Maple reached her hand up and pushed a lock of loose brown hair back, tucking it behind her ear. Her hands were small and delicate, but he couldn’t help notice the number of small scars that along her arms.
“More souvenirs from my relationship with Ryan,” Maple said, noticing Jax’s preoccupation as she slipped her hands under the table.
“I have half a mind to ask Evan where he dropped off that scumbag just so I can track him down and kill him,” Jax said through gritted teeth.
“Please don’t,” Maple said. “I wouldn’t want you going back to jail.”
Jax sighed. “Some things are worth going to jail for,” he said.
Maple looked at him with her eyebrows knotted together. It was as though she were trying to understand him. “Do you really believe that?” she asked.
“I do,” Jax replied without hesitation.
Maple looked at him, as though she saw something she recognized. Jax returned her gaze, looking into her big brown eyes. They were the kind of eyes that were warm and open and trusting, but the closer he looked, the more he realized that the trust had been drained from them.
The more he stared at her, the more he saw the pain hidden under the lines of her face and the darkness lurking just beneath her eyes. The more he looked at her, the more he saw his own reflection staring back at him.
Chapter Five
Maple
He had that way of looking Maple directly in the eye. It made her feel extremely self-conscious, but it also made her feel somehow important. It was a feeling she had never experienced much in her life. She felt almost as though his gaze left a trail along her skin. Wherever his eyes fell, it felt to Maple as though it was the heat of his skin upon her.
She had been taken unawares when he had leaned forward to touch her scar. It was not the first time he had done it, but Maple was more inhibited in that moment, and so she was more aware of what she really felt. It struck her that it did not bother her in the least. She usually hated any attention placed on the scar; she hated touching it herself, but she did frequently, as some sort of perverse form of punishment.
When Jax’s fingers had touched her scar, however, she had tensed, but it had not even occurred to her that she could have moved away. When she had first seen him in the dim lights of the gym, she had thought of him as intimidating, animalistic, even frightening, but she was forced to reconsider that opinion. Looking at him now, Maple could see the clean lines of his face and the softness that clung to those fiery blue eyes. She could see the passion, the rage, and the pain in them, but she could also see kindness.
“I like your tattoos,” Maple said after a moment. “Am I right in guessing they’re… tribal?”
“Ancient Samoan,” Jax nodded.
“They’re beautiful,” Maple said. A cluster of symbols that snaked up his right arm caught her attention. They seemed to be separate from one another, but they had been woven together like some intricate tapestry made from ink and skin. “What is that symbol?” she asked, pointing to the image of what looked like a turtle with a striped shell.
“It symbolizes adaptability,” Jax answered. “They all mean something different. This one here means ‘strength’ and this one represents ‘freedom and emancipation.’”
“Are all your tattoos ancient Samoan?” Maple asked.
“Ninety percent of them are,” Jax replied.
“Is there a reason for that?” Maple asked curiously.
Jax smiled. “The three most important parts of Samoan culture are made up of faith, family, and music. There’s something to be said for those three things… they make life a little more bearable. I figured, if I was going to try to emulate any kind of culture… then that would be it.”
Maple smiled. “There was a time I had faith, too.” Jax looked at her as though he were listening intently. Maple ignored her nerves and continued, “I lost it early though, before I even hit thirteen.”
“That young?” Jax asked in surprise.
“I felt so alone most of my childhood,” Maple said. “It was hard to have faith when you felt like you weren’t getting the help you needed.”
“Oh, I understand that,” Jax nodded. “More than you know.”
Maple believed him; she could sense that same desperation in him that she sometimes felt in herself. She could tell his reservedness about his past was borne out of a desire to forget it. No matter what the shrinks said, there were some things that just didn’t get better, no matter how much you spoke about it.
At that moment, the waitress appeared again with their second order of coffee. Maple tried not to stare at her, but she found she was unable to turn away. The nametag on her breast pocket read ‘Amanda’—and she was tall, thin, blonde-haired, and blue-eyed. Her face was long and beautifully proportioned, and except for a birthmark on her chin, nothing else took the focus off her lovely features. There was no abrasion or scar, not so much as a wrinkle or pimple. Maple hated her for that. She hated her for being perfect. It was because she hated her so fiercely that she tried extra hard to be polite.
“Thank you,” Maple said.
She set both cups of coffee down on the table, but she wasn’t even looking at Maple. Her eyes were trained on Jax—just like the first time. She smiled, friendlier than was strictly necessary. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked Jax.
“I think we’re good,” Jax replied, looking to Maple for confirmation.
Maple nodded back, and he repeated himself to the waitress. She gave him another smile and walked back to the counter. It didn’t escape Maple’s notice that she glanced behind her to see if Jax was watching her walk away. As it turned out, Jax’s eyes were firmly fixed on Maple, and that gave her a thrill of pleasure.
Jax pushed the plate of pastries towards Maple, and she took one. She took a bite and sighed as the crusty, golden pastry burst in her mouth to release large chucks of chicken and egg. It had been a long time since she had eaten good food. Most often her meals came from tin cans, and half the time she had to resort to eating cold beans because she didn’t have heat.
“Good?” Jax asked.
“Amazing,” Maple replied.
“They make everything here fresh.”
“I can tell,” Maple replied. “I haven’t had hot food in a while.”
She saw something flit across his eyes, but he controlled the expression immediately before she could decipher it. His face was the only thing that was completely free of
ink. The only other part of him that wasn’t tattooed was his shaved head. His head was a beautiful shape, and Maple thought what a wonderful subject he would make for any painter. His body displayed a wealth of stories, and his face had both mystery and character.
“Do you have siblings?” Maple asked after she had finished chewing.
Jax took a sip of his coffee. “Yes,” he replied shortly. “What about you?”
“I have an older sister,” Maple replied, sensing that Jax didn’t want to talk about his siblings. “We don’t have much contact though. She was a couple of years older than me…and she turned out to have my father’s aversion to hard situations. She skipped town with her boyfriend when she was sixteen.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve,” Maple replied.
“That must have hurt you,” Jax said.
“My sister and I… were we never really close,” Maple tried to explain. “But I sort of had this belief that… we were still there for each other you know? Like we had each other’s back when it counted. I guess that was just an assumption on my part, but yes, I was very hurt for a long time.”
“How did your mother take it?”
Maple averted her eyes slightly. “My mother…she didn’t really notice at first.”
Jax raised his eyebrows, but there was no judgement behind it.
“She has…bi-polar disorder,” Maple said, trying not to change her tone as she said the words. “She was in one of her deep depressions when Erica left.”
Jax looked at her with an expression that came close to awe. “So your father abandoned you when you were a kid, your sister leaves when you were twelve, and you were left to care for your sick mother?”
Maple smiled. “When you say it like that, it makes me sound a lot stronger than I really am.”
Jax shook his head at her. “You are stronger than you give yourself credit for. I couldn’t have done what you did.”
Maple looked down, rejecting his admiration of her. She couldn’t claim it when she knew she had done nothing to deserve it. “Jax,” she said, trying to make him understand. “I couldn’t do it, that’s why the drugs started in the first place. And when Ryan turned up, I was willing to give him everything if it meant he could deliver me from the life I was living.”
Maple saw Jax’s jaw clench when she mentioned Ryan’s name. She could almost imagine his fists balling up under the table. “So…you never actually had feelings for him?” Jax asked.
Maple shrugged. “I can’t even begin to explain any of that. All I can tell you is that, at the time, I thought I was very much in love with him. He was…not kind, but he was outraged on my behalf. He told me that he could make me feel better. And for a long time he did.”
“Because of the drugs?” Jax asked.
Maple nodded. “That was what our weekends consisted of,” she said. “We would stay in his shithole of an apartment, get some cold takeout from the restaurant on the corner, have sex, and then we would smoke up. Some weeks he would change it up and bring something different for us to try. Sometimes we would use his bong and other times we would just pop pills as if they were Tic Tacs. That was how I was introduced to OxyContin.”
“You mean…you got addicted to it?” Jax guessed correctly.
Maple nodded. “I hated anything that made me more aware of myself or my surroundings. I hated anything that made me feel more. OxyContin was like this really powerful numbing agent that made it impossible for me to feel anything. And suddenly, I wasn’t angry with my father for abandoning us, or hurt because my sister left, or resentful of my mother for what she put me through. I was just…free…from all the emotion and all the pain. And that feeling…I never wanted to let it go.”
Jax was looking at her intently as though he wanted to say something, but he was scared to say the words out loud. Maple thought about how much she had just shared with him, and the realization floored her. It had flowed out of her so easily, as though she had known him for years. Her thoughts flew to her first addict’s meeting, and she remembered how hard it had been for her to share her story with the group. She had sat among the circle, with everyone’s eyes on her, and all she had wanted to do was run to the closest bathroom and throw up.
She wasn’t sure if time had helped her accept the shamble her life had been, or if Jax’s presence was somehow cathartic, but Maple found that talking to him was easier than talking to anyone else. She knew life had been harsh to him, too; his stint in jail had proved that. However, as curious as Maple was, she did not want to ask him about it before he was ready to tell her.
“Did he ever treat you well?” Jax asked with an edge to his voice.
“He was charming at the beginning,” Maple said. “But then, all men are. I would even go so far as to describe him as gentlemanly. He made me believe he was a good guy; he took all my secrets, and then when I had given him my trust and my love, he used it against me.”
Maple paused for a moment trying to recall the finer details of what her life had been like when she had first met Ryan. “I was so young. I didn’t even realize I was being treated badly at first. Once we’d grown comfortable around each other, he started bossing me around as if I was his maid. I was happy to do what he asked of me. I had this delusional image of domesticity in my head, and I was happy to think he needed me.
“He liked to drink occasionally throughout the day. There were times though when he drank excessively. Sometimes he would mix alcohol and weed, and his mood would change from one extreme to the other. There were times I actually thought I was back with my mother. At first…it started with verbal abuse. He would pepper me with insults, scream, and yell…that kind of thing.”
“And you stayed?” Jax asked, without any judgement in his tone. Maple knew he was only asking so that he could understand.
“I made excuses for him,” Maple said softly. “I told myself it wasn’t really him talking, it was the alcohol, it was the drugs, it was everything and everyone else except him. It was easy to excuse his behavior at the beginning. Once he sobered up, he was always apologetic; he always treated me better, and that was enough to convince me that all my excuses were justified.”
“He got worse, didn’t he?”
“I caught him cheating on me,” Maple said. “I yelled and cried and told him that I was leaving him.”
“What did he do?”
“He told me that he was sorry,” Maple said dully. “He told me that he made a mistake and that he loved me.”
She noticed how hard Jax was trying not to roll his eyes. His jaw was an almost perfect square, accentuating the precision of his features. Even in anger, Maple thought he looked beautiful.
“For once I wasn’t moved by his declarations of love. I told him I was leaving anyway.”
Jax gritted his teeth. “Did he hurt you?”
“That was the first time he hit me,” Maple revealed. “He slapped his hand across my face so hard that I fell to the floor. It was more about shock than anything else though. I honestly believed he would never hurt me that way. Naïve of me really since he got into fights often. I had always hated it, but I had just assumed I would be exempt from that side of him. Once I realized I wasn’t…things became harder.”
“Is that why you continued to stay with him?”
“I was too scared to try and leave,” Maple admitted. “I was like some terrified animal trapped in a cage. I had no one to turn to, no family whom I could count on, and no friends to ask for help. All my friends were Ryan’s; he had cornered me perfectly.”
“But something changed,” Jax said. “You were planning on leaving.”
“Yes,” Maple nodded. “Like I said, the drugs started telling on me. I started behaving…well, like my mother…and that more than anything else terrified me. I didn’t want to end up like her. I didn’t want to waste away my life in a constant stupor. And once I had stopped using as much, I couldn’t stand how I was being treated. I had nothing to numb me anymore.”
“You are strong,” Jax said simply.
Maple smiled, allowing herself a moment to take in the compliment. Then she looked down at her plastic watched and gasped. “Dear God,” she said. “I have to get back to the gym. I have work to do.”
“Don’t worry,” Jax told her. “I’ll help you. A deal’s a deal.”
Maple smiled in appreciation. She marveled at the difference between the man sitting in front of her now compared with the one she had seen fight several nights ago. Maple wondered momentarily if this impromptu heart-to-heart of theirs was just a pity conversation for the girl who’d almost been beat up by her ex-boyfriend, or if Jax genuinely cared about her.
Maple wondered if she and Jax were simply ships passing in the night, or if there was potential here for a real friendship. Maple realized with a sinking feeling in her gut that she was hoping desperately for the latter.
