Ignite (35 page)

             
When he was gone, I rang the doorbell, but there was no answer. I opened my purse and pulled out the house key. I went to put it in when a hand touched my arm.

             
“Hey.” I nearly jumped out of my skin, screaming before recognizing the voice. I looked up at Jaxon who’d come out of…
just where, exactly?

             
“What the hell!” I yelled furiously.

             
“Didn’t mean to scare you.” There was a faint smile on his lips.

             
“What are you doing out here?”

             
“I was walking.”

             
I lifted a brow sceptically at him. “Of course you were.”

             
I unlocked the door and stepped into the house. I could vaguely smell this morning’s bacon in the air as I made my way across the foyer and to the stairs, ignoring the figure walking behind me. He was following me. I stopped midway up the staircase and turned around.

             
“Do you need anything?” I asked, looking down at him.

             
“Nope,” he answered casually.

             
I sighed and continued up the stairs to my bedroom. He followed, of course.

             
“Does your mom usually work so late?” It was quarter to eight and she wasn’t home.

             
“She teaches a sewing class Thursday nights,” he said, entering after me and shutting the door. I tried not to pretend I wasn’t nervous as hell being alone in the same room as him. After all, we did sleep in the same room last night.

             
I set my purse on the dresser and grabbed my bum clothes from my suit case. I changed in the bathroom, making sure the door was locked and took my time while I wondered what he wanted.

             
When I walked out, he was seated on the edge of the bed. He was in the same clothes from this morning, and under the direct bedroom light I noticed stubble growing in. Absentmindedly I thought he’d look damn good with a beard.

             
“You should be in better clothes for bed than that,” he remarked, eyeing my oversized sweater and baggy pants.

             
I shrugged. “They’re comfortable.”

             
“You used to sleep in hardly anything at all.”

             
“That’s because I had you pressed up against me to keep me warm all night.” I closed my eyes and winced at my words. Did I just say that? When I opened them again, he looked irritated.              
              “What is it, Jaxon?”

             
“Did you tell him?” I didn’t have to wonder what he was referring to.

             
I nodded. “Yeah, I told him.”

             
With a look that was bordering hopeful, he asked, “And because he isn’t here, does that mean he left you?”

             
Now it was my turn to be irritated. “Is that what you’d like to happen?”

             
“Fuck yes,” he said adamantly.

             
“You wanted him to break up with me?”

             
“Absolutely.”

             
“Did you sleep with me on purpose then? To break us up?”

             
“No, that just happened.”

             
“Do you regret doing it?”

             
He looked at me bewilderedly. “No, I don’t. I’m assuming because you’re asking then you must regret it. Is it because he left you?”

             
“He didn’t leave me.” My whole body was exhausted, but I didn’t want to be on the same bed as him. I relaxed my back against the wall beside the bathroom instead.

             
“So I was right. He’s so pussy whipped he’ll take you no matter what–”

             
“Stop being an asshole. Daniel’s not pussy whipped. He just cares about me and what we have is complicated and–”

             
“And you want him that badly, huh?” His eyes went dark with anger. “Is it the status? ‘Oh, I’m with a lawyer. We’re a power couple.’”

             
“Don’t mock me! I’m not like that.”

             
“You were like that five years ago–”

             
“Yes, was! As in past tense, Jaxon. As in I’m not like that anymore and haven’t been for years!”

             
“What, have you changed for this Daniel guy?”

             
“No!”

             
“Then what’s so fucking special about him? What’s he doing for you?” The questions were flooding out of his mouth heatedly, and both his fists clenched together as his anger steadily rose. “What part of you have you reserved for him that you couldn’t reserve for me–”

             
“I haven’t reserved any part of me for him!” I interrupted, feeling my own face heat up.

             
“Then what’s so great about him that you easily threw away over a mindless, regrettable root?”

             
I grimaced. “He helped me! He… made me feel less lonely, alright?”

             
“How?” he growled.

             
“By fucking, alright? That’s how!” When his face paled, I couldn’t understand why those words would even get to him. “What do you care anyway? You’re out rooting around all you want. Like you said, you can find hotter girls than me that’ll do whatever the hell you want.
Voyeuristic
, you said, and that’s all after you told me I hit my peak. So why don’t you just get up and go find yourself some slut to slide into?”

             
He did get up, and that sent daggers to my heart that he was actually going to do what I told him to. But he just stood there, glaring down at me.

             
“Well go on then!” I goaded him.

             
“That desperate to get rid me again, huh?” His words were pained and tormented by a heavy sadness that made my chest tighten.

             
“I wasn’t desperate to get rid of you–”

             
“
You
left me!” he shouted, pointing at me as his face reddened. “So fucking desperate to get away that you were too much of a fucking coward to tell it to my face!”

             
“That’s not why!” I hollered back, feeling hot tears fall down my face. My whole body shook as remorse flood me.

             
“Why should I believe you? Your word’s shit to me! You left me! You said you never would–”

             
“I would have destroyed us if I’d stayed! You know it too! I wouldn’t have had the strength to tell it to your face. You wouldn’t have let me go if I did!”

             
“And what’s so fucking wrong with that?”

             
“Because I was a monster, Jaxon! I was evil. You deserved better!”

             
“That wasn’t for you to decide.” His voice broke and he turned away from me, looking in the opposite direction with hands raking through his hair. His chest heaved up and down, and I could hear the heavy breaths escape his mouth as he kept his back to me.

             
I crossed my arms, suddenly frozen to the core. “I did what was best for you. Look at what became of you. You got what you dreamed of.”

             
“At what cost?” He looked over at me, fiery eyes and curled lips. “You think you can have it your way all the fucking time. You didn’t give me a better life by walking away.”

             
“Look at you–”

             
“I look at me every fucking day!” He interrupted, raising his voice again at a deafening rate. “You killed me more than you saved me!”

             
“You’re a liar!” I snapped back, tears blurring my vision. “You were happy after I left!”

             
Those fiery eyes turned into a storm as he stalked to me. “You’re fucking crazy.”

             
“Why am I crazy?”

             
“How the fuck would I have been happy when you walked out on me–”

             
“I know you were–”

             
“I gave you every fucking piece of me!” Now he was standing in front of me, leaning down at my level. I could feel his hot breaths against my face and see the veins protruding from his neck. “I gave you my heart and you tore it to pieces. Abandoned me, left to rot while you disappeared off the face of the earth. You were gone when I needed you the most! You never came back in five fucking years–”

             
“I went back a month later,” I interrupted sharply, looking into the blue depths of his eyes and witnessing, for the first time in days, the shattered soul I was responsible for breaking. “I went back because I missed you, and to beg for you to take me back and you were gone.”

             
He shook his head sceptically, and I cupped his chin with my hand to stop him.

“
Don’t
look at me like that! I did! Some couple was living in our apartment, and you were gone. I got Lexi to call your mom up and she told her that you were working overseas, that you were
happy
!” My voice broke at the end as more tears erupted from my eyes. Saying this all out loud was like re-opening a wound and rubbing salt all over it.

             
His face went still as he regarded me. He was so mercurial, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I dropped my hand and let him soak up the words while I hastily wiped away my face.

             
“Did you really come back?” he asked gently.

             
“I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

             
“Why didn’t you call Mom yourself?”

             
“And tell her what?” I scoffed in disgust with myself. “That I physically hurt her son every time I got angry? That I was treating you like shit all because I had it in my head that you were going to break my heart any minute? That I clawed you so fucking hard I can still see the scar on your face right now!” It was true. Barely noticeable, I saw the faint line just above his jaw. “You remember what I did to you. If I told her that, she would have hated me, and back then I thought for sure you’d have told her. You’re right. I was a coward running away because I didn’t want to face up to what I did. So tell me, why the hell would it have made a difference if I talked to her instead?”

             
“Because she would have given you the truth.” The weighted words came out hushed. He stepped away from me and moved his head up so that it was facing the ceiling. His whole body was suddenly shaking.

             
“What’s wrong? What truth?” I asked worriedly.

             
Looking back down at me with an eerie empty face, he quietly said, “I was remanded into custody a couple weeks after you left. I went through an initial hearing, then a second hearing, and I pled guilty to a fucking crime I didn’t commit. Then I was sent off to a maximum security prison for twenty fucking months of my life.”

Nineteen

It was as if someone had put a bullet through my chest; a searing pain in my heart at this new revelation. Confusion and shock were at the forefront of my emotions.

             
“You went to prison?” I repeated. “For… For what?”

             
“Trevon had been using my place as a fucking dumping ground,” Jaxon muttered as he walked over to the bed and sat down again. He had his eyes pinned on his clasped hands. “I let him stay after he’d gotten evicted from his place because he hadn’t been paying since Lexi had taken off with you, I assume.” He looked up at me and I nodded.

             
“Anyway, the police were tipped off and they flooded into the apartment one night and arrested both of us for possession of a deadly weapon. There were two unregistered guns he’d stashed in the laundry closet, and then they discovered my stash of money I’d put away from my teenage crimes, and with Trevon selling dope on the side, it was the easiest case for them to put together. The fucking cop that arrested us had a real problem with me and of course it didn’t help I had a smart mouth back then. I was his number one target. And then suddenly there was a bag of heroine under my mattress that was so fucking obviously planted there. Cops, I tell you. They’re either good, or they’re out to get you.” With a sigh, he rubbed his eyes and mumbled, “There was no point in fighting the charges.”

             
“How do you know that? You could have.”

             
He shot me a doubtful look. “There was no way I could get out of that. If I pled not guilty, then it’d have been an uphill battle trying to fight a bunch of charges that were virtually impossible to get out of. Plus, how the hell was I going to afford a good attorney? Mom had nothing at the time. I knew the sentence would be lenient if I just pled guilty. That’s what my” – he made a distasteful look –“
government appointment lawyer
told me, anyway. So on the second hearing, I pled guilty and the judge sentenced me right there on the spot. Three years at Winthrop Maximum Security Prison. I was literally hauled away right then and there to start my sentence.”

             
I slid down the wall and onto the ground, hauling my knees to my chest while trying to wake up from this fucked up dream. Prison? He’d been in prison all that time?

             
“Why did Lucinda tell Lexi that you were overseas?”

             
“Why the hell would I want anyone to know I was in prison, Sara?” He raised an eyebrow at me as if I was dense in the head for asking such a question. “I was obviously ashamed, and so was Mom.”

             
“Winthrop Prison?” My voice left me temporarily as I gasped in the shock of it all. “That’s the nastiest prison around.”

             
He didn’t respond to that, but his eyes looked haunted and his lips thinned.

             
“Jaxon…” I exhaled slowly. “I had no idea, Jaxon. All this time I thought…” I crawled over to him, shaking as badly as him, and reached out to touch him. Before I could, he got up and walked to the opposite side of the room.

             
“I don’t want to talk about that part of my life,” he coldly stated, turning his back to me. “I want to talk about why it took you five years to come back here.” When I didn’t offer an answer, he shot me that familiar glare. “I looked for you when I got out. Do you know what that was like?”

             
I gulped painfully. “I thought you’d moved on–”

             
“You weren’t listed anywhere. You had no profile on any social website I could find – and believe me I looked. Do you know how hopeless a person feels when they type in ‘Sara Nolan’ in the search engine and find themselves looking at nine million results and none of them are you?” He shook his head in irritation. “Not even your mother had your updated phone number when I went to her the day I was free. So, either you were trying to hide yourself from anyone that’s ever known you, or you were dead. Do you know what that was like, thinking that you might have died somehow and I wasn’t there? Do you know how many nights I stayed up in my fucking cell wondering what the fuck happened to you? Five fucking years later you come and it’s not because you want to see me, or even Mom for that matter, but because you’re here to clean up your dead mother’s house. I went to that funeral and you weren’t even there. Do you know how hard that was?!” He shouted the last line, gritting his teeth as his eyes bore a hole through me.

             
“And on top of all that, you’re with some fucking hot shot guy, driving around in his expensive car, looking happy as hell while I endured five goddamn years of misery! You haven’t the faintest idea the shit I’ve have to do while you’re prancing about with your fucking giddy smile on your face!” He looked just about ready to explode, but he stood his ground and continued the seething glare.

             
“I wasn’t happy!” I cried, sagging on the floor with my back against the bed. “I was miserable! I hated my life every day. I cried myself to sleep every night. I dreamt of you every time I closed my eyes, and I regretted walking out every second until I started getting help.” I took a few calming breaths because my teeth were chattering.

             
“I hate that I left you like that, but I was sick in the head. I was turning into my father, turning into that violent, angry person who enjoyed inflicting pain on others because it gave me a rush. You go on like I did what I wanted to do, but leaving you was the last thing I ever wanted to do.