Tattoos: A Novel (11 page)

“What is it?” Jax asked, cocking his head to the side. A boyish smile curved his lips. My heart thrummed a little faster in my chest. My excitement was a mixture of being with Jax, and also the plan that I’d just cooked up. A plan that as far as I could see would matter enough to keep me hoping for a cure.

“I’ve always wanted to do the whole university thing, in fact I’ve already applied to a few schools for next year…”
 

Jax nodded, his brow furrowed. His puzzled expression told me he had no idea where I was going.

“I’m going to use my university funds to help people,” I said, too excited by the concept to hold back.

Jax nodded. “That sounds very noble, but won’t you need the money for school?”

I sighed. “Right now I don’t even know if I’m going to school, I don’t even know if I’m going to be alive next year…”

He snatched up my hand. “You’re going to be here for a long time,” he said. I heard the desperation in his voice. I knew he was trying to hide his fear, but he hadn’t quite managed to pull it off. Seeing his anxiety made me sorry that I’d made him feel that way.

“What I should say, is that I don’t know if I’ll even get into any schools next year. I can’t guarantee that I’ll graduate if I miss too much school. There’s a good possibility that I might have to repeat this year. If that’s the case I won’t need the money for school as soon as I’d originally planned. Besides, Mom and Harold brought this on themselves by banning me from home. If they hadn’t of done it, I wouldn’t have ever thought to do this. Not to mention that they have more money than they can spend in a lifetime.”
 

Jax considered my words then nodded. “You do have a point.” He leaned in closer until our shoulders were touching. I sucked in a quick breath, quietly exhilarated at the casualness of the move. We were so close now that every breath I took made the hair that fell over his ear move in response.
 

“So how would you help them?” he said.

He had hit on the one part of the plan that needed a bit more work and of course his help. My stomach joined in on the action, doing flip flops while my heart beat a staccato.

“I’d need to find people in need, you know like, they can’t pay their rent, or they need money for something important…I’d need you to help me though,” I said turning my face to Jax, who just happened to turn toward me at exactly the same time. His breath was light on my cheeks and smelled like juicy fruit gum. With our lips less than an inch apart I forgot about everything else, but what it would feel like to kiss him. To have his gorgeous mouth pressed against mine. His lips parted and he leaned in a little closer. I knew it was going to happen. It felt like his kiss was something I’d waited for my whole life.

“Jax?”
 

I saw Jax stiffen. He hopped off the bed as if he’d been sitting on a live wire.

“Hey Chip, how’s it going?”

The man, probably in his late forties was dressed in a too tight light blue shirt and black pants that hung below his huge belly. He fingered the oversized key ring clipped to his leather belt as if uncomfortable.

“Pardon me miss, I didn’t mean to bother you but I wanted to talk to Jax for a moment if that’s okay,” Chip said. He grazed the top of his shiny bald head with a chubby hand and smiled.

I cut my eyes to Jax, gauging his reaction for any sign that he was in trouble. Either Jax was a very good actor or there was nothing to worry about. I hoped it was the latter and that Harold hadn’t gone back on his promise and reported Jax after all. The last thing I needed was for him to lose his job because of me. Chip tipped his head at me and moved into the hall, Jax followed him. I watched them talking outside for a few minutes, still I couldn’t judge what was going on. When Jax finally came back in his face was as relaxed as it had been when he’d walked out.

“He just offered me another shift,” he said before I had a chance to ask. He plopped down in one of the chairs at my bedside and leaned back, stretching his long legs out in front of him. I more than wanted him to move back onto the bed with me. So we would have another opportunity to kiss, but it didn’t seem to be in the cards.

“Good. I was worried that you were in trouble after what happened with Harold and Mom.”

 
I hissed out a long exhalation, relieved that I’d read it wrong. And just like that the mention of my parents made me deflate. All the hope and excitement I’d had just moments before, slipped away and I was saturated in a feeling of loss. It felt like someone that mattered to me, or two someones in this case, had died.

“Just because they’re your parents doesn’t mean that you have to like them. Hell if it were up to my parents to take care of me I’d be in some foster home in the Strip,” he said. Once again he’d divined my thoughts as easily as if I’d written them all out for him.

I nodded. “That bad huh?” I said, not sure what else to say. Stupidly I’d never really thought about Jax’s life outside the hospital. Suddenly I wanted to know everything about him, but I was too scared to ask. I wasn’t sure if he’d be willing to share his personal stuff with me.
 

“Well my mother was a crack head who tried to sell me when I was five months old, and I don’t really know who my father is.”
 

He shrugged as if it didn’t matter at all. I felt like a crybaby for ragging about my parents and was left speechless.

“Hey don’t feel bad, it was the best thing that ever happened to me because if my mother hadn’t of done it, I would never have met my Gran.”
 

He crossed his legs at the ankles, putting his hands behind his head. He appeared surprisingly comfortable in a chair that seemed almost too small to contain his large frame. A simple black ink tattoo that looked like two sixes stacked in opposite directions atop each other, peeked out from the underside of his forearm. I recognized it as the astrological symbol for Cancer which meant he probably had a birthday in late June or early July. Somehow it made me happy to know this small detail about him.

“So when did your Gran get you?” I asked. I forced my eyes away from his arms and back to his face which wasn’t a hard feat. It was easy to admire Jax’s chiseled and definitely male face. He shifted in the chair. When he did I caught sight of something that made my breath hitch. Worry made my stomach lurch because if I hadn’t known better I’d have sworn that I’d seen track marks on Jax’s arm.
 

I recognized the marks because one of my closest friends, Trey had gotten tangled up in that world. It was easy to fall into drugs when you had all the money you wanted and no parental guidance. Trey had got in deep, left school and given up any chance he had of playing college football. He’d been in and out of rehab more times than I could count. We weren’t friends anymore since he’d ditched everyone who he used to hang with, and had gotten a whole new set of friends. I still missed him. Trey had been one of the only real people I’d known then, someone I could talk to about anything and who actually listened. Remembering him now made me mourn the loss of his friendship all over again. I knew that I couldn’t deal with a friend’s drug abuse again.

 
I studied Jax’s track marks as discretely as I could. They weren’t obvious and were mostly covered by his tattoos, but they were definitely there. It bothered me more than I wanted it to. As far as I could see the tracks were old and healed, but the idea that he might once have used made me realize how little I really knew about this dark stranger. I cut my eyes away from his arms before he caught me staring. My head felt light. I questioned everything I thought I felt for him because I couldn’t get mixed up with a junkie. I hated myself for judging him and finding him guilty in mere seconds, but I also couldn’t handle druggies, especially not after losing Trey.

Jax, unaware of my internal conflict continued talking.

“Not long after the whole baby selling fiasco, Social Services somehow managed to find my grandparents and contacted them about me. It seems my mother had got into drugs heavy in high school and ran away and became a groupie for some hair band.”

 
I gasped, because his story was so far out there, it was like something from a movie.
 

“So your grandparents raised you from the time you were a baby?”

Jax nodded. He sat up then leaned forward, positioning his arms on his thighs in a way that hid his track marks from view. His eyes found my face again as if gauging my reaction. I smiled at him, trying my best to let him see that none of his past mattered. To basically hide the fact that I’d seen more than I wanted to and was questioning everything about him.
 

“My Granddad Pat died when I was really young, I don’t really remember him much, only that he used to have this stash of wafer bars that he’d give me when Gran wasn’t looking.”
 

Jax smiled and it was so natural and relaxed that it left me entranced. My reservations weren’t forgotten, but at least they were pushed to the side for a little while. There would always be time later, too much in my opinion, to analyze my feelings for Jax.

“I think I better roll. I have to grab some z’s before my gig tonight,” Jax said, standing up. He slipped his leather coat on, managing to look positively divine and exactly what you’d expect if you looked up tall, dark and handsome on the internet.

He turned to leave then without warning rotated back toward me. He took my hand in his, holding it as if it was made of eggshells. His simple act made my heart skitter all over again. He didn’t speak at first, studying me as the silence lengthened between us. I felt trapped in his gaze as if our whole beings were tethered together by an unseen cord of understanding.

“I’ll help you any way I can. I mean in the whole helping people project thing you mentioned before,” he said. His smile was uncertain as if he was worried that I might not want his help anymore. For a few beats of my heart I saw a glimmer of vulnerability in his stare. It was something that I didn’t think existed in Jax’s world and it only made me want to kiss him even more.
 

As if reading my mind he leaned over and pressed his lips to mine. His kiss was feather light. Not anything like I’d expected from someone as streetwise as he was. Even as the thought passed through my mind I chastised myself for pigeonholing Jax, based on his upbringing and the clothes he wore.
 

The kiss was over long before I wanted it to be. As soon as he broke the connection I wanted to grab him back and feel the warmth of his mouth on mine. Be bathed in the scent that was distinctly him.

“O we grew together, like to a double cherry, seeming parted;
But yet a union in partition, two lovely berries moulded on one stem.” He said. Once again Jax managed to throw me off my high horse and make me see that nothing was ever exactly as it seemed.

“You know quotes from a Midsummers Night Dream,” I said, bowled over. Because that one verse from Shakespeare had managed to sum up all my fears. He’d somehow honed in to my feelings, seen that I imagined our lives were worlds apart but the truth was it was all an illusion. We were different, but also the same in so many ways. Separated by the proverbial tracks of wealth and poverty we spoke one language, being human, trying to get through whatever life threw at us.
 

I sighed and shook my head.

“You never cease to surprise me,” I said. Sudden and overwhelming guilt coursed through me. I was more like my snob mother than even I’d known.

Though I felt horrible, Jax seemed nonplused by my stupid comment.
 

“See you later,” he said. He shot me a sweet smile then moved away. Before he left he paused at the doorway and turned back.

“Do you still have my cell number?” he said. A slight crease formed across his brow. It only made him more endearing. I hated myself for judging him. I didn’t deserve Jax’s kindness, not when all I could do was have preconceived notions about who he was. I knew one thing though, there was something good about him, something that few people had. I was more than lucky to have him in my life, no matter what that meant.
 

I nodded. “Thanks again for everything,” I said. I felt a delayed flush of heat travel up my neck then to my face.

“Text me or call anytime you want. It doesn’t matter what time it is, if you need anything or just someone to talk to…”
 

His voice trailed off but his focus remained on me. I stared into Jax’s eyes that seemed so blue, that it made me think that the gods had scooped up a drop of the ocean the day they’d made them. Locked in his stare I felt like everything, including Jax’s past, didn’t matter. I had no idea how much more time I had to live, so it was senseless to dwell in a place that wasn’t now.
 

In Jax’s stare I couldn’t help but think about warm days spent on the beach, sand between my toes and carefree abandon. The desire to spend as much time with him as I could, locked hope in my heart. Being with him seemed to give me the optimism I needed to believe that no matter what this disease called cancer threw at me I’d get through it.
 

Then he was gone and as always seemed the case, all the light was sucked away with his exit, replaced by a dark void. Then I was alone and the only thought in my mind was when I’d see him again.

10. Jax

I couldn’t explain why or even how my feelings for Marilee had gone from someone I looked forward to seeing during my shifts, to a girl who I couldn’t shake from my thoughts. The fact that I’d invited her to Christmas dinner was probably one of the stupidest things I could have done. In the time I had worked at the hospital I had always lived by the motto that said I needed to keep a
 
healthy emotional distance from the patients. It made it easier to cope when bad things happened on the ward. But somehow with Marilee, all that had changed.
 

No patient before her, had managed to get so far under my skin. It was to the point that I almost couldn’t fully function if I didn’t see her. I knew it was lame ass and that if I didn’t get my shit together soon and break the connection, bad things would happen, because that’s how it always went. You started to care about someone and they checked out, or worse, died.