Unscathed

by Tim ORourke

Page 20

 

  I reached for the car door handle and stopped. I had a sudden thought. What if Jax had never contacted Heather? What if he had ripped up her number and thrown it away? Then that would have meant that he had really liked me and I'd just screwed up probably the best thing that had come my way since arriving in the U. S. Whatever I discovered from Heather, I was opening myself up to a world of pain and I’d promised myself that I would never let that happen to me again. But then again, I had made a lot of promises to myself which I had recently broken. Biting my lower lip and praying that I was doing the right thing, I reached for the door handle. But once again I stopped. Not because my head was full of doubts, but because Jax's truck had just pulled into the street.

  He killed the engine and I tried to quickly slink back in my seat.

  But it was too late, Jax had seen me. His eyes bored right through the windshield of his truck and into mine. I had never felt so crushed before in my life. Not even when John had tricked me and my mother had sent me away. Jax had been in contact with Heather – he had seen her or how else would he have known where she lived? And why was he here now? Heather hadn't been ignoring my calls and texts because she had the flu; she hadn’t gotten in contact with me because she had betrayed a friend. Heather had betrayed me. I felt like a fool, just like I had before. Those feelings of humiliation I had felt back home in England welled up inside of me again. I made fists with my hands. My fingernails dug into my palms, but I was numb to the pain. My heart ached too much. Jax had had sex with me only a few hours ago and now he was here outside Heather’s house looking for more. Hadn't the sex we shared been enough? Hadn't I satisfied him? Evelyn had been right about Jax and I should have listened to her.

  Feeling angry at myself for being such a naive fool again, I pushed open the car door and climbed out. With hands still clenched into fists, I marched across the road to where Jax sat in his truck. He didn't take his eyes off of me once. I banged my fist against the window of his car and he dropped it an inch.

  "What do you want, Mina?" he asked.

  "What are you doing here?" I demanded, feeling my cheeks flush red with anger.

  "I could ask the same of you," he said, taking a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lighting one. I didn't know Jax smoked, but why was I surprised by that? I really didn't know anything about him despite the hours I had spent watching, photographing, and filming him.

  "I've come to see my friend Heather," I said, not knowing if I should have confessed to knowing her. But I wasn't exactly thinking straight.

  "Me too," he smiled and I wondered if he said that just to hurt me.

  "So you know her well then?" I fished, placing my hands on my hips.

  "No, not really. . . " he started.

  "So you always turn up late at night to see girls you don't know that well?" I sneered at him through the window. He blew smoke from the corner of his mouth and it wafted through the gap. I swatted it out of my face.

  "If you must know, I hadn't met her until the other day when she showed up at work. . . " Jax began to explain.

  "So you only met her a couple of days ago, and here you are already!" I cried in disbelief. "Me and you were only having… we were only sharing my bed together a couple of hours ago, and all the while you were planning on coming over to see. . . "

  "Just shut up a minute, will ya?" Jax cut in. "I didn't come over here tonight to get laid. This friend of yours told me that a buddy of mine had recommend I do some work on her car, but he had never heard of her. . . so I got to wondering. . . something didn't fit quite right. . . . " He broke off and stared at me.

  "What?" I said, feeling uncomfortable now and wishing that I hadn't come out to Heather’s after all.

  "I came here tonight, Mina, because I think in my heart I knew it was you who got Heather to pay me a visit at the auto shop,” he breathed, as if the final piece of a jigsaw had been slotted into place.

  "You don't know what you're talking about," I said and turned away from the truck.

  Before I'd even taken two steps, Jax had thrown open the truck door, leapt out, and grabbed me by the arm. He spun me around to face him.

  "My God, Mina, what is wrong with you?" he said, searching my eyes as if looking for the answer to his question.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," I lied.

  "You know exactly what I'm talking about," he growled, gripping my arm tighter.

  "Let go, you're hurting me," I said, trying to pull free of him, desperate to be back in my car. Not because I was scared of Jax, but because I knew he had figured out what I had done.

  "Heather was some kinda test you set for me," he said looking shocked and hurt. "It was a trap. "

  "I just wanted to be sure that I could trust you," I said, knowing that whatever excuse I gave, it would sound pathetic.

  "Trust me?!" he said in disbelief. "It's you, Mina, who can't be trusted. It's you who has been sneaking around, lying and setting traps. You're the liar and the fake, not me. "

  With the same look of hurt and mistrust I had seen in my mother’s eyes, Jax let go of my arm and headed back towards his truck.

  "You once said that you thought I had a secret and you found that exciting about me," I called after him. I didn't want him to leave, because if he did, he would never come back to me.

  "That's before I knew you were some kinda freak!" he shouted without looking back.

  To hear him call me that felt like a punch to my face. That's what I had always been called. I couldn’t hold back the tears which were now standing in my eyes. They spilled onto my cheeks. "Didn't tonight mean anything to you?" I said as he climbed behind the wheel of his truck.

  Jax slammed the door shut.

  "I didn't mean to hurt you, Jax," I said, choking back my tears. "I never meant to hurt anyone. "

  "No wonder your mother couldn't wait to get rid of you," he said back, his voice sounding hard and unforgiving.

  His words were like a blow to my body and I flinched backwards.

  "And you're just like my mum," I said. "She never gave me a chance to explain. She didn't want to know the truth, because just like you, she wouldn't have been able to understand it. "

  Jax fired up the engine of the truck. He didn't seem interested in anything I had to say. And I couldn't blame him for feeling like that. I went to the window one last time.

  "Come back to my place, Jax. . . " I blurted out.

  "What for? So you can make another one of your creepy movies?" he sniped. "No thanks. "

  "Watch those films with me. . . " I started.

  "This just keeps getting weirder and weirder," he groaned, steering the car away from the kerb.

  I let go of the window. "If I meant anything to you, Jax, just come back to my place so I can explain. . . so I can show you. . . " I called out, watching his bright taillights head away up the street. With my heart sinking in my chest, I knew that it was over. Jax didn't want to know the truth, and he didn't want to know me. With my head down, I made my way back towards my car. As I yanked open the door, I heard the sound of an approaching engine. I looked up to see Jax's truck reversing back down the road towards me. Had he come back to call me a freak again?

  Jax drew level with me. "I'll give you five minutes," he said, eyes dark and face stern. "I'll follow you back to your place. But I promise you one thing, Mina, if I think for one minute that you are filming me, taking pictures, or anything else remotely stalker-ish, then I'm gone. "

  "I promise," I said.

  "Five minutes," he warned me again.

  "Okay," I nodded, wondering what I had done to deserve this second chance. I climbed into my car and steered away from the kerb, Jax following close behind in his truck.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Jax

  I was gonna do it. I was gonna drive off and leave her ass standing there crying. I couldn’t believe after the stalking, the ph
otos, and the videos – now I had to deal with her setting traps for me. I didn’t need that crap at all.

  It had hit me as I pulled up and saw her car. She knew Heather. How could it be? My brain had begun to buzz. There was only one explanation for it; she had sent Heather to the shop to test me. That’s what it was all about. The pieces came together like tumblers in a lock. Nobody is that stupid to not know that a squeaking sound when you step on the brake means you need new brakes. I mean, seriously, nobody’s that blonde. I should have told Barbie to F-off.

  I don’t know if it was curiosity or Austin’s words ringing in my ears that made me back up and decide to give her five minutes of my time – maybe it was both – but Mina mentioned her mother again. What had happened there? She had never told me. Yet another dark secret she was keeping. I just didn’t see how she was going to explain away the videos and pictures she’d been taking of me without my knowledge or consent. Who does that and has a sane, rational explanation for it? Perhaps she was insane and her explanation made perfect sense to her in her own mind.

  I flicked the cigarette, along with Heather’s card, out the window, letting the hot summer wind catch both. I’d smoked three in the last thirty minutes and decided I was pitching the rest of the pack in the trash. Damn addictive cancer sticks.

  I was overthinking this whole thing. I’ll go to her house, let her speak, then leave. Then I could tell Austin I had heard her out and be satisfied with myself that I let her explain, say her peace. Then I’d move on with my life and go back to being the terminal bachelor I’d been before Mina had crashed into my life and turned my once even, steady emotions upside down and inside out.

  I killed the engine to the truck and got out, walking to the front door. Her car was already in the drive, and the front door was open so I walked in without knocking.

  I saw her fiddling with the DVD player, hooking up a thick, gray cord from her laptop to the player and the TV. She grabbed a remote and flipped the TV on, where there was nothing but snow. She hit a few buttons on the laptop and the screen flicked to life.