Part of Me (Jessa & Paxton #1)

by Haven Francis

  I throw my clothes on and get Jessa in the car and head toward the University.

  “I’ll call you when I’m done and you can come pick me up,” Jessa says as we pull into campus.

  “No. I’m coming in with you.”

  “It could be hours, Pax. I’ll just call you when I’m done.”

  “I got nothing going on,” I tell her, pulling into a parking lot near the library.

  “Whatever,” she says, slinging her messenger bag over her body and stepping out of the car.

  “So what are we writing about?” I ask as we walk into the big, cold building.

  “Are you gonna help me?”

  “If it means getting out of here sooner,” I tell her, grabbing her hand and leading her up the steps.

  “It’s for my women’s study class,” she says, laughing. “Gender identity.”

  “Shit. You definitely need my help. In fact, we don’t even need to be here. I can write that paper for you in a minute.”

  “You know a lot of transgender and transsexual people?”

  “Yeah, I did part of my growing up in Venice.”

  “I believe you, Pax, that you have very intimate knowledge of the topic, but I’m still gonna do my research.”

  At the top of the steps Jessa leads me to an open area that is filled with computer stations. As we walk past her fellow students they all pick up their heads to size us up. I don’t miss this world. A group of girls down the line are looking at Jessa with smirks on their faces, whispering to one another. When we are close one of them calls out, “Moved on already, huh slut?”

  Jessa heads over to them without hesitation, her hand still holding onto mine. She drops it when she gets to the girls so she can put her hands on the table and lean into them. “Sorry,” she tells the girl sweetly, “what was your name again?”

  “Mindy,” the girl tells her, not as bold now.

  “Hi Mindy, I’m Jessa. It’s great to meet you.” She pulls out a chair and takes a seat, all three of the girls look taken aback. “It’s super flattering to know that you’ve taken such interest in my personal life. Can I answer any questions for you?”

  The girls look at each other with confusion. I lean against the wall, taking in the show.

  “No?” Jessa asks. “Nothing?”

  “Why are you such a slut?” the girl asks before she and her friends giggle, like that was a brilliant come back.

  “Are you the clever girl that left that note on my door?” Jessa asks sweetly. “I was hoping to chat with you. Listen, sweetie, I’m assuming that you don’t actually know what that word means, right?” she asks like she’s talking to a two year old.

  “It’s a girl who sleeps around,” the girl says, looking proud of herself.

  “Wow, that’s right,” Jessa says with mock enthusiasm. “Because what I did with Dylan was called a break-up. A break-up is when you stop dating someone. Do you see why I was concerned about your level of intelligence?” she asks, cocking her head at the girl.

  The girl just stares back at her with a blank face.

  “I’m glad I could clear that up for you,” Jessa tells her sweetly. “If you need any more help the dictionaries are in the reference section.” She gives the girl a bright smile and then stands.

  “Whatever… slut,” the girls says, giggling again with her friends.

  “Oh, now this is a shame,” Jessa tells her. “Are you two any good with the English language,” she asks the friends. “I would love to stay and keep working with her but I have a paper to write. You two are her friends, right? You’ll help her out?”

  No one has anything to say to that so Jessa turns from them and walks back to me, rolling her eyes. I take her hand back in mine and we continue down the row. I look back at the girls, laughing at the way they are still staring at Jessa, mesmerized. “So you’re a slut, huh?” I ask her, taking my hand out of hers so I can sling it around her shoulder.

  “Those girls… they should just start a fan club. They’re devoted to Dylan like he’s fricking Justin Bieber.”

  “No shit, huh?” I ask, laughing. “And you let him go? You are one dumb slut.”

  “Right now, I would totally be willing to be a slut. I swear to God. It’s been too, too, long, Pax.”

  My muscles become tense, my anger is tangible. I’m getting tired of the girl talking about how she wants to get laid. “If it’s that unbearable, beso, we can find a quiet corner over by the books. I can get you off real quick.”

  “Shut the hell up, Pax,” she says, her voice noticeably strained. “God, that is not helpful.” A shiver runs through her body and I tighten my hold on her.

  “I don’t want to see you suffering,” I murmur.

  She stops in front of an open computer, turning to me and grabbing a hold of my t-shirt, pulling me close to her. “I am suffering and hearing you talk like that is not helping. So…. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” She lets go of me and takes a seat at the computer.

  I take the spot next to her, wondering how hard I should push the issue. Clearly, she’s vulnerable right now and the sexual tension between the two of us was like a third wheel all day as we sat touching each other, tangled up together. Maybe I need to get over myself and just become her fuck buddy- it would be so easy.

  But when she was on the phone with that pansy, Dylan, the disdain was so clear in her voice and on her face and I never want to be on the receiving end of that. I’m pretty sure that when she and I start having sex – which I’m thinking is inevitable – that she won’t want to be stopping it anytime soon, but after the way shit went down with her attempt at commitment with the guy, her aversion to anything more than just sex is stronger than ever. If I do this with her it’s gotta mean something. It’s gotta be permanent.

  She’s not ready for permanent. I’m not sure if I am either. But hell, I might be getting there. This morning when she was trying to make breakfast and I told her that I had been cooking for myself since I was six and she asked me why, I opened my mouth and I was ready to tell her. I was ready to tell her about every miserable memory from my past. About the woman who never gave me anything; meals being just one thing on that long list. About the woman who did everything to keep me from my father but insisted I keep his last name because she told me I wasn’t good enough to be a Dixon. Not like her precious step-children. The ones who she drove to their private school every morning, passing by me as I sat at the bus stop waiting to catch my bus to public. About the woman who kept me hidden away during her parties and left me behind in favor of Jackson and Julia who she strutted around that pretentious town like they were her own. The woman who made me live in the dank basement in a mansion that had seven bedrooms on the top floor. All this shit that I’ve always wanted to keep locked away, that I never told anyone about – not Gabriel, not Santos, not no one- I wanted to tell her.

  I’m glad I didn’t. I don’t think it’s healthy for me to start thinking that permanent is an option in this city, because it’s not. I can’t stay here. I don’t want to stay here. Logically, the fact that I can’t do permanent here, and I’m not willing to have temporary with Jessa, means I should just let this situation go. But I can’t help but try and find a way around it.

  My eyes wander around the library, to all the kids that don’t look that much different than the ones Jess and I spent last year with in River Bluff. Those stupid girls, saying that shit to her like she’s not even a person. She got the same crap in high school. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m thinking about trying to make Jessa mine, I would admire the way she lives her life – never giving into a guy, holding her own, taking only what she wants. But girls don’t appreciate what Jessa does. They don’t appreciate it because every guy that crosses paths with Jessa wants her. And it’s a want that never leaves them ‘cause no one ever really gets to have her.

  “Are you happy here?” I ask, interrupting the research she’s doing on the computer.

  “What?” she says, her eyes only leaving her compute
r for a second before returning to the screen.

  “Chicago – you wanted to come here to find people who would understand you. Is that how you were treated when you were in the dorm? Is that what you deal with every time you gotta go to class or to the library?”

  “I told you how it was in the dorm. No, obviously those girls were not what I was picturing when I wanted to move to a city and get out of River Bluff.”

  “So are you happy here?”

  She stops what she’s doing completely now and looks at me like she’s actually contemplating my question. “At the moment, yes. I couldn’t be happier.”

  “How come?” I ask, leaning into her.

  “Because I’m not living in that dorm anymore. And because since the moment you sent Vi to rescue me I realized there was a whole other world here that I could feel comfortable in. That there are people here that I can be myself around.” She gives me a crooked smile. She knows what I want her to say. “It’s your world Paxton. It’s a world that was created around you and I knew from the minute I met you that I would find a home eventually, a place where I could be comfortable and start over. Figures, it’s literally your world. But now that you’re here in it, it feels completely right.”

  I smile at her because I’m glad she’s happy. But another part of me wants her to say that she doesn’t want to stay here because she knows I can’t. I want her to say that it don’t matter where she is as long as she has me. “So this is where you see yourself staying?”

  She cocks her head at me, confused by my stupid fucking questions. “Yeah. Where else would I go?”

  Home with me, to Venice. “There’s all kinds of cities in the world, kid. Just wondering if you think you found the right one.”

  “She’ll do for now,” she says, turning her attention back to the computer. “Who knows where I’ll end up, but for now, yeah, I think this is where I belong.”

  I lean back in my chair, letting the subject rest before I say something stupid that will have her running from me. Commitment is not in her vocabulary at the moment and I’m not willing to fuck everything up with her right now. With Jessa, I’m gonna have to be patient. I’m gonna have to be strategic. She’s gonna be the only girl I’ve ever had to work for but I’m willing to try. I just don’t know how long I can sit around here trying to make it happen.

  Chapter 10 - Jessa

  My morning started out just like yesterday – with a big boner pressed into my back and a warm hand wandering around my body. The fact that when I woke, it was from of a dream where I was riding that exact boner was alarming. The pain in my body is becoming a serious issue that I have to take care of which I can’t do if I’m spending all of my free time with Pax. And now my imagination is betraying me and infusing him into my fantasies. This is not good.

  When he offered to bring me to class this morning, I told him I was good. When class ended I considered staying away but the truth is I want to be where he is. Especially since I don’t know how long I’m gonna have him around for.

  When I get home, Pax is on the couch, just like yesterday. When I’m within reaching distance he wordlessly grabs onto me and pulls me down to him and resumes his position as my attachment. I immediately snuggle into him knowing that I’m way too comfortable in his arms. “Is this your plan, Pax? You just gonna lay around here every day?” I ask him.

  “Yeah, for now this is my plan. You got a better one?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you need a hobby.”

  “A hobby?” he laughs. “What, like knitting?”

  “Maybe. Or what about the band? I mean, I know you can’t show your face in public, but the way the guys were talking the other night, it seems like they miss it… maybe you should start playing with them again, just to keep yourself occupied,” I say, looking up at him, trying to gauge his reaction to the idea of playing again. I want to know what the hell happened when he was here before because it’s clear, after his reaction to being at The Bottle, that it was more traumatic than I had thought.

  “Nah,” he says, shaking his head, his jaw becoming tense.

  “Why not? You love playing your guitar.”

  “Being in a band is not the same thing as playing my guitar.”

  “What’s the difference?” I ask, taking my eyes off him, thinking maybe he’ll open up easier if I’m not staring at him.

  “Playing my guitar is something I did with my dad. Not with a band.”

  Okay… that’s something. “So why did you even start playing with a band?” I ask, trying to sound casual, trying to keep him from retreating.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Jesus, Pax. I’m just making conversation – you don’t have to get all worked up. Would it kill you to tell me something about yourself?”

  His arm tightens around me and he lets out a long breath – I think that means he’s gonna start talking. “I never played my guitar when I was home with Rachel, in Glencoe. I never wanted to. That part of me belonged in Venice, with Gabriel. He gave me my first guitar when I was ten years old. He taught me how to play it and I managed to hold my own when I was jamming with him and his buddies. I loved that guitar because all those badass dudes got a kick out of watching my small hands pluck and strum back to them anything they played to me.” Paxton’s hand relaxes and he starts running his fingers through my hair. He even laughs under his breath at the memory. “My dad and his vatos always called me Gringo because I got Rachel’s eyes and because, a week after showing up in California, my dark hair would be plagued with blonde streaks. I hated that name, but that summer they started calling me geetar gringo and I didn’t mind it so much.” He flips the palm of his hand, that’s not buried in my hair, over and I look at the tattoo there – the guitar that has the word Gringo tattooed inside of it. I actually know something about that tattoo – it was his first one. His uncle gave it to him when he was thirteen. I run my fingers over it for a moment before Paxton tangles his fingers with mine and closes our hands so the tattoo disappears.

  I’m afraid that’s all I’m going to get from him. I can feel his body stiffening under mine again. When he starts talking again, it’s a relief.

  “But the summer before my fifteenth birthday, Pops got sent to lock up so I was no longer sent to California for the summers. That’s when I started playing it here, in Illinois – I guess I wanted to hold onto any part of Gabriel that I could and that guitar was part of him. It was also about the time that Rachel stopped keeping tabs on me, so I would skip school most days and take the bus here, to Chicago. Back then, I always had my guitar with me, I was always playing it and eventually people started to notice. I started playing for the down and out lunch time crowd at this hole in the wall called Sammie’s. I didn’t change any lives there, but that place changed mine. That’s where I met Billy. He was playing with a band… Cause for Chaos – you’re familiar, right?” he asks me, his tone shifting.

  “Yeah, Pax.”

  “They needed a lead guitar player and my fifteen year old ass was the lucky bustard who got the job.”

  I stay quiet, waiting for him to go on, but it’s clear that’s all I’m gonna get for now. “End of story?”

  “End of story.”

  I turn my eyes back to him and smile, because he gave me something, but pinch the skin on his stomach because he still won’t let me in.

  “Ouch, Jesus, beso. What the hell was that for?”

  “You’re frustrating.”

  “You’re nosey.”

  “Whatever,” I say, relaxing back into his chest. “So what’s the ‘shit you gotta take care of’? Sounded pretty urgent. You were going to be out of my life ‘before we even had a chance to scratch the surface’, if I recall.”

  “It’s just some business I gotta get straightened out with Billy, nothing that can’t wait. Really, I just came here to make sure you were behaving.”

  “That’s all I’ve been doing is behaving,” I mutter.

  “Good. Keep it up.”

&nb
sp; I laugh. “I’m hoping now that your back and your cronies can see that we really are just friends they’ll let me off my leash and I can get some misbehaving in.”

  Paxton’s arm stiffens around me. “Jesus, kid, why don’t you simmer down for a fucking minute.”

  I sit up out of Paxton’s hold. “What?” I ask, incredulously, reacting more to his pissed off tone than the words he just spat at me.

  Paxton looks at me with indignation in his eyes. “All I hear about is how you are trying to get it in from any stray at the bar. Billy’s working overtime just to make sure you don’t go whoring your way through this town, and since I’ve been back all you talk about is how bad you need a dick in you. Simmer the fuck down.”

  I stare at him, shocked for a moment by his harsh words. I mean, Jesus, I thought we were having a little bonding moment, but I guess Chicago Paxton can only act human for a few fleeting moments. “Are you kidding me? You are such a condescending asshole, you know that? What the hell have you been doing? Every time I talk to you it sounds like you’ve got a new girl under you. This double standard is bullshit. It’s totally acceptable for any guy to fuck any girl they want, but if I want to find one guy, one guy, not multiple guys, that is willing to have a sexual relationship with me, suddenly I’m a slut who is trying to whore my way through this town? Fuck you, Paxton,” I tell him, standing and going to my room to get my bag.

  Paxton follows me and when I try to get back out of the room he stands with his hands clasped around the door frame, keeping me trapped. I lock eyes with him. “Move, Paxton,” I tell him.

  “No.”

  “What are you trying to do here? It’s clear you suddenly have issues with me and the way I choose to live my life, so I will take my slutty ass elsewhere in order to spare your innocent eyes from all of the debauchery. But in order for me to do that, you have to move.”