Page 2 of Shattered Wings

Instead of having a big ceremony, we went to the courthouse with a few of our closest loved ones. We promised each other that for our ten-year anniversary, we’d have a big wedding to renew our vows. I just wanted to be with him, so where we got married didn’t matter to me.

I knew that he had gotten orders, so his first duty station was North Carolina. In the back of my mind, I felt like he wanted to get married so quickly because he wanted to be able to have me with him. I wanted to be with him too, so I just ignored what my gut was telling me. We were rushing into marriage. I knew it and he knew it, too. We just never voiced those opinions out loud. We should have waited, stayed engaged longer. That would have been the wise thing to do. We were thinking with our hearts, or at least I was.

We ended up moving to North Carolina pretty quickly. Within a few weeks, we already had a tiny brick house on base. Jax didn’t care how I decorated it, so I did my best to make it feel like home. Every day when Jax came home for lunch, Lachlan, who was also stationed in North Carolina, always tagged along.

Lachlan and I got even closer. He was a great friend, although I cared little for his girlfriend, Lacy. I guess they had met each other out at a local bar one night. After that, it seemed like they were always together.

I made a few friends in my husband's unit. We had grown pretty close, too. I was a baby compared to some of them, so they took me under their wings. Tess was the commander's wife. She was a smart, beautiful woman. She was just like the mother that I was missing back at home, always including me and asking me to spend time with her. I felt pretty damn lucky to have found such a great group of women to surround myself with. Most of them had babies. Some were older kids, but there were tons of little ones.

For the longest time, I knew that I wanted to be a mother. Seeing all the families first hand made me a little jealous. I just wanted what they had. One day I knew that I would have it, but I wasn’t a patient person. All I could think about was Jax telling me that once he was done with his training and we got married, we’d start a family. In the back of my mind, I was questioning everything. Sooner or later, I’d find out that I had a good reason.

Illiana

(THE BEGINNING OF THE END)

Around the two-year mark of us being in North Carolina, whispers circulated about some of the guys from the unit receiving orders for a temporary duty assignment. Uncle Sam liked to send them all over the world for different missions and assignments. I was on pins and needles, waiting to find out if Jax was going to be one of the guys sent down to South America.

One afternoon at the beginning of January, he came home and told me the news. He was being sent and he would probably be gone for about six months. The news devastated me, but I knew this was part of the job, part of what I signed up for. No matter how sad I was, I’d still support him. He told me that Lachlan wasn’t going, so if I needed anything while he was gone, all I had to do was reach out to him. That helped to calm my nerves.

North Carolina was still a strange place even though we’d been here for two years. I didn’t get out nearly as much as I should have. At this point I knew that I needed to be strong, I really did, but it was hard. Yet again, Jax made promises. He promised that we’d try for a baby when he came back. I’m pretty sure Jax knew that I was having baby fever. It was clear to him that I had always desired to be a mom. He promised to come back to me and love me forever. He swore it on the angels.

We had two weeks to spend together. He’d be leaving right before my birthday. It sucked, but I had to embrace this life or it would tear me to pieces.

When the day finally came, I had to drive him to the airport in Raleigh. Luckily, Lachlan went with us. If he hadn't, there’s no way I would have been able to make it all the way back home by myself. The tears that fell could have flooded our small house, hell it was probably enough to fill the ocean. I couldn’t contain them even though I tried.

This wasn’t really a deployment. They were training some of the Colombian military. I didn’t really ask any questions because I knew that he more than likely couldn’t tell me. I just kept all my questions locked up inside, where I knew they were safe and couldn’t hurt me.

We talked almost every day while he was gone. There was a period of time where he didn’t call. When he finally reached out, he told me that he’d eaten some bad soup. From what he said, it messed him up and they had to knock him out for days so the nausea would go away. I didn’t question him, I just felt horrible that he was sick and I wasn’t there to take care of him. Jax wasn’t a picky eater. He would literally try anything. But the fact that he said he was out for days didn’t sit well with me.

He seemed a little distant after that, but I tried to tell myself that it was because he was in a stressful environment and he was missing me. One night, when I was out with the girls, I got a notification on social media. I noticed that his profile picture had been changed. It was literally a fucking ball sack. It pissed me off, not to mention all the new half-naked pictures that he added of himself getting a new tattoo. He’d never been that kind of person. I sent him a message, and he called me freaking out. He said that Ben had been the one to change his picture. I didn’t even realize that Ben was there with him. And how the hell did Ben get ahold of his device to change the picture anyway? Jax always had his password-protected phone attached to his hip. I always told him he was worse than a woman. I didn’t even know his password, and that alone was suspicious. Jax apologized profusely, nevertheless, there was a tugging in my gut that told me that something was off about the whole thing. I brushed it off because that’s always what I’ve done, brush things off that mattered to me. I went back to my girls' night like nothing had happened. My gut knew otherwise.

I spent the rest of my time hanging out with the ladies and Lachlan. Tess and Lachlan were my support system. Lachlan took me out for my birthday and we spent many nights eating popcorn and watching movies. When Jax would call, he’d talk to Lachlan if he was around. It seemed like over a period of time, their relationship started to change. For some reason unknown to me, Lachlan wasn’t happy with Jax and I didn’t know why. Lach never treated me any differently, though. If anything, we became closer. We would go out to dinner and he’d take me grocery shopping. Anything I needed, and he was there. His girlfriend didn’t like our friendship so they ended up breaking up. He wasn’t willing to stop being my friend because she was a jealous bitch. Lachlan discovered that she had been cheating on him, so he was completely done. I felt horrible for him. In a way, I believed I was to blame, but he completely disregarded that. She pissed me off, but I was grateful for him.

With his raven black hair, he was a stunningly beautiful man. He had to keep it within military regulation standards so it was shorter on the sides and a little longer on the top. He had these emerald-green eyes that seemed to change color depending on the mood he was in. Lach started getting tattoos, too. At one point I told him that his whole body was going to be covered if he didn’t stop. All he did was laugh and say, “don’t most girls love tattoos and muscles, baby doll?” I had a man, but I wasn’t ashamed that I thought he was beautiful. He’d find a good woman one day. I had no doubt about that. I hated to admit that I was a little envious of that thought. When he found someone else, I wouldn’t be as important to him. And we wouldn’t get to spend nearly as much time together.

Lachlan was a really good man. When he finds the right woman, I just know that he will bend over backwards just to give her the sun, moon, and stars, if that’s what her heart desires. Jax used to treat me the same way. Clearly, something had changed, but I didn’t know what it was. Since his AIT days, we had slowly begun to drift apart.

Jaxon ended up being gone for six months. Let me say this first: I don’t give two shits about money. I was with him because I loved him, nothing more. I didn’t care about what he could give me. He meant more to me than any amount of money ever could. From his calculations prior to going to Colombia, he should have been coming home with around ten thousand dollars. That was going to be a huge help because we wanted to pay off his car and start trying for a baby. Weirdly enough, he came home with just a few thousand dollars. He ended up taking out a small loan to pay off his car. The interest rate on that damn thing was ridiculous. But it was so confusing that he came home with hardly anything. I was so new to being a military wife that I just didn’t understand. He told me that things were more expensive than they should have been down there. Something in my gut told me that something wasn’t quite right, but I just brushed it off. I was just happy to have my husband home.

The crazy thing is that Lachlan came around less and less once Jax was home. That really hurt because I thought we were friends. I’d seen him and Jax huddled in corners or talking outside on more than one occasion when he did make an appearance. It always seemed like they were having a heated conversation, but I never pushed. I never asked questions. Maybe that was my problem. I figured that if either of them wanted me to know what was going on, they would come out and tell me.

Once Jax was home and settled, we gradually started talking about trying to have a baby. When we had the birth control talk, he seemed distant, but he was adamant that he wanted me to stop taking my pills. The problem with getting pregnant is that you need to have sex for that to happen. Being young, I had a high sex drive. Hell, we both used to have a high-sex drive. But it seemed like one day that came to a screeching halt. We went from having sex multiple times a day when he was home to having sex a few times a month. I could easily count on one hand how many times a month we had sex. And it wasn’t the love-making kind that we used to have. Jaxon just fucked me. He fucked me to get off, and he stopped caring whether or not I had an orgasm. Jax always used to put my needs before his own. He wouldn’t come before me. But something had changed.

About six months after Jax came back from Colombia there was a period of time where I felt like shit. I hadn’t been feeling good for a few weeks and my period was late. God help me, we hadn’t even really been trying for what I thought was growing in my belly. Certain smells began to make me nauseous, too. Fear consumed me. I was really fucking scared. I knew what it was, but I didn’t want to believe it. Things weren’t good with Jax, and I knew that bringing a baby into the world wouldn’t change a thing.

One Tuesday morning, when Jax went to work, I called Lachlan. Even though he and Jax had issues, I knew he’d be there for me. He picked up on the second ring. Lach heard me bawling my eyes out and he was immediately on alert.

“What happened, baby doll? Did someone hurt you? Ellie, answer me.” He rushed out quickly. In the background, I could tell that he was getting dressed and grabbing the keys.

“Lach, I….I think I’m pregnant,” I told him, which made me cry even harder.

“Fuck,” I heard him mumble. “What do you need? I’m on my way.”

Lachlan was always the protector. I told him what I needed and about twenty minutes later; he arrived with the pregnancy test in hand. I went to the bathroom while Lachlan sat on the floor outside the bathroom door in my bedroom. When I was done with the test, I sat it on the counter to wait. Going back into my bedroom, I crawled over to him on the floor and laid my head on his lap. “I’ve got you, Ellie.” He rubbed his fingers through my hair and kept telling me that everything was going to be alright. But I knew….I knew that my life was going to change forever. There was no going back now. There was no undoing what had already been done.

Lachlan and I went into the bathroom together. And there it was, two pink lines. Lines that would forever change my existence. He held me in his arms as I collapsed to the floor. There was a certain sadness in his eyes, but at that point, I didn’t know why. It wasn’t lost on me that my husband should have been the first person that I told instead of Lachlan. But I knew Lachlan was one of my best friends. He was my person, and he’d be there for me no matter what. And he was. He was there throughout my whole pregnancy for anything I needed. He was even in the delivery room with Jaxon.

I told Jax that I was pregnant about two weeks after finding out. He was excited to be a dad; that was clear to see, but deep down, I knew that things had changed. I could see it in his eyes. His soul didn’t speak to mine like it used to. Throughout my pregnancy Jaxon wasn’t around as much as he should have been. There was always some sort of training he had to do or a mission he had to go on. I could feel the disconnect between us. Hell, I spent more time with Lachlan than I did with my own husband. He’s the one who asked to rub my belly and talk to the baby, not Jax.

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