Page 53 of Study Games

My body still trembled from the last of the withdrawals from three days ago while Jax wasn’t there. At least, not after he left once I woke up. My heart hurt in all the ways I didn’t think was ever possible. That was after my first ever break up, back at the first time when I said I love you when I was fourteen to a boy who didn’t know the meaning of the word any more than I did, or the time when I was eighteen and I really did.

The waterworks that month broke me.

I came back harder, and more resilient.

Or so I thought.

Now…I couldn’t go through that again.

Yet, I just had.

On my own, without him present. Because Jax Palmer walked away without a by your leave and left me alone in a hospital bed with a twenty-four hour watch crew who were sure I was going to hurt myself at any given moment.

I wasn’t sure they weren’t right by the end of the second day.

Still, I managed to keep the facade going, and kept to the story he gave me in those few moments and scattered fragments I pulled from him. That his father fed me drugs and somehow convinced me to do his bidding.

And then he left.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to forgive him for that.

Or maybe just that he hadn’t come back in time to help me leave.

His gentle knock on my door rippled through me like a much harsher sound. My croaked, ‘come in,’ tore the delicate skin inside my throat.

I gripped the edge of the kitchen bench and held myself upright on trembling legs that had nothing to do with the withdrawals, and I prayed I could stay strong.

Jax stared at me through haunted eyes, and I knew with utter certainty that strong wasn’t going to be enough for anything at all.

Okay, so he wasn't covered in blood which meant he had left and come back unscathed. Tick one. But…it also meant that he also had done what he promised, because he wasn’t bleeding or patched up or limping anywhere I could see.

I kept on praying.

And all that summed up to one thing. He’d given me my freedom. But how much had my freedom cost him?

“Waverly?” He stood in my doorway in all black from head to toe.

Just like the first time I’d seen him at our first tutoring session his hair was razed, and he wore that leather jacket I loved to hate with the ripped black tee and ink peeking out at all angles. Black leather black jeans were beneath that, and his customary leather boots completed the Jax I knew.

That I thought I knew.

The same bad boy who scared the hell out of me the first time I met him, just… different.

He still scared me, but now it was in a different way.

I watched him and didn't gesture for him to come in.

“It's done.” He didn’t step into my shitty little apartment.

“Good.”

My bandages itched. I pressed my fingers to their rough surfaces and wished I could get to my scars. But I knew they weren't healed yet, and I’d just break the deep slashes open that were glued together. Not enough to stitch, but deep enough.

He watched me a while longer. I didn’t move.

Couldn’t move, as long as he stared at me.

Seemed he wasn’t able to do anything else, either.

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