Page 61 of Roots of the Wicked

“What I’m doing is payback for you, and that brat messing up my life. I told you I didn’t want her. I wanted to have an abortion, but you, you wanted her, begged me to keep her. This is your fucking fault.”

“After her rant about me being my father’s fault, I watched as he started strangling her. I believe until this day that he truly didn’t know the woman he had married and had a child with. I harbored so much hate for her, I didn’t feel an ounce of sorrow, nor did I help when she reached in my direction. I backed away from her flapping arms. By the time my father blinked away his rage and loosened his grip on her neck, her tongue was hanging out of her mouth and her body had gone limp. He placed his body between me and hers when I asked if she was dead.”

My teeth sank deep into my bottom lip, fighting to keep my composure and hoping Jax couldn’t read the satisfaction I felt at the knowledge of her mother’s pain. I hoped she was dead.

“My father took me to my neighbors, telling me he and my mom had to talk when she woke up. I was twelve, I knew she was dead, and I think my father knew it too. He picked me up from the neighbors the next morning and told me that I would be staying with him. He and I rarely talk about my mother. She is still a tough subject for us after all this time. Although I asked after my mother a few times, we never spoke of the last moments I saw her or what happened to her afterwards. My father made sure I talked to several child psychiatrists back then, about what my mother had done to me. I don’t believe it helped.

“My father said my mother was the wickedest seed he had ever encountered. He beat himself up for being blind to the evil within her and for leaving me with her. Even now, I can tell he’s still haunted by what happened to me. He can be a bit overprotective at times, conducting background checks on anyone he suspects me dating. He is convinced that I’m living proof the most wicked people have the ability to produce roots that grew into beauty and perfection. His words have always stuck, but not in the positive way he intended them to.”

My face creased, attempting to understand.

“I was planted in pure evil, so when I took root, I grew from the wicked source, fed from it, lived and thrived within it. Since, I’m the root of the wicked, I must be evil too. It’s what I have always believed. My mother was a beautiful woman on the outside, so no one, not even my father suspected how truly evil she was on the inside. I vowed to do everything in my power to keep the evil she planted within me from destroying others. The fear of someone finding out my secret. Having to explain why I’d rather lurk in the background than be in the spotlight. The anxiety issues. It’s too much baggage. So, it has always been easy not to have long-term relationships.

“It wasn’t until I was old enough to understand it and after more therapy sessions, my father forced me into, that I realized I also avoided friendships, mainly with women. Until you, I believed control was the way to keep people from getting too close. You have been the only person I have been with long-term, and although I sense a change in me, I’m still afraid for you Chase. What if I snap and become like her?”

“Baby, you’re not evil. You’re not going to snap. Your self-sacrificing behavior is all the proof you need. A truly evil person wouldn’t care about protecting others. Only someone with a caring heart, would sacrifice the possibility of happiness to protect someone.”

She sat in silence, thinking on my words before she continued.

“Although my father has repeatedly sent me to therapy, it never sticks. I never want to talk about it or face how my mother’s actions have impacted me. How being exposed to the world on film at such an impressionable age has affected me. Some nights I wake up drenched in sweat, reliving every sick detail. No one wants to deal with someone that broken up inside. Do you even want me now that you know the disgusting things done to me by my own mother?”

I palmed her face, turning her to me.

“There is nothing that has happened or that you can say that will chase me away. I’m here for you, whatever you need, whatever you want to talk about. I’m never going to stop wanting you. No matter what. Do you hear me Jax?”

She nodded.

I squeezed her to me, hoping she believed me. When she returned my embrace with strength and nuzzled her face in my neck, I believed it was her way of reassuring me that she had accepted my words. We sat in the embrace for minutes before she let go.

She had bared secrets that had held her captive. Her warm tears spilled over my fingertips as I swiped them from below her puffy eyes. She swallowed, attempting to hold back the sadness that continued to grip her.

Through the tears, a smile tinged with relief eased onto her face, the sight warming my insides. I placed my lips against her ear.

“I’ll always have your best interest at heart. I’ll always do my best to protect you. I’d do anything to take away the pain I know you feel.”

My words squeezed past the tightness in my throat, and escaped the thick sorrow pressing down on me. I kissed the top of her hair and squeezed her even tighter.

“Thank you for sharing this with me. I’m sorry you had to suffer through such a traumatic time with the one person who should have encouraged and loved you. Your father was right. You’re nothing like that despicable woman, and no matter what kind of seed you came from, you took root and grew into someone smart, beautiful, and loving.”

I brushed a soothing stroke along her arms and back attempting to but knowing nothing I could do would ease away her pain. She needed to come to terms with what had happened in her past. She was willing to sacrifice her own happiness, because she believed she was sparing others from the kind of evil her mother had tortured her with. But, that was only a part of it. She feared having to share with anyone what had happened to her. She feared what would show up in films from the past. Being with me was a hazard to someone with a phobia of being filmed. There were still more layers to her story.

Did she not want to love anyone else because she feared it would be used against her, like her mother had used her father, to keep her locked into a horrific situation?

Did she blame herself for how her mother had turned out? What about her mother’s family, since their decision to disown her mother had put her in the she-devil’s wicked path? There was also the tattoos and piercings I believe she used as therapy and cover, something to shield her from a past she hadn’t gotten over, or truly confronted. What took her father so long to figure out what was going on with his daughter? Jax had shouldered a lot of the blame for her past when she was the only blameless person in the entire situation.

“If you would like to go to therapy again, I’ll help you. It may help you deal with the hurt and confront the mental pain that you’re suffering through. I’ll go with you if you want me to.”

She nodded. “To be honest, I’ve given it a lot of thought in the past few years. I know what demons are Chase, and I also know that I am far from being healed. For the sake of my future, I have to confront my past. I’ve been planning to find someone to talk to. As you said, I need help. I need to focus on getting myself together enough to be normal.”

My fingertips brushed her cheek. “Look at me Jax.” When she did, the endless depth of sorrow in her eyes put my emotions in a chokehold. “You are normal. There is nothing wrong with you. Talking to someone that may be able to help you sort through your feelings doesn’t equate to wrong, or abnormal.”

The crease of her smile deepened before she leaned in and placed a sweet kiss on my neck.

Patience had gotten me this far with her, and I believed it was the key ingredient to help me help her heal. I pressed my lips against her forehead before I tightened the hold I had on her.

“I’m here for you. To talk. To listen. To support you. Whatever you need.”

She lifted her head enough to capture my gaze. The warmth that surfaced in her expression this time stopped my spiel. I would be everything this woman ever wanted because she had always been everything I ever needed.

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