Page 60 of Roots of the Wicked

In the moment, I was her listening ear or shoulder, but Jax needed more.

“She hurt me bad, Chase. So, so bad.” She spoke through her cries. “The first time I had sexat seventeen, I didn’t even have my virginity to give, because my mother took it. It had been captured on film as entertainment.”

Dear God in Heaven.

Jax’s eyes were deep pools of sorrow, the depth being filled with the blood spilling from my ripped apart heart. She stared at me, but at a glance, I sensed that she was blinded by the memory of her mother’s horrific abuse. It had been ten times worse than what she could describe. The pain of it emanated from her trembling body. She had survived an unimaginable darkness, one that pulled apart a person’s soul.

I moved to kneel in front of her and glanced through the haze of sorrow clouding my eyes. The pain etched in her face, the hurt that seeped through every syllable of her words, put a death grip on my heart.

“Why did she hate me so much?” Her watery gaze was on mine, her chin trembled as she fought to contain her crushing emotions. I couldn’t answer her question. No one could.

“I don’t know, baby. I don’t know. She was a rotten horrible person. Come here.”

She recoiled from my proximity. Her retelling of her horrific past likely had her questioning me wanting her.

“Nothing about your past will ever chase me away Jax. I need you to believe me.”

She nodded, biting her lips, and avoiding my eyes, her body rocking back and forth. Her sorrow had imprisoned her, locking her behind the impenetrable bars of sadness. I would find a way to break her out because seeing her this way had taken my will to be free without her.

I lifted her into my arms before adjusting us on the bed. Pulling her into a tight hold, I planted her head against my chest. She released some of the pent-up emotions she carried, through body racking cries. She shook so hard, I was afraid she might break. The heartbreaking tone of her cries raised goosebumps on my arms. Hot tears stung the backs of my eyes, and I allowed them to spill freely as I clung to her.

“I should have found a way to make her stop. Why didn’t I make her stop?”

She wept, deep and hard, her body jerking within my arms, as her tears wet my chest. God, I wish I knew how to take her pain away. I sensed she still felt the pain of her past, as deeply as she had when it happened to her. Now, I understood her need for control, and her unwillingness to forge relationships.

You never knew the true depths of someone else’s pain, the closest you could get was through loving them. Jax carried around a hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but her strength had endured and allowed her to carry the heavy burden that could’ve destroyed her.

The story also brought to light why she was never inclined to speak about her mother, or her childhood. It explained why she couldn’t find peace in sleep. Having her picture taken or being filmed was a trigger, a reminder of the physical, and mental torture she had suffered at the hands of her own mother.

After a moment, her cries dwindled, leaving our mingling breaths and her chest racking sniffs. We clung to each other until her sniffles died down and the rhythm of our breaths made the only sound.

She backed out of my hold, regaining the strength she’d let slip. Unwilling to let her go fully, I used my thumb to wipe away her tears. I didn’t care if she saw my puffy, tear-filled eyes or heard my weeping sniffs. She needed to know I cared, that I felt a touch of the pain she had suffered, the pain that still punished her.

“Jax, baby, you were a child. You didn’t do anything wrong. There was no way you could fight what was happening to you. It wasn’t your responsibility to make it stop. It should never have happened.” My quick breaths rushed out in fits and starts. My ability to control my emotions had been ripped away, but I fought to remain strong for her.

“She messed me up. I can’t hardly connect with people. Have difficulty forming friendships. Having a camera of any kind aimed at me makes me nervous. What she did to me, chases me in my sleep, and sometimes while I’m awake. Some days, I can’t even stand to look at my own body.”

She fingered the part of the tattoo starting on her hand.

“I started off cutting myself. I didn’t understand why I was doing it, but the pain was a tolerable one that I endured, because I was in control of it. I didn’t stop the cutting, until I started getting tattooed. I begged my father to let me get my first tattoo at fifteen. He said no, but I sneaked off and got it anyway, just to see if it would take the edge off my anxieties.”

Her hands brushed caringly over the tattoos on her arm. I think the tattoos and her piercings were some type of healing balm in some way.

“Tattoos are the scars we choose. They hurt, but they scab over and heal, leaving only the beauty behind. These tattoos are a reflection of what I wanted to see in myself. Something beautiful and meaningful.”

She unconsciously fingered the start of the tattoo at her wrist. “Looking in the mirror, and seeing my naked body was an unpleasant experience for me. The sight made me feel dirty and nasty. Sleazy. My tattoos have become more than just pretty body art, its like my protective cover.”

Pain thundered through her like a freight train, but all I had to offer as relief were soothing words and a caring embrace. I shook my head, but nothing could shake away the horrific images of a younger Jax being tortured by her mother.

“After this had gone on for quite some time, my father became suspicious. Since my mother didn’t work, her new car, clothes, and jewelry were a red flag. She would tell him they were gifts from her rich boyfriends. From the age of nine to twelve, she used me in her films. A few months after my twelfth birthday, is when the shit hit the fan. My father figured out what she had been doing to me. When I visited him, he started noticing that I was withdrawn, sad, and not my usual self around him. I would lie to him about how I got certain bruises when he found them. I guess he started watching me closer than I realized.

“My mother was a part of a group of porn stars, working under the umbrella of a shady Internet producer that knew how to keep the films underground. He had set it up so that only exclusive members knew how to gain access to the type of illegal porn they sold.

“This is another reason why the media attention terrifies me. Not knowing when or if someone that saw me then, would recognize me now. Not knowing how many of those recordings were saved by that sick audience. Are they still watching that sad and broken girl as a way to heighten their dark sexual desires?”

I searched her eyes for some respite but found none.

“Since my father was in law enforcement, he had access to the type of resources needed to investigate my mother. He had done enough digging to track down members of the underground pornography ring. With the evidence he found, he sent a lot of people to jail. The night he confronted my mother about me, she denied any wrongdoing. She told my father:

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