31. The Truth Will Set You Free

I'm being fixed by him once again. With deft hands, he cleans and applies ointments to my smaller cuts. There's one that's larger, deeper than the rest.

"Here." He pulls off his shirt and hands it to me.

"What's this for?" I hold the blood-stained fabric in my hands.

"I'm going to have to sew this one up. It's pretty deep, so you may want to bite down on that," he informs me. I glance at the image of him in the rusted mirror and then back to the object in question. "Or… I could give you a bump of drugs to numb you, but you'll still feel it a little."

I ponder my options. Feel everything or feel some of it. It seems like a no-brainer, but I have to ask. "What's the catch to taking the drug option?"

He pinches his lips together and glances down. "There's no catch."

"You're hiding something. You told me you would tell me everything. No more secrets." I cross my arms, cocking a hip and arching a brow.

He clears his throat. "I know. You're right. Okay. I quit doing drugs after I met you. I was addicted. I've been fixing you, but I think you fixed me too."

"So this will be hard for you? If I take the drugs?" I ask not sure of what to do in this situation. I've never experienced anything like this.

"Yes, but…" He runs a hand through his hair. "I think with you it will be easier. You make it easier to breathe. You make it easier…to be."

I turn, facing him head-on, and grasp his face in my hands. "With you, anything feels possible. With you, my life started." I lightly peck his lips, and he hooks an arm around my back, pulling me flush to him, deepening the kiss. My body fills with lightning bugs, their tiny lights flashing in the dark. When we finally break, I say, "We'll get through anything. Now," I push my hair to one side, giving my back to him. "sew me up."

The scent of him from the shirt in my mouth is soothing, but with every stitch, there's a stab of pain. I bite down and groan through it. It will all be over soon. His hands stroke my sides, easing the agony as he works on my back. I could've taken the medicine. He wouldn't have denied me. I know it would've been hard for him, just as working here is probably hard for him, but I can't drown the pain. Not now. I can't help him if I don't have a level head. Eighteen stitches and five steri-strips later, he's done. He pours cold water over his work, rinsing the area. The coolness takes the sting away, curbing the burn, and I remove the T-shirt from my mouth.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, slathering me in mupirocin.

"I've been better." I grip the edge of the counter. "It's painful, tight, but bearable."

"I know." He strokes my arms and back lightly until I'm tingly from his touch. We could stay here forever, lost in each other. I'd love that. "Are you ready to see what I do here? Or do you need to take a moment?"

Spinning around to face, I wrap my arms around his neck. "I'd like to take a moment here with you." He places his hands on my bare hips, and I lean into him, placing my head on his chest. His warmth thaws out my nerves as I'm about to find what I'm really in for.

I'm eye to eye with the tattoo on his chest that extends to his arm. It's almost identical to Johnny's except for the one directly over his heart. It's a black outline of a safety pin through a heart. I lazily trace it and blurt out. "Did you and your brother get matching tattoos?"

"That wasn't the plan. There was a point in college away from our father that I thought we could be close. I tried to forget my childhood and move on with my life. We shared a dorm room because of our last name, where we were forced to tolerate each other. That tolerance eventually grew into a bond. We would hang out together and even have deep conversations about girls, friends, school, class, just anything. All except for our childhood. I don't think he wanted to remember how he treated me or how he and Sampson would set me up for our father's punishments." Jax rubs my sides absentmindedly. It's like it soothes him just as much as me. "I decided we were in a good place and brought up the idea of getting our first tattoos together. He was Mr. Goodie Two-shoes. I thought if I could get him to do something he wouldn't normally do, then he would be more likely to hear me out. You know?"

I nod against his chest, urging him to keep going. Part of me wants to know more about Johnny. Not because I wanted him back but to solidify that he was nothing like what I made him out to be in my head. This is also the first time I've ever slowed down with Jax, getting to know him on more than just a sexual level. I'm hanging on every word, absorbing him like a sponge.

"Well, we were in separate rooms with different artists, working at the same time. When we were finished, and both looked at our pieces in the mirror, I noticed he had switched his design out for mine."

"So he got it to match you?"

"Yeah," he whispers against the crown of my head.

"When did it change between the two of you?" I know there's more to this. They didn't end happily ever after, considering Jeremey was dead on my table.

"After that, I thought I could trust him. Talk to him even. I tried bringing up our mother's death because I had no one else to talk to about it. That she was murdered. But he insisted I didn't know what I was talking about. It was like we were kids again. The normal life I tried to build in college crumbled. The nightmares came back, and I couldn't sleep, so I went to parties. My grades dropped, so I started cheating on tests. Then, one day, Jeremy found a test I bought from a previous pre-med student. He threatened to turn me into the school, but instead, he turned his back on me. He packed up his stuff and started living with Sampson off campus, leaving me to fend for myself all over again. I think he didn't turn me in because he'd gained some sort of empathy during our time together."

My heart is breaking for him. He had no one on his side. I bury my face in his chest and breathe in his scent. His cologne is faint, masked by his intoxicating, natural musk. "I'm so sorry you went through that. I need you to know that I'll never leave you."

"I hope not." He holds me for a moment longer before grabbing my face and forcing me to look at him. "Are you ready to see what I do for a living?"

I arch a brow at him. "Are you going to keep fucking corpses with me?"

That makes his lip twitch, fighting a smile. "I think we can make that happen." Then he slips his shirt over my head before grabbing my hand. "Come on, Dead Girl. Let me show you."