Don't Know If I Bleed

When I was young, before I ever met Jackson or Ope, I had a friend named Stephanie. We’d met in the third grade and were quick friends. I spent most of my days at her house, watching after-school specials on television and eating dinner with her family. Her mother would sit the two of us at the dining room table and make sure our homework got done, and if it was dark by the time we finished, she’d drive me home.

By the time middle school rolled around, she got a new set of friends. I was no longer invited to her house after the final bell rang and she didn’t sit with me on the bus anymore. If I saw her and her family out, they’d barely glance in my direction. Her mother would ask me how I was doing if she was alone, but to the rest of them, I no longer existed.

Jax’s desertion felt a little bit like that, only worse.

“He’ll come around, Jo,” Ope would tell me, though I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince himself or me. Ope did a lot for me, and I returned the favor as best I could. With Jax out of the picture, he needed a crutch. He and Jax had been born to be outlaws, and in some fucked up way, I was their validation. He needed someone to tell him there was purpose to what he did.

Tara had been gone nearly two months when Opie called me in the middle of the night in a panic. He told me Jax had gotten in a bar fight up near Stockton and needed someone to go get him. I didn’t argue; I’d been given an ultimatum when I was eighteen that I could either hang around the clubhouse and join the rest of the Crow Eaters or I could earn my keep and be useful.

He was slumped against the exterior of Jonesy’s looking just as pathetic as I’d imagined he would. I was disappointed that I’d have to wait until he was coherent to tell him that just because he saw himself as worthless and void of meaning didn’t mean that’s how everyone else saw him too. Maybe not as a best friend, but definitely a son and a friend. Most importantly, a Son, and if he was blackout drunk and slumped against a bar, he was easy pickings. Being the one to put a bullet between Jackson Teller’s eyes would be reason enough to be crowned king.

I kicked him in the leg. “Let’s go, Jackson.”

“Jo?” He was groggy and probably seeing triple, so I ignored him.

“Can you get up on your own?”

If it wasn’t the middle of the night and if I hadn’t been ripped out of a peaceful slumber, I would’ve found Jax’s attempts to appear less drunk than he was to be comical. I cursed Opie for tasking me with babysitting a grown man — one that was nearly twice my size — especially one I hadn’t spoken to in months.

“Why are you here?” he slurred. I slung his arm over my shoulders and tried as best I could to support his weight before he lost his balance and toppled over.

I dragged him back into a standing position. “Because Opie Winston is a piece of shit.”

Stockton was a cesspool of crime and violence. Taking a left when you should’ve taken a right usually resulted in getting your head blown off, and knowing this didn’t do much to protect me. An incoherent Jax Teller, who almost instantly blacked out in the front seat of my car once he was safely inside it, was of no use.

I saw him through my peripheral first. A stocky build with a few days worth of stubble, every nerve in my body was instantly on high alert. Nothing good came of being confronted by a stranger in the middle of the night.

“What’s a pretty little thing like—”

“Fuck off,” I snapped. I moved around the back of the car, trying to get to the driver’s side as quickly as I could.

“No need to be hostile, baby, I’m just trying to talk.”

Instinct told me to move faster but I couldn’t. As much as I hung around the club, I’d never been in this position before. There’d been countless other times when a drunken idiot hit on me or got a bit too hands-on, but Ope was always there to protect me. For all intents and purposes I was alone and I was vulnerable.

“Fuck off,” I repeated. Just as I reached for the handle, the man grabbed me. He reeked of smoke and filth, and the nausea that bubbled in my stomach told me this wasn’t the first time he’d done this.

A grin spread across his face as he looked inside the car. “Looks like your boyfriend’s out cold.” I stayed quiet, unsure of what to do. My brain was begging for Ope. “He won’t be able to help you, sweetheart.”

I choked back a sob; no use in being prideful now. Amanda McKee was right to think of us as degenerates. At least her loyalty wasn’t about to get her raped while her best friend slept two feet away.

The man’s grip on me broke just long enough to undo the zipper of his jeans, and it was only by sheer will that I was able to reach into my back pocket and get a handle on my knife.

There’s something savage about survival, something terrifying albeit rewarding in watching the life leave someone’s eyes and knowing it was at your hand. The sound of repeatedly puncturing layers of skin and guts in an effort to kill never stops playing over and over in your mind, and it isn’t until you’re in the safety of your own home do you allow yourself to reflect on what you’ve done. You’ve done something unforgivable, you’ve committed the ultimate sin, but you’re alive and he’s not.

I didn’t tell Jax what happened. Not at first, anyway. The blood was on my hands, not his, and the last thing I wanted was him feeling like he owed me something. I wanted nothing to do with Jackson anymore. But he knew. He’d figured it out the second he woke up and saw me covered in blood that was neither his nor mine.

“What happened, Jo?”

What happened, Jo? Not what did I do, not what have I done, but what happened.

A shaky hand cupped my cheek — the first contact he’d had with another human being since Tara left, most likely — and a look of utter helplessness embedded itself in his eyes. I didn’t want his pity, but he was dishing it out regardless.

“Nothing. It’s taken care of.”

He held me for a long time, not saying a word. I think he was expecting me to break down, to cry and beg for forgiveness over and over, but the funny part is that I felt fine. I wasn’t worried about getting caught and being hauled off to jail, nor did I terrorize myself for being a murderer. I’d become immune to violence a long time ago, but now I’d taken part in it.

After what felt like years, Jackson spoke the two words that vaulted me back to reality: “I’m sorry.”