Lungs

I heard the telltale grumble of a Harley engine as I towel-dried my hair. I pulled on a pair of shorts and a tank top. I was about to walk into the kitchen when the sound of voices made me stop.

“You tell her, or I will,” Chibs’ Scottish accent rang out clearly through the silence of the house. He sounded angry.

“I’ll tell her,” Juice replied. “It’s not like I’d keep this a secret.”

“You might, if you thought she’d leave you.”

I froze solid. What the hell had Juice done that might make me want to leave?

“Do I have to tell her tonight?”

“It’s not fair to anyone to keep this a secret. Look, I’ll do what I can to help you in the morning, but tonight you’ve got to do this. I love that girl as much as my own daughter, and if I find out that you kept this from her, you’ll suffer for it. She deserves better than that, Juice. She’s stood by your side for this long, and she’s worried about you. She told me so earlier. You’ve got to talk to her.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked out into the kitchen, pretending to look surprised by the two men standing there. “Oh, hey, what brings you by, Chibs?” I hoped they couldn’t hear the strain beneath my forced light tone. “He didn’t get himself shot again, did he?”

Chibs shot a look at Juice before he turned to me. “No, he didn’t get shot. I should go. I love you, dear. Call me if you need me.” He gave me one last lingering smile, then turned and left the house.

I turned to Juice, letting my confusion show. “What was that about?”

Yet again, he avoided looking me in the eyes. “He just knows that we’ve been having a little trouble. He says you told him you’re worried about me.”

“That’s because I am,” I agreed. “You haven’t said anything about Miles. It’s not healthy to keep that inside.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“And I know that Roosevelt has been hauling you in for stupid shit. It’s not fair that he’s picking on you like that. And it’s definitely a bad time for a cop to decide to single you out.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that.”

“If you don’t want to talk, just tell me. I know that it’s hard to open up about it, but it freaks me out when you just don’t look at me. And then yesterday, you looked like you’d reached your breaking point, and then you just shut me out again. And as much as everything else that’s going on isn’t fair to you, that isn’t fair to me.”

He looked at me then, and his eyes were flooded. Juice drew in a shaky breath. “God, I am so sorry.”

As he tilted his head back to look up at the ceiling, something caught my eye. I reached out, flattening the collar of his cut. A monstrous, purple and black bruise had swelled beneath his skin, spanning one side of his throat. The sight made my breathing come to a grinding halt. It looked almost like it circled around his neck. It was almost like...

“What the fuck is that?”

“Lex, listen-”

“Tell me that’s not what it looks like,” I begged, stepping back. My hands were shaking. His lack of an immediate, defensive reaction told me that my assumption was correct. My chest was suddenly heavy, as if someone had pulled out my lungs and replaced them with solid lead. “Juice, how could you?” I breathed.

“I didn’t know what else to do!”

My jaw fell slack. I backed myself against the counter, gripping onto the edge for support. “You didn’t know what else to do?” I repeated dumbly.

His eyes were wide, pleading for me to hear him out. “It just all happened so fast and it felt like there was no way out. It was a moment of weakness. Please forgive me.”

“When did it get this bad? When did you decide that you couldn’t come to me? Jesus, Juice, when did you decide that hanging yourself was a better option that letting me in? I could have helped you!” With each accusing point I made, my voice grew stronger. Pain, shock, and anger all swirled together inside of me. I felt hot tears sting my eyes. Suddenly, everything hurt.

“You don’t know what it was like,” he turned away, unable to look at me yet again.

“I don’t know? I’m the one person who might possibly get it.”

“No, Lex, you don’t!” Juice yelled.

Once the shock of his raised voice had worn off, I found that I wanted to scream back at him. “What are you talking about? I have been in your shoes, Juan Carlos! You were there, for Christ’s sake!”

“That was different,” he stressed. “That was in self defense.”

“So was yours,” I argued. “You got shot!”

“Maybe I deserved to.”

My anger ebbed. I saw then in the slump of his shoulders and the way his body was nearly caving in on itself that he was far more broken than I had thought. He was hurting more than I knew. Maybe this hadn’t been so much a stupid reaction as it was a cry for help. Maybe I hadn’t been trying hard enough to reach out to him. I stepped closer, putting a careful hand on his shoulder.

“Nobody deserves to get shot. There was nothing more that you could have done. He would have destroyed the club if you hadn’t caught him.”

He shrugged away from me, and my hand fell limply by my side. “No, he wouldn’t have.”

“Juice, you’re not making any sense. I know that you don’t want to talk about this, but I don’t think you have a choice anymore.”

His shoulders heaved as he forced himself to breathe deeply. He stared down at the counter as he spoke, choosing each word carefully. “I haven’t been getting brought into the police station for piss tests. They’ve got something on me.”

“What do they have?” I found that my curiosity was far greater than my rage over the fact that he’d kept this a secret from me.

“Lex, you’ve got to understand that I just can’t tell you.”

There was defeat in him, and I felt my fury swell again, like the tide coming in. He couldn’t just bring something like that up and then decide to keep it to himself. “You can’t tell me? You just tried to kill yourself, and you can’t tell me why? That’s bullshit. You owe me more than that!”

“This is not about you!” Juice spun to face me, straightening up and looking pissed off that I was choosing this moment to start a fight. His reaction only infuriated me more.

“It’s not about me? How the fuck is this not about me? I stayed in Charming for you. I waited around while you served your prison sentence. My whole fucking life revolves around you! And now you think that you can just shut me out over something like this?” I shrieked. “You asshole! What would I do without you? Did you even stop to think about me? Did I even cross your mind?”

“You’re all I thought about!” he matched the growing volume of my voice. “I was doing it to protect you, okay?”

“To protect me from what? From having someone in my life that I can trust? You’re all I have!”

“You have family. I don’t have that.”

“We have the same family,” I argued with a shake of my head.

“No, Lex, not like that. I can’t ever go back to Queens and see my real family. I’ve got no blood here. And you have Jax and Gemma and Clay. Hell, you’ve even got a sister in Ireland now.”

The fact that he had brought up Trinity left a sour taste in my mouth. He’d known that that was a sensitive issue with me, and it felt like he was using it against me now. “Do you want to know how many times I’ve talked to Trinity since we left Belfast?” I managed to use a calm, rational tone. “Zero. Not even once. My father – my hero – had another family on the other side of the world. I was supposed to be his little girl. But now suddenly, over fifteen years after his death, I find out that he’s got another daughter. And maybe he loved her more. He certainly loved Maureen more than Mom. Why else would he go and start a family with her there when he had us here? But I don’t get to know the truth. I never will. Because my dad is dead. You can at least take comfort in the fact that your family is alive.”

Juice’s jaw clenched dangerously. “How did this turn into a discussion about your daddy issues?”

I felt my entire face fall slack. Juice had never spoken to me like this. Even when we’d fought, he’d always tried so hard to make things right. Now, I wanted nothing more than to punch him in the face. How dare he throw insults when he’d done something so horrendous already?

“So, what, you’re pushing me away now? Do you think making me hate you is going to make what you’ve done easier to handle?”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Bullshit. I know you better than that. You’re trying to make me mad enough that I’ll leave and you can finish the job, right?”

“Are you done?”

“I don’t know; should I be?” We both knew that I wasn’t referring to the fight.

“I’m not going to kill myself,” the dejected air returned to him as he slumped back against the counter.

My voice quivered as my rage dissolved into a pain that I had never experienced before. Juice was the person I had always been able to depend on. He was the one I turned to for everything, and I had almost lost him. Worse, he had wanted to end it all himself. If I wasn’t enough to keep him from attempting suicide, I didn’t know what else I could do to convince him to live. “I just got you back, Juice. I know that these last couple of weeks have been difficult, and I’ve noticed you pulling away. But I can’t lose you. Not like this. You’re hurting; I get that. But I can’t help you if you won’t let me. And next time you try, you’re not going to fail. I can’t be around when that happens.”

He looked over at me, hurt in his eyes. It was almost as if he had been trying to make me leave, but now that the threat was in the air, he was afraid of that very thing. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, wilting in upon himself.

I felt like I should go to him and wrap him up safely in my arms, but I found that I couldn’t move. I felt a sharp sting in my fingertips at the thought of touching him. The one person who had always been the one to take away my pain was now the one causing it. He had a pathetic air about him now, and I knew that he was ashamed of what he’d done. But that did nothing to help me.

“Tell me why,” I said softly. “Tell me what they’ve got on you that made this seem like your only option.”

“I,” he paused. I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he fought to figure out what he wanted to say. “I thought of you. And I know that you were serious when you said you wanted to have kids with me. And I knew that the only way that you would ever leave Charming again would be if I wasn’t here anymore. I need to know that you’re safe.”

“Safe from what?” I demanded.

The silence that followed was infuriating. I left the kitchen, disappearing into the bedroom. He didn’t follow me, and I began tossing clothes into a small duffel bag. I had no idea where I was going, but I couldn’t stay here. Not tonight. I couldn’t look at him while he was sleeping and see the innocent, unlined face that I loved so much. He wasn’t that person anymore. Something was twisted, broken, and jagged.

I had left the bedroom door wide open, but when Juice spoke next it seemed as though he still had not left the kitchen. “I get it. I’ll sleep on the couch,” he told me.

I left the bedroom, bag in hand. “Don’t bother.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I couldn’t go to my mother’s place, or even Jax’s. Chibs was the only one who knew about this, I was willing to wager. And somehow I didn’t even want to see him. Anyone from the club was off-limits for tonight. It would only upset me to see them.

“Lex, don’t go,” Juice pleaded, sorrow tainting his tone.

I grabbed my car keys from the counter, then stopped before I reached the door. I stood perfectly still for a long moment, keeping my back to him as I gathered my thoughts. “You tried to kill yourself,” I whispered. I knew that he could hear me, despite the low volume of my words. “After everything, you thought that dying was better than telling me what was going on. And it seems like you still think that, because you won’t tell me a goddamn thing. I love you, and I want to help you. But I can’t do that when you’re not giving me anything to work with. And I sure as hell can’t do it tonight. Because when I look at you I don’t know whether to cry or to hurt you. I need time to think about this. I need to think about us.” I took a step forward, and rested my hand on the doorknob. I drew in a deep breath. “But unfortunately, this doesn’t change how much I want you. I’ll come home when I feel like I can look at you again.”

“You don’t have to go,” he begged. I could hear that his voice was thick with emotion. “This is your home. I’ll go. I’ll stay with Chibs tonight. Just please, Lex, don’t go.”

I didn’t reply, I simply pulled open the door and stepped outside. There was a crisp wind, and I was immediately chilled to the bone. I really should have stopped long enough to put pants or a sweater on. Instead of turning back, I hurried to my car. As I drove down the deserted streets of residential Charming, I thought about where I could go. I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t connected to the club in some form or another. Even Madison had a connection to SAMCRO through her work. But she was probably the person who was furthest away from the actual people involved. Desperate, I called her.

“Lexi?” she asked, sounding surprised by the late-night call. I couldn’t blame her; we hadn’t seen much of one another lately.

“Hey, I need a place to sleep tonight. Can I come over?”

There was a pause. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ll explain when I get there.”

I pulled into the parking lot of my old apartment building. Madison buzzed me up, and a few moments later I was standing in the living room facing the fire escape that had been a part of so many of my nightmares. This was the room that I’d been abducted in, and I’d let Madison take the apartment once I discovered that I was too frightened to sleep there anymore. Tonight, however, that fire escape was the last thing on my mind.

Madison brought a pillow and a thick blanket out to the living room so that I could sleep on the couch. She stopped short when she caught sight of my attire. “Left in a hurry?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Bad fight with Juice. He offered to sleep on the couch, but I just couldn’t stay there tonight.”

“You must be really pissed,” she said as she dropped the linens on the couch. “You guys always slept in the same bed after fighting when I was there.”

“This one was different. He… I don’t know, I just couldn’t stay,” I stumbled over my words. I didn’t want anyone to know what he’d done. It was dangerous information.

“Well, stay as long as you want. God knows I owe you that much. If you want to talk in the morning, I’ll be around. Tomorrow’s my day off.”

I nodded as she retreated back toward the bedroom. “Thanks, Madison.”

But, of course, I didn’t sleep. My mind was searching for anything that might have warned me about what had happened. I replayed every conversation we’d had lately in my mind. Things hadn’t been right since Opie’s wedding. I had been so focused on not losing him now that I hadn’t stopped to consider that maybe I’d already lost him. We hadn’t really spoken in far too long. He’d been hiding from me, and maybe I’d let him. I hadn’t wanted to push him, and now that seemed like a terrible mistake.

When Madison came out of the bedroom that morning, I had long since given up on sleep entirely. I was sitting up, staring down at my hands. I looked over at her as she walked in, and she paused.

“That bad, huh?” she asked, giving me a sympathetic grimace.

I nodded. “Worse, actually. I really don’t know what’s going to happen. He did something really stupid, and I know the club is going to be pissed. But more than that, I’m pissed. I’m this awful combination of enraged and heartbroken. I don’t know what to do.”

“What happened?” Madison sat down beside me.

“I don’t even know all of it. He started to say something and then he shut up again. And he said it’s not about me but I don’t know how anyone could just not take that personally. I’m just so scared. I really might lose him.”

“If you guys can’t make it, there’s literally no hope for anyone else. We’re all screwed.”

I sighed deeply, rubbing my tired eyes. “God, if I am that standard that you’re using here, everyone’s already screwed. You remember that he just got out of prison, right? We haven’t had a normal relationship.”

“What is normal anymore?” she asked. “I mean, when Opie and Lyla first hooked up, I thought that was perfect. But look at them now.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What do you mean? I heard there was trouble, but I don’t know what happened between them.”

Madison’s eyes widened in surprise. She clearly knew something that I didn’t. “He slept with Ima. Lyla went and got all her shit from their house. She’s crashing with one of the other girls.”

If Lyla still hadn’t come home, Opie had probably worried just as much about her as I had about Juice. And now they were split.

“I really thought they might make it,” I murmured. “But Ima?” I continued, thrown more by who Opie had slept with than the simple fact that he’d done it. “Gross. I hope Lyla kicked her ass. If she didn’t, I might have to do it for her.”

Madison looked away. “They’re really not kidding when they say that you Tellers are all the same.”

“Jax?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Broke her nose.”

“Good. She deserves it.”

Madison stood up, stepping in front of me so that she could literally look down on me. “Does she? Doesn’t Opie deserve any blame?”

I groaned. I had come here to avoid fighting with Juice, and now I was apparently fighting with Madison. “Of course he does. If Piney hasn’t kicked his ass already, he will. Jax too, probably. Listen, thanks for the couch last night. I need to go figure this shit out.”

She backed off, giving me room to pass. “If you need a place to stay again tonight, just give me a call.” Madison sounded as though she genuinely wanted to help, despite how angry she’d seemed only a moment before.

“Yeah, thanks, I might.”