The Anarchist's Heart

The house was too cold. No, I was too warm under the blankets. My pillow appeared to be far too lumpy. It was too quiet but I couldn’t sleep with the TV on. The room was too dark but I couldn’t sleep with a light on. I was thirsty, I think, and I also had to pee.

All my tossing and turning caused Felix to depart from the bedroom with a sigh and an annoyed “me-row.” I offered him my apologies but he of course ignored it. I had no idea what my problem was; no matter what I tried I couldn’t get comfortable and my eyes would not remain shut. The electric clock glared 1:13 in the morning and I was tempted to throw a pillow at it, or unplug it.

I was home alone; Jax had gone on club business after supper and had yet to return. I’d tried phoning him before I crawled into bed but there was no answer. I tried to not let it worry me, but it did. What if he was in trouble? In his business that wasn’t a far-fetched concern. He hadn’t told me much about what he was going to do, and I won’t lie, it irked me. What if something really bad happened? How would I know where he was or what the circumstances were? I knew very well that he was in the business of dealing guns and consorting with rival clubs but that didn’t make it any easier on me; it just opened up a whole new can of deadly possibilities for him to dive into, unbeknownst to me.

As I laid there staring up at the ceiling I began to realize that this whole issue was a major contributor to our last break-up. I had had no idea what he was getting up to with the club and he had refused to tell me. “It’s none of your concern and I don’t need you getting involved anyway.” “I’ve just…I’ve gotta do it, El. For him.” John Teller. A good man, as far as I had ever known, but some days I cursed him for what he did to his only surviving son. Maybe he didn’t mean to drive him into the club’s hands, but I think he knew it was inevitable. That was the club monarchy, after all. The family line. The first-born son; the chosen one. Destined to sit in that leather chair at the head of that scarred table, making decisions on other people’s fates and lives. The main player in a nasty chess game. How could he do that to Jax? Sometimes, when John was still alive, he’d look at me with something strange in his eyes that I could only interpret as his acknowledgement that I could give his son a completely different life; a better one, a normal one. And yet even John knew that Jax was already too deep into club business; he had been since he was born and certainly for as long as I had known him. I thought back to the first conversation I’d had with Jax, despite how fuzzy it was: “I belong to the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club, just like my daddy.” Ever since he was five that had been all he’d wanted, and nothing I could offer would sound better to him. John knew it, and so did I.

However, I was older now and so was Jax. I needed to be with him because when I wasn’t, I was somebody I didn’t like all that much. I was finally ready to accept the path he’d chosen for himself, even though mine wasn’t quite the same. While I would never allow myself to become the next Gemma, I would support Jax with all I had and give him whatever he needed from me because, simply put, I loved him more than I’d loved anything or anyone else. Alex was barely a memory when I was with Jax. It sounds awful, I know, and I do feel bad about it. I’d had fun playing professional house with Alex, pretending to get my one shot at a normal life. But the life he’d given me wasn’t what I really wanted and it’d taken me ten years to realize that. I wanted my own life, doing what I wanted to do, but it was nothing unless I had Jax with me. I guess that’s kind of one of the main principles of love, isn’t it? You want to have a good life and be able to make yourself happy and comfortable, but it all means nothing if you don’t have that one person right by your side. That’s what I’d felt for ten years: nothing; false happiness. I’d almost forgotten what the real thing felt like.

I groaned, begging my mind to shut up so I could sleep. But I knew it was all futile, so I figured I’d at least go get some water, or if I was really desperate, warm milk. I sighed and ran my fingers through my tangled hair as I started to feel my way along the hallway to the kitchen. Before I could get there, though, I heard keys in the door and my heart did a leap. Finally.

“Hey, I’m glad you’re home, I couldn’t—” My voice caught in my throat. He looked miserable. His hands were caked with dirt and his frown lines were accentuated with dust and blood that didn’t appear to be his own. He actually appeared a little frightening in the dim lighting.

“I didn’t think you’d be up,” he said in a monotone voice. He turned away from me to shut and re-lock the door.

“Well…” I swallowed, “I am. Are you okay? You were gone for a long time.”

“I know. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I just need a shower. We were out in the middle of nowhere; it was dirty.”

“And bloody, I see?” I turned on the kitchen light. He winced.

“A bit,” he responded, walking over to the fridge. He grabbed the carton of apple juice and began to drink from it.

“Jax…”

“Hey, you should go back to bed. I’ll meet you in there in twenty minutes.”

“I came out here because I couldn’t sleep,” I answered plainly.

“Oh.”

I took his hands in mine. They were unforgiving at first; ignorant to my touch. But after a moment they tightened ever so slightly between my fingers.

“Jax, please. I want this time to be the real deal. I left last time because you wouldn’t open up to me. If you want this to work as much as I do…you need to tell me what’s happening.”

“That’s club business anyway, El—”

“Yeah but when you get hurt, it becomes my business.”

Jax gave a weak, almost exasperated, smile and a single, slow nod of his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m serious, you know.”

He looked me in the eye. “I know.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Then talk to me.”

He heaved a deep sigh and then was quiet for a moment. We both took a seat at the table and he stretched back as he sat on it and winced a little. I wondered if the bruises on his ribs had turned purple yet. He began tapping his fingers in a random pattern on the table. I covered his hand with mine again.

“Another club tried to screw us over with money,” he explained quietly. “Things got heated and before I knew it guns were being pointed and cocked. I got kicked around a bit; the blood’s not mine.” He shook his head and scoffed darkly. “God, and it’s all for such a stupid reason. Clay’s pushing the club further and further into a shit storm and nothing I say or do can fix anything. I’m still a kid to him; every time I try to speak up for the club he shuts me down, like it’s not my right or my problem. If we could just get away from drugs, sever ties completely, and go back to just guns—and hell, I wouldn’t mind getting us out of that at some point, too. Things would be so much better.”

I was silent for a short moment. At the mention of Clay something sour fell into my stomach and I could taste it on my tongue. He was a bad man; a liar and a murderer. Without even thinking, the words came out of my mouth and the voice was so deadly soft it hardly even sounded like my voice. Even Jax gave me a strange look for a second.

“Clay’s getting old. His time is almost up and he knows it.”

There was a pause before he spoke. “My mother said something similar the other day.”

I took in a small breath and withdrew my hand from his. My jaw tightened.

“I just don’t want this club swallowing you up like it did so many others. I mean you’re already going to school with a gun because someone made you feel unsafe. I just don’t want that for you. I guess that’s why I kept everything from you. That, and I was scared of what it’d make you think of me. I was—I am scared that I’ll tell you something I did and you’ll think of me as some disgusting monster because that’s what I am. Sometimes I can’t even get that image out of the mirror.”

I softened my gaze. “I don’t think of you that way.”

“But you might, one day,” Jax muttered. “I mean you weren’t even here for very long at all and your…your fiancée got killed by—by my club. If Gemma hadn’t gone and riled him up to spite you I wouldn’t have—it wouldn’t have happened.”

My heart dropped. I hadn’t thought about Alex in a very long time, which sounded bad but I hadn’t been feeling badly about it. I saw immense guilt in Jax’s face and I instinctively moved my chair closer to his.

“Alex wasn’t your fault though, Jax,” I said. “I don’t think of you as the monster; Clay was the one who killed him. He pulled the trigger, not you. That’s all on Clay and Gemma; I don’t blame you for it.”

His face contorted in pain for half a second, then he ran his hand over it and cleared his throat. Slowly, he stood up.

“I’m gonna go shower. Go get back into bed, alright? I’ll be there right away.” He leaned down and left a long kiss on my head, then headed to the bathroom. A few seconds later I heard the shower begin to run.

He seemed very broken up about Alex. I guess I’d never really thought about if it had affected him or not; I just assumed it hadn’t. I mean, he never liked the guy that I knew of, and he wasn’t the one who killed him. None of it was his fault, so why did it bother him so much? If it meant I could take away some of his unnecessary guilt maybe I’d ask him to talk to me about it. Now that we were on a full-disclosure policy, I was sure he’d open up and tell me everything he needed to.