“Do you realize what you’ve done? How much damage this might cause? My mother’s disease was never supposed to become fodder for the fucking media!”
“Jax...” I stood, then flinched when he shoved away from his desk so violently he knocked his desk chair over. “I know this is terribly personal—and painful—but a lot of families are impacted by mental illness. People are going to understand and—”
“She wasn’t crazy, Gia,” he said coldly. “She was a drunk.”
The venom in his voice took me aback.
He faced the window. “She couldn’t handle the pressure.”
That single statement told me so much. My eyes burned as memories coalesced in my mind and were refracted back with a clarity I’d lacked before. “Alcoholism is an illness, Jax. You said it yourself.”
“She was weak.” His arms crossed. “She married the wrong man for what she wanted.”
“They loved each other. That’s what you told me before.”
He shrugged. “Parker is trying to change the world. She would’ve preferred him to just change the light bulb or a channel on the television.”
“She didn’t like politics?”
“She didn’t like the life that goes with them.” Jax faced me. “Agendas require allies and allies require compromises. She didn’t like some of the compromises that had to be made. Alcohol was liquid courage for her. She used it as a crutch.”
I deflated into my chair, overloaded by the emotional highs and lows I’d bounced between all day. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with Jax and hold him, but I knew he’d never let me help. That stung.
“Jax... When you said someone you loved had been torn up by the stress, you were talking about her, weren’t you?”
He flinched, and I finally felt like I had a shot at understanding him. I certainly understood why he’d been such an ass about the drink I’d had at Rossi’s...and why there was suddenly no alcohol in the apartment. If he thought the situation with Ted and my dad was enough to drive me to drink, he’d worry about how future—more stressful—incidences would affect me. And I couldn’t forget that we’d met in a bar...
“She was a lot like you,” he said in a tone that wasn’t complimentary at all. “Her family...her expectations of what a relationship with my dad would be like. She thought that being politically aware and active was a choice, instead of a responsibility.”
I felt the need to defend Leslie Rutledge, a woman I would never meet but still sympathized with. It wasn’t easy living with the rules Jax set but didn’t always share. “If she was kept in the dark like me, I don’t blame her for not being on the same page with the rest of you.”
“My dad told her everything, that was his mistake. He wanted her approval, but all he did was alienate her. Sometimes the end justifies the means, and the means can be ugly.”
I took a shaky breath. “You’re so angry with her.”
“I have a right to be! She tried to make me choose between her vision and my father’s. No one should be forced into that position, least of all a teenager.” He rolled his shoulders back. “I can’t get into this with you now. I’ve got to do...something. Damage control. If that’s even possible.”
“What can I do?”
Closing his eyes, he bowed his head. The defeat in his posture broke my heart, but his next words cut me wide open. “You should go stay with your brothers tonight. And pack a couple days’ worth of clothes.”
Pain made me lash out in self-defense. “Did you cut your mom off like this, too? Is that how you deal with the people who love you when they inconvenience you?”
“For all of her faults,” he bit out between clenched teeth, “she never sabotaged us!”
“That’s not fair! I made a mistake, Jax, and I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am. But I made it because I love you, not because I wanted to hurt you.”
He opened his eyes. “This whole relationship has been a mistake.”
The flat finality in his voice sent ice coursing through my veins. “You know what, Jackson Rutledge? Fuck you.
9
“I GET WHY you did it,” Nico said, “but I’d be seriously pissed if a chick I was seeing sicced some investigator after me.”
My brother’s voice and the background sound of a busy evening at Rossi’s anchored my nerves.
“We’re not seeing each other,” I argued, staring at the half-packed suitcase waiting at my side, reminding me that things were in a precarious place with Jax and me. “We live together.”
“That’s worse. You have to ask a woman outside of your relationship for news about the guy you’re shacked up with? That’s some whack shit, Gianna. I’m gonna ask you again: is this really the way you want to be living?”
I scowled at him through the phone. “No, of course not.”
“Then get the fuck out of there and hook up with a decent guy who gives you what you want.”
“I tried that. It didn’t happen for me.”
He snorted. “Try harder.”
“Can you stop being so negative for a minute and help me find a way out of this mess? Why is it that guys are always trying to problem solve when we just want to vent? Then, when we do want solutions, they’ve got nothin’?”
“The solution to being with the wrong guy is to leave. There. Solved.”