Today you were far away
And I didn't ask you why
What could I say?
I was far away
You just walked away
And I just watched you
What could I say?

How close am I to losing you?

—"About Today", The National

Years later, Tara still remembers the summer after her sophomore year as the best of her life. But maybe it's the hell of the years that succeed it that makes her remember it so rosily.

It's the year that Jax turns eighteen. A few days after the fourth of July—Tara thinks it's appropriate. No one has ever been a boy of summer more than Jax Teller. On the morning of his birthday she wakes up before him in her bed, stares at him, wondering at the sharper edges of his jaw and the broader lines of his shoulders. Today he is a man but to her he is still Jax, the boy who owns her heart, the boy who rides a Harley and carries a knife at his hip and who quietly steals her books after she's finished reading them.

That's who Jax is to her.

But now he's eighteen and Tara knows everything is going to change. She's sensed it on the rare occasions she goes to the clubhouse: a strange feeling in the air that has nothing to do with the changing weather. It's more like an electrical current has lit the club from within. More money, more women. More of the things Jax doesn't tell her, maybe the things that Jax doesn't even know. But today he's eighteen and that changes. Today Jax is a prospect.

Jax stirs from sleep and her moment of reflective worry is over. He opens his bleary eyes and smiles at her. "Morning, babe."

"Morning," she whispers.

"What time is it?"

"A little past ten," Tara says. Jax groans and rolls over, pushes himself off the bed, picks up last night's clothes. "Somewhere you need to be?"

"Yeah, gotta go by TM. Club shit." He shrugs into his t-shirt. There's a pang in her chest, an actual ache, as she looks at him. She could sit up and reach out and touch him and still feel like she's lost him. What he dismissively calls club shit is betrayed by the proud set of his jaw, the nervous energy that's set him rocking back on his heels.

Tara knows it is selfish but she finds herself wishing Jax wouldn't prospect. She doesn't know a lot about the club—Jax doesn't let her know a lot—but she knows its legacy of violence, knows that the town fears and loves it in equal measure. Sometimes when she's tucked under Jax's shoulder at parties at the clubhouse and the members don't really see her (she does not, after all, attend parties clothed only in pasties and hot pants like the crow eaters do and it affords her some measure of invisibility) she can listen to the conversations and read in between the lines. To the town SAMCRO are community servants keeping drugs off Charming's idyllic small town streets, but when Tara hears the casual references to violence, the references that are too specific to be hyperbolic, she wonders who the men really are.

Tara is afraid of the day that she looks at Jax and wonders the same thing.

When he leans down and drops a kiss on her forehead, smiling against her skin, she curls her fingers around the collar of his navy shirt. "Hey, Jax." He stills, expectant, and she stares into his bright eyes, a smile spreading mask-like across her lips. "Happy birthday," Tara whispers, and she pulls him down onto her and kisses him like she's saying goodbye.

(Jax is late to church.)

When Jax shows up to her house that night to pick her up for the party, he's wearing a cut and a top rocker.

On the first day of school Jax pulls up to the kiss and ride, not the student parking lot, and she climbs off the back of his bike with a question in her mouth and an answer in her head.

"Are you really skipping the first day?"

He does her the courtesy of pulling his sunglasses off so she can watch him squint repentantly in the new sun. "More like the year," he says, eyes crinkling like he knows she's not going to like what she hears. "It's for the best, Tara. I gotta take prospecting seriously. I can't get by on my old man's legacy." She's staring at him in disbelief and his face gets a little hard, defensive. "Look, it makes sense. I ain't made for school, anyway. Not like you. Gonna get my GED, work in the shop. It's not like I'm not gonna have a job."

"Fine," she says tightly. Her economy of words seems to be setting Jax on edge and he straightens up, his eyes flaring, trying to win a fight she hasn't picked. Yet.

"That's it?"

"Yeah, that's it," she bites back, and shoves her helmet against his chest, turns and stalks away. Then she thinks better of it and turns back around, right back up to him. "I don't care what you want to do, Jax. I'm not your keeper. But you don't even respect me enough to tell me."

Then she turns away again, for good this time, and storms toward the school. And she doesn't look back, but she watches his reflection in the smudged glass doors so she knows that while she's walking away he hasn't moved. Not at all.

A few days later Jax shows up to her house, not quite repentant, but softer around the edges. He rings the doorbell five minutes after her father leaves for the night shift and she thinks that he must have sat around the block waiting for him to leave, trying to keep the peace between her and her father. Her heart swells.

"Hey," he says, leaning against the doorframe. "My mom's having a dinner tonight. Sort of a family thing. Want to come?"

Although they've been dating for a solid few months, Tara has yet to really meet Gemma Teller. She's only been to the clubhouse a few times and Gemma was always in the middle of it all: holding court with the other old ladies with a presence as indomitable as her sons, too busy to pay attention to Tara. Truth be told, Gemma scared the shit out of her.

But Jax is looking at her with real hope in his eyes and she can't stand to have another thing in between them, so she says, "Okay," and opens her door to let him in.

When she meets Gemma Teller, she is wearing leather and thick blonde highlights in her hair. Up close, she is ageless, almost: not that she looks younger than she is, but she has an energy to her that's detectable only in her orbit. A curious combination of grace and hardness, catlike in the subtle ferocity of her presence.

"It's so good to finally meet you, honey," Gemma says. She wraps her in a perfumed hug and then tips Tara's chin up to examine her. She feels like a child. "Look at those eyes. You're a beautiful one, aren't you."

Tara would feel like a real asshole if she said thank you like she agreed so she smiles shyly instead. "Come on," says Gemma. "Why don't you help me with the salad." Jax gives her a motivational pat on the back as his mother leads her off into the kitchen.

There are half a dozen other old ladies in there. They are all in heels, their hair teased, their tits out—it's not what Tara thinks of when she thinks family dinner. In her jeans and plaid shirt she feels underdressed but she's thinking that in this crowd, it's not such a bad thing.

Gemma sets her to work and waits a few minutes before the questions start. "How old are you, sweetie?"

"Sixteen." Tara drops the tomatoes into the salad. "Seventeen in a few weeks."

"Important time." Gemma doesn't look at her when she asks, "You started thinking what you want to do with your life?"

Has she? Jesus, she doesn't know. She takes advanced classes—she could graduate early if she wanted to—and according to the guidance counselor, she has a "bright future ahead of her". But she doesn't know what that future is. Hasn't given much thought to it. What would the point be? There's no way she could afford to go to college, and even if she could get scholarships, her father…

"I don't know," she says honestly. "Not really. I'm just focused on high school right now. My mom died when I was young, so my dad doesn't really have anyone to take care of him."

She sees Gemma's posture soften, senses she's said the right thing. "That's real good of you, honey. Family," says Gemma, "is the most important thing in the world." She puts down her platter of rolls and looks dead at Tara. "My boy loves you. He can't hide his feelings for shit. And all this," she says, nodding her chin at the bikers and old ladies settling down around the long dining room table, "is gonna be his responsibility someday. It's his birthright. And he's gonna need a strong woman to stand by him."

A strong woman? Holy shit, Tara thinks. She's sixteen years old. She's barely been able to drive herself to school for a few months and Gemma is unloading this on her like she's got to start preparing herself for it. And the way she says it, Tara's not sure if Gemma is giving her blessing or warning her off. Which is the more frightening option—she's not sure.

"Come on, Tara," says Gemma, patting her on the shoulder. "Let's eat."

"Thanks for comin'," Jax says. He's idling in her driveway, safe with her father gone. "My mom really liked you."

"You think?" Tara says. She couldn't tell.

"Yeah, I promise. How could she not?" He flashes his big grin at her, a slash of white in the moonlight. After a night of sitting ramrod straight in her chair, of considering every word that comes out of her mouth to make sure she doesn't sound stupid or rude or condescending, it's his smile that finally sets her at ease. She heaves a long-held sigh out and covers his hand with her own.

"Thank you," she says sincerely, and jerks her head in the general direction of her bedroom window. "Want to come up? You don't even have to be gone by sunrise," she teases.

He turns his hand up so his palm his against hers and pulls her toward him. She stumbles a little bit and laughs against his mouth when he kisses her.

"Sounds perfect," he says, "but I can't. I've gotta run by TM, take care of some shit."

"Oh," she says, trying not to sound disappointed. She doesn't want to have the same fight with him. So she gives him another kiss and backs away from the bike. "Goodnight."

"Night, babe. Love you."

"Love you, too," she says, and watches him even after he disappears, wondering where he was, where he was going, as if staring after him could bring him back home to her.

The next morning, when she wakes up, she watches the news and sees a headline about a body found out on the side of the highway. A body wearing a cut—a member of the Mayans.

Is that where Jax was last night? Maybe. She doesn't know. Doesn't want to let herself wonder, and the part of her that wants to believe that Jax isn't involved tells her that Jax is a prospect, and if the Sons of Anarchy really are murderers, they wouldn't trust an eighteen year old kid to get the job done. (An eighteen year old with a birthright, says Gemma's voice in her head.) But still, her heart clenches and she wonders if it's possible that Jax could as easily tell her he loves her as take a life, and she wonders what it means for her—if she could kiss him and send him off to do it and love him despite it.

He's gonna need a strong woman to stand by him.