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Jax
"Jax, I really don't see how I can get you out of it this time," Linda somberly said to me, plucking her glasses from her sharp nose as she heavily sighed. I was probably one of the very few who knew the Charming High's counselor by her first name; we'd grown quite acquainted over my wicked years of disobedience, and her feeble attempts to set me on the right path were always unrewarded. She'd put her ass on the line daily, tossing me community service deeds, janitorial "helping" crew, and over a dozen detention cards instead of my inevitable expulsion – the one the board had been begging to hand out to me. Linda fed them mental and emotional bullshit, keeping me educated in hopes of a diploma in the Teller family. My latest perpetration was a kid's broken nose, who'd thought it wise to crack on the death of my father.
"He was white fucking trash, he deserved to eat fucking dir-" He never even got a swing in; he was writhing on the tile floor of the hallways, bloody palms holding the face I'd ruined, before he'd finished the last word.
I felt guilty, surrendering now after everything Linda had done. They wouldn't have to expel me, I'd be going willingly, because it was time. There was nothing there for me between those walls anymore. I needed to be educated in bikes, in knives, in running guns, in burying Mayan bodies. It was my blood, my preordained course to fulfill in the namesake of my father and wear the cut he swore his life by. SamCro was calling me, retching its unforgiving, brash claws into my skin while I let it. I'd never carry a diploma, I'd never go to college. I'd never leave Charming. My place was in that clubhouse, in a chair during chapel.
After a few beats, I took a deep breath, and nodded to myself. It's time. "It's alright, darlin'. I just came by to drop out."
When I heard the last bell resound through the building, I walked out of Charming High for the last time, no longer a boy, but a man. A man forging his own way out of the confines of authority, already feeling like an outlaw.
As I made my way to my bike, I saw her. Hands full of books, long, chestnut hair flung over one shoulder, eyes averted to her brown healed boots with each clacking step on the pavement that she took. Tara. I smiled a little to myself, rerouting to meet her halfway on the courtyard. For some reason, it'd felt like I'd never see her again; that night was happenstance, something fate drew up out of shits and giggles to remind me who I was. I knew she wasn't from my world, or else I would've known her before my party, and somehow that made her a passing ship in the night – something meant for another direction and admiration from afar. But seeing her now made me want to capture it.
"Tara." I greeted, stepping slightly in front of her. It must have scared her because she jerked with a small gasp, dropping all the books cradled in her arms.
"Shit! I didn't mean to scare you." I apologized as both of us leaned down to gather her things. She started to laugh, looking up at me with reverence.
"Oh, no, it's totally not you. I'm easily excitable." She rolled her eyes at herself, and I smirked, trying not to say anything about the sexual connotations behind it. Something about Tara screamed innocence; I didn't want it to be me who made her uncomfortable.
After we'd gathered her books, we both stood, smiling at one another. "Hi." I finally said.
"Hi, Jax." She responded, obviously just as happy to see me again. "How're you?"
"I'm great. Free, actually. I kinda just..." I scratched the back of my head, pausing a bit before admitting, "dropped out."
Tara's full lips pouted into an 'o' of shock, dark eyebrows arching in question. "Really? You think that's... I don't know, a good idea?"
I chuckled a little, kicking the grass beneath my white tennis shoe. "For Charming High's student body? Hell yeah." I joked, shrugging my shoulders nonchalantly.
She looked at me in a bashfully concerned kind of way, pausing as if trying to find the right words. I saw my mom do it so many times before, when she wanted to show concern, but didn't know how without crossing my thin lines. "And for you?" Tara hesitantly questioned.
"I have bigger things going on."
"Like the Sons of Anarchy?" She came clean with her knowledge, and I liked that. I liked that she was smart, meek, a little quiet, but a straight shooter. It meant there was fire inside of her – a fire I wanted to know.
I nodded, another smirk playing on my lips. She'd confessed that she knew who I was, and it was like an omission of herself to me. "Something like that."
She nodded back, accepting it, shifting the pile of books in her hand. "Well, then, I hope it works out for you."
"Yeah, thanks. Where you headed?"
"To the bus. I'm actually going to miss it if I don't hurry," She responded, looking over her shoulder at the slew of yellow vehicles ready to give students rides home. I guessed that Tara was either fifteen, or a monetary value shy of having her own ways of getting to and fro.
"I can take you, if you want?" It wasn't pity that made me blurt the words, but more of the want to spend more time with her. I didn't want to see her go yet. She... intrigued me. Maybe because she was so different from the other girls I'd been involved with, or maybe it was the attraction I felt when she looked at me with those big hazel eyes, like she was seeing something other than the name, the corruption, the lost boy without a cause. It was like she was seeing the parts of me that were tired, aimless, useless, and she wanted to know why they were there, buried under the mask of strength.
Tara smiled, like I'd read her mind. "I'd like that. Yes."
"Do you want to come in for a little while?" Tara asked me, sliding off the back of my bike and removing my helmet.
"Love to." Without hesitation. I kicked the stand on my bike in her vacant driveway, maneuvering off and following her to the porch. "Folks home?" It was second nature to ask when a girl invited you inside. It was either fake uncomfortable politeness, or relax just the two of us.
"It's just one folk. Mom passed when I was nine, and dad's at work until five. I have to warn you, though, the house is a mess. He's a bit of a hoarder," She responded, twisting a key into the door one handed and holding the books with the other. When she struggled a bit, I took the books from her arm, giving her more leverage.
"Thanks," Tara mumbled, before opening her door.
She was right. Her dad was a fucking hoarder.
There were boxes upon boxes piled waist length high, filled with trinkets, photos, albums, and what looked like other knick-knacky junk that I didn't get a good enough look at. I didn't want to be rude by staring at it when she warned me that it'd be there, probably in embarrassment. We had to weave through the labyrinth to get to the kitchen, which was fairly un-cluttered, considering the rest of the house. Tara sat her keys on the table, and I laid her pile of schoolbooks beside them. Chemistry. Calculus. Honors Biology.
Damn, Tara was no fucking joke.
"Want something to drink?"
"Beer?" I responded, sliding into a wooden chair.
She looked over her shoulder with a grimace, obviously scolding me with a look. "Something that won't get you scraped off the road when you ride home?"
I couldn't help but laugh at the sass coming out of her, the first I'd ever seen. I knew I'd been right about the fire. "Soda is fine, darlin'."
She brought two colas from the fridge, and then sat down across from me at the kitchen table. After we both cracked them open and had a few sips, the talking started. She told me about her dad, his progressive drinking since the death of his wife, Tara's mother. She told me about school, her love for science, math, and her dreams of working with children. She told me she had high hopes for college, wanting to travel, spend time somewhere in a big city that snowed in the winter.
I told her about the club. My father's tragic death. My mother, spending obscenely late nights with Clay and sometimes staying out the entire night. I told her about Opie, our friendship since diapers, and Juice who came shortly after. I told her that all I ever wanted in life was to ride my Harley, and be respected the way that my father was. To feel something, to feel important.
And we talked even more after that, because we couldn't stop. Because she wanted to know everything, just like I wanted to know everything about her.
We kept talking, until she looked at the clock on the counter. "My dad will be home soon. I don't think he'll like us being here alone together."
I nodded in agreement, understanding. "I have some things I need to take care of. I'll get out of your hair," I got up from the table, stretching from the long two hours spent camped, enthralled in conversation. Had I ever done something like that before?
"Hold on." Tara quickly said, getting up from the table and going to a drawer. She pulled out a tablet and a pen, scribbling something down and then tearing it from its seams. She handed it over to me."Call me, okay?"
I grinned at her, holding the piece with her name and number in my hand. "Okay."