Saved By A Bad Boy

[1]. If Only...

~ 1 Year Later ~

"He won't go in it, and he won't let you go in it, either," I reminded Maya for the umpteenth time today as I slammed my dark blue locker shut with enough force to dent the metal. Today was the fourteenth of September.

It was also Jax's eighteenth birthday.

For most kids, they get clothes or shoes or gift cards for their eighteenth birthday. Maybe - if they're really lucky - they'd get a car or something. But for Jax's eighteenth birthday, he'd be receiving a garage full of cars, billions of dollars, and - most likely - a four-story mansion.

Bayridge High School was buzzing with rumors concerning Jax and his affairs. Almost everyone knew that today, as a legal adult, Jax would gain complete access to the everything left behind for him in his mother's will after she passed away ten months ago. Almost everyone was hoping that Jax would use his new home and his new freedom to throw epic parties like he used to whenever his mom was gone on a business meeting or something.

But I knew him better than that.

Jax wouldn't touch the mansion, nor would he touch the cars and the money. He'd been granted permission to go through the mansion shortly after Mrs. Maxwell's passing, yet he didn't even open her bedroom door. So today would be just like any other day for Jax Maxwell, except for the fact that billions of dollars in net worth would soon be added to his name.

"Come on, Alyssa, of course he'll want to go into the house. It's his freaking mansion!" Maya protested, tossing her backpack over her shoulder as I collected my textbooks. Her voice grew unnaturally somber when she added, "It's been ten months. He has to at least start moving on at some point." I sighed, staring up into the round gray eyes of Maya Stanton, the only trait she received from her aunt.

"He's not going to move on yet," I told her quietly, beginning my descent down the crowded hallways as students hustled by in the slow-moving foot traffic.

"But the mansion has been sitting there for ages without any management whatsoever. It's, like, top ten real estate in Chicago," Maya pressed on. I decided not to point out the fact that paid workers had been maintaining the Maxwell Mansion for the past ten months, keeping it spotless and pristine. I could imagine all the furniture still tucked away inside, covered in plastic tarps. 

Jax wouldn't go inside. Not tonight.

I might not be his best friend any more, and he might hate my guts, but that doesn't mean I don't know him.

I tried not to think of everything that had changed when Jax found out his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Everything was going perfectly up to that point. Then it all burned and crumbled to ash. 

Just like that.

He was devastated after finding out, and I watched him close himself off, day by day. Nothing could've prepared us for the moment when the doctor announced that she suddenly only had a month to live. I remember watching him stand there, still as a stone when the news was announced. I don't think it sunk in until later that night, though.

The night he came to my house in writhing pain, and I only tore him apart more.

That was the day my relationship with Jax met its ultimate match. I used to think there wasn't a power in the world that could sever our bond.

But heartbreak is a powerful, powerful thing.

I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood as I tried to close off those memories. There's a lot of horrible things that have happened in my past, but the day I lost Jax...that was probably the worst thing I can remember. I couldn't relive that night. Not now, and not ever.