Guardian Angels ✔

52 - Pouring Hearts Out

Alex drank herself to sleep, so that she woke up with an aching leg and a pounding head next morning. She had fallen asleep on the couch and when she raised herself, all her muscles felt sore. Struggling to the kitchen, she slammed a glass of water and a handful of painkillers and stared out of the window. She felt numb. Lonely. 

Her fingers clenched around the edge of the counter top as images plagued her. Dirt raining down on her, blood, Kozik's shocked face. The blast crashed through her, all air was beaten out of her lungs as she hit the ground. Her heart was pounding like crazy like she was back in the minefield. 

Alex took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She however found no relief. She didn't even know if Kozik would make it to the end of the day. He might just die in a couple of hours; and she would be the cause of his suffering.

It felt like something dark was creeping around her, something with deadly claws and smoldering eyes. Her stomach cringed, goose bumps spread across her body. For a moment she even thought to feel a warm breathing in her neck, caused by a memory she thought she had banished. When her hand went for the coffee maker, a reflection in the mirror startled her. Wildly she turned around, but there was no one but her. 

Alex tried to swallow. It felt like something was stuck in her throat. An accumulation of tears – tears that had been there since the moment that she found Juice with a chain around his neck. She hadn't cried since that day, as if she knew the same fate would come over her if she did surrender to the feelings she had hidden so deeply. Feelings that had destroyed her mother, that had almost destroyed Juice. 

Juice... The thought of him made her heart squeeze painfully. Even with a hangover she understood very well why he had left. Her own snark echoed in her head. She didn't even know why she had yelled those words, why she had wanted to hurt him so deeply. So that he would be the one feeling like shit? So she could comfort him again, now he no longer seemed to need her comfort? She had wanted him to be happy again, but now he was no longer broken down, it felt like the attention was shifted towards her and it suffocated her. He suffocated her – she suffocated herself. Everything was just suffocating – she was dying for a break, for fresh air, far away from Charming. Maybe that would help her to shake off that exhausting darkness, those shadows that felt like the ghost of the man who had raped her. 

There however was no chance she could leave now. Clay and Jax would think she didn't dare to look them in the eye after yesterday and although she usually didn't care about what others were thinking of her, the opinion of her President and VP did matter. 

Today however she decided to stay home. Since she was using crutches, there wasn't much work she could do in the garage anyway, and now she could take a breath and prepare herself for a confrontation with Jax and Clay. And maybe with Juice too... She shook off the thought. No, Juice and her were done talking. He was better off without her.

. . .

"Ye lover felt too shitty to work today?" Chibs slapped Juice on the shoulder as he sat down on the chair next to him. 

"Wouldn't know," the man grumbled. "I guess, he walks around on crutches."

Chibs chuckled. "That means shit with that guy."

Juice gritted his teeth and turned his head away, leaving Chibs flabbergasted. Apparently the two young lads were in a fight. 

"Yeah, we should talk about that guy," Jax groaned. "I don't need a brother who's pointing a gun at my head to have things his way."