AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Hey guys! I really hope you're enjoying the final arc of this story, I'm planning around 3 more chapters after this one so just need that final push of motivation to finish now haha! ;)
Today is the start of the big showdown with Jaxon...! Let me know what you think!
Love Becky xx
***
Chapter 29
Confrontation
We are standing outside Jaxon's front door. It looks like it's been newly painted. Actually, the whole house looks pretty new. It's the epitome of middle-class suburban living. There's even a cute little front garden with rows of colourful flowers and a quaint wooden gate that creaks when you open it.
So much for being homeless. This place is picture perfect. I thought Jaxon came from a world of dirty streets and neglect, not the kind of cosy family sanctuary you'd see on the front of an Ideal Home magazine.
Chunk is right beside me, watching me closely. "Are you OK?"
He can obviously see the terror which is slowly spreading over my face the nearer we get to the door. "I don't know..."
"You can wait in the van if you like," he suggests. "I'll go in and take care of things, you don't have to face him if you don't want to."
"What are you going to do?" I ask, biting my lip. We don't have a plan at all. I haven't thought much beyond getting to the door and now I have no idea what to do.
"I'm taking his phone," Chunk answers decisively. "I'm getting that photo back and putting an end to this once and for all."
He's still being powered by his fury. And I think I need to tap into that same energy too. Because I'm furious too. I'm absolutely furious that someone who claimed to love me could ever treat me this way.
Without thinking, I loudly slam the door knocker. "I'm coming in too. He's not getting away with this."
It's weird but I've almost forgotten where I am or why I'm here. I'm lost in this moment of sheer determined willpower. My need for justice. But when the door slowly opens revealing the one and only Jaxon Stark on the other side, my stomach drops and all my defences come crashing down easily.
Two piercing blue eyes. Dark, messed up hair falling into his face. A toned, tattooed shoulder and luscious lips framed by a metal ring. For a split second, my body betrays me, completely forgetting who this man really is. All I feel is a rush of love at his familiar features.
And then he scowls at me, taking in Chunk at my side and for the first time I see him in another light. Mean eyes and a childish, sulky expression that reveals his inner poison. He's not handsome like this. Not now I see it dripping so clearly out of his pores.
"What the fuck?" he spits out at us.
Before he can slam the door back In our faces, Chunk barges through the doorframe. "Where is it?"
"Where's what?" Jaxon answers spikily. "Why the hell are you here?"
I scurry behind Chunk and into the house with my head down. All my bravado has evaporated and now I can't even bear to look Jaxon in the eye. Instead, I focus on the hallway we're now standing in. Pristine white walls, jovial family photos, and little candle ornaments lining a spotless side cabinet. This place is just as perfect inside as it is outside.
"Ash told me what you're doing," Chunk says, squaring up to his friend. "Where the hell is that photo?"
Jaxon closes the front door. And as he does so he laughs. Bitterly and spitefully. The way bullies laugh when they're honing in on their targets.
"Oh my God, are you fucking kidding me?" he chuckles to himself. "Little Minxy's been out telling tales and now Chunky Monkey is running to the rescue? I hate to break it you, but knights in shining armour don't tend to get out of breath when they run."
He leans back against the door with his arms folded, smirking. Declaring war.
Chunk doesn't even flinch. It seems like he's used to nasty remarks like this, which makes my heart hurt more than I had anticipated.
"Just give me the photo," Chunk repeats firmly. "And then we'll go."
Jaxon doesn't move an inch. He just keeps leaning and gives a lethargic, arrogant shrug of his shoulders. "Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about."
Then he shoots me a wicked look. One that suggests he knows exactly what Chunk is talking about. I remain completely mute, unable to utter a single syllable under his penetrating glare.
This is who I thought I was in love with? This childish, cocky, cruel manipulator? How could I have been so disgustingly blind?
"What's up, Ash?" he sneers at me. "Cat got your tongue? You've obviously had plenty to say when my back's been turned."
I open my mouth to retaliate but nothing comes. What am I doing here? He's never going to apologise or co-operate. He won't even admit he's wrong. I should have stayed in the van like I was supposed to. I should have just gone back home.
"Look, I'm sorry things didn't work out the way you wanted," Jaxon continues. "But I suggest you grow up and deal with it. We had some fun and now it's over. You're just embarrassing yourself barging in here and making up stupid stories."
His words are the final straw. They pile up on top of my back, getting heavier and heavier until my bones finally crack and I have no choice but to unleash all the pain out of my body in one almighty burst.
"ME making up stories?!" I shout. "You've done nothing but lie to me since the day I met you! You've lied about EVERYTHING." My face is flushing red and my blood is burning. I take a daring step closer, shooting my response like a round of bullets. "YOU. ARE. A. LIAR."
"You're fucking crazy!" Jaxon blasts back. He storms away from the doorway, recoiling from me like I'm walking garbage. "I can't give you whatever the hell you want from me so just leave me alone."
"Me leave you alone?!" I screech indignantly. "You're the one who's cyber-harassing me!"
He walks toward Chunk, shaking his head pityingly. "I don't know what the hell she's been telling you mate, but don't believe a word of it. She's just pissed that we broke up."
Of course this is how he's going to play this. Making out like I'm the psycho, bunny-boiler ex-girlfriend whilst he's the sweet, innocent victim who just wanted a clean break with no hard feelings. I almost think he's believing his own lies since he's telling them oh so convincingly,
"You KNOW what you sent to me," I practically scream, feeling tears clawing at my eyes. "I've got the message right here on my phone, stop LYING."
"You're INSANE, Ashleigh," Jaxon replies in a shout. "I think you need mental help. Look at what you've done to yourself, to your hair and... what the fuck are you even wearing now? Some old sheet? You're clearly not well."
I clutch at the sleeve of Chunk's work overalls. How is this happening? How can Jaxon turn black into white and up into down with just a mere flick of his tongue?
"Chloe rang me just now, she said you were in the studio. Stalking me at work. Trying to get my tattoo or something. That's not normal behaviour, Ash. You're totally unstable."
No. She didn't ring him to say those things about me. She's my friend. She was furious that Jaxon stole her ideas and that's why she was ringing.
Or maybe I really am going completely and utterly mad. Maybe everyone is turning against me.
Maybe this is all my fault, just like I secretly feared it was from the very beginning.
"Right, that's it," Chunk suddenly announces across the chaos. "I'm not having this. I'm NOT, Jaxon."
He rages up the staircase, climbing them two at a time until he reaches a door on the landing.
"What are you doing?!" Jaxon yells, running after him.
"Making sure that photo never sees the light of day."
I can't stay here at the bottom of the stairs. I run up after them, my heart pounding in my chest, until I'm suddenly standing just behind them in Jaxon's bedroom. It's navy blue, covered in dirty clothes and torn-out pages from tattoo magazines. More designs for him to plagiarise no doubt.
He also has a King-sized double bed, a shelf filled with expensive-looking gadgets and a state-of-the-art laptop on a desk in the corner. Everything looks expensive. So much for being poor. He's even got a giant telly on the wall with three games consoles hooked up to it.
Chunk hones straight in on the laptop, grabbing it with both hands and yanking it off the desk. Jaxon shadows him like a hawk, smacking him away from his property. "Get the fuck OFF! This is theft!"
"Not when it's evidence," Chunk shouts back. He's stronger than Jaxon and manages to keep a firm grip on the laptop. They are both barging into each other, pulling it back and forth like two children fighting over a toy. All I can do is gape and watch them from the side of the room as their squabbling begins to escalate at an alarming rate.
"You're supposed to be my mate," Jaxon snarls. They're still pushing, harder and harder into one another's shoulders. "But now you're siding with her? I reckon you're just bitter I got there first, aren't you?"
Chunk's face falls into an expression I've never, ever seen on him before. A dangerous expression. "Shut your mouth, Jaxon."
With that, Jaxon lets go of the laptop, a sinister smile creeping across his face. "Oh, touched a nerve have I, Fatboy? I thought Ash knew you've been pining over her like a pathetic puppydog? That's why she came to me in the first place, to get the hell away from you."
OK, now I'm confused. What the hell is he talking about? Chunk is my FRIEND. Is this seriously the best ammunition Jaxon has to try and hurt either of us?
Only when I look over at Chunk... he does look hurt. His cheeks are burning red and his eyes are wide and glassy.
"I said, SHUT YOUR MOUTH," he bellows, his face getting redder by the second. His voice is so loud that it makes me jump. "Just give me your phone and then leave us both the hell alone!"
"Oh my God, she doesn't even know does she?" Jaxon continues in a mocking taunt. "You're literally invisible to her. I think that might be even worse than being rejected. I've always told you to lose some weight and get a fucking life, maybe if you actually took my advice she'd be in your bed instead of mine."
I'm overwhelmed with all these words and accusations. They're putrid and twisted, talking about me like I'm some kind of territory to claim. Attacking Chunk for the way he looks. Trying to pull him into some evil little game. Why is Jaxon even saying these things? Surely I've never been someone that Charlie feels like THAT about.
Because I'd know if he liked me. We've been in each other's lives for years and I'd just KNOW something like that.
Finally, I find my voice, somewhere right in the back of my throat. And before I know it, the sound is shooting out, cutting across the ever-growing tension which is billowing around the room.
"STOP being so horrible," I scream. "Just STOP IT! How can you keep treating people like this?! Don't you care about anyone at all?!"
Jaxon laughs at me. That same, spiteful laugh he keeps repeating over and over, no matter what I say or do. It pierces into my skin like metal shards.
"I'm just being honest, darling," he says patronisingly. "Do you even realise how much I've had to hear about you over the years? The sweet little red-head girl from the pub round the corner who comes into the shop all smiles and sunshine? Ash this, Ash that, oh she's so cute and giggly and funny, blah blah fucking blah."
I'm pinned to the spot, unsure what to make of this information. I feel like I can't trust another word out of Jaxon's mouth. But beside him, Chunk is still glowing. Staring down at his feet in humiliation.
Is it true? Was he really talking about me all the time? It never even occurred to me that he would feel like that. I mean, he's Chunk! He's nice and caring to everyone. I had no idea that I would mean anything special to him. Oh God. Why have I never noticed before?
"I was sick of hearing about you," Jaxon continues in a snide manner. "I was like, mate, if you want to fuck her just make a move already. And he never did. It was so lame." He takes a rather intimidating step towards me. "Then FINALLY he asked you out to The Fishtank and I got to see what all the fuss was about. It made me feel kind of... competitive."
Pieces of our first meeting fall into my mind. Me crying in Chunk's shop and him asking me to come out to cheer myself up. I had no idea he'd been building himself up for so long to ask me that. I just thought he was being nice. And all night, I stuck to Jaxon like a magnet, hanging on his every word.
He never liked me, not even from the start. It was all just a game to him. I was only ever something he could snatch away from someone else.
Jaxon turns around to face Chunk, forcing him to finally look up and meet his eye. "I think it pretty much says everything that this girl has literally looked through you for YEARS, but one night with me and she was practically throwing her knickers off. I was doing you a favour to show you her true colours. Clearly she's not the pure little angel you thought she was."
I can tell Chunk is about to explode in retaliation, but to the surprise of everyone in the room, I get there first. Burning white rage is gripping me.
I am not an object. I am not a prize to be won. I am not pure or dirty or anything in between.
I am Ashleigh Apple. And I'm finally remembering that.
"You are DISGUSTING," I shout at the top of my voice. And I run up and I push Jaxon hard in the shoulders, catching him completely off guard. "Stop talking about me like I'm nothing. I AM NOT NOTHING."
For a second, a glint of panic appears in his eyes, but he masks it instantly with more nasty bravado.
"Woah, OK, so now you're trying to make me into the villain? Seriously, Minx, you can't deny any of this. It didn't take much to persuade you to drop all your precious morals did it? Just a little bit of sweet talk and you were throwing yourself at me. Easiest lay of my life."
"I thought you LOVED me," I counter angrily. "And clearly I completely misjudged what a rabid dog you are, but guess what Jaxon? That says way more about YOU than it does about me. I have NOTHING to be ashamed of."
I'm not having him throw this onto me. I'm not going to feel guilty for loving or for trusting someone. He opens his mouth to pour out more poison but I interrupt him instantly.
"You can say what you want about Chunk, he's more of a man then you will EVER be. He's never judged me or pushed me into things I don't want. He's never put me into a box of being a good girl or a bad girl. I'm neither. I'm just ME. And you have never, ever deserved me!"
For once, I'm not shaking, I'm not crying. I'm showing Jaxon exactly who I've been all along, under the layers of terrible decisions. Maybe if he ever took the chance to get to know me at all, he would have realised this side of me was always there. It just needed the confidence to finally come out.
Jaxon starts clapping, slowly and sarcastically. "Wow, bravo. Nice little speech, Ash. Now you can feel like such a strong, independent woman instead of the little slag you really are."
Slag. It's such a loaded word. It reduces me to nothing but a bit of scum floating on the surface of Jaxon's life. That's all he sees me as.
How could I have wasted so much of my heart on someone like this? What the hell was wrong with me?
"Don't talk about Ashleigh like that," a furious voice sounds out. Chunk has been keeping silent, letting me speak, but now he's backing me up. Like he's done right from the start. With everything.
"Mate, it's what she is," Jaxon answers. "A dirty little slag. I know you don't want to hear it, but it's the truth. She couldn't wait to give up her V card in the middle of a playground. I mean, I was happy to help her out, but it's kind of sad how desperate she was. She dressed herself up like a slut for me and spread her legs quicker than I could get the condom out."
I feel sick. I don't want to hear this. I don't even want to think about that night. The blur surrounding my memory is ebbing and flowing, letting little drips of truth in through the cracks. The sound of that awful condom coming out the packet. Nausea in my stomach. Saying no. I definitely said no.
Chunk is still gripping hold of Jaxon's laptop tightly. In fact, he's gripping it so hard it looks like it's about to smash apart inside of his hands.
"She couldn't remember anything. That's not sex Jaxon, that's rape."
The word explodes like a bomb in this tiny bedroom. It rips into my body and disintegrates me from the inside out.
Nothing happened in the end that night. But it could have done. It was just one more second away from happening. I was one more second away from being a rape victim.
The very term sounds utterly ludicrous to me. But I was drunk and I didn't know what I was doing. So that's exactly what it was. Rape. I didn't even realise, that's how utterly stupid I am. I thought that I was being shown love, but I was being used and abused, in ways I couldn't even contemplate.
Jaxon's face turns white as a sheet. "Fuck off, I'm not a rapist."
He doesn't even know. That's how spoilt and self-entitled he is. He doesn't even KNOW what he almost took from me.
"I told you no," I say, staring Jaxon down bravely. "I told you NO and you just kept on going. If I hadn't been sick you would have gone all the way."
"This is pathetic," Jaxon scoffs back. "Don't you DARE try and pin shit like that onto me just because you regret going too far with me. You WANTED it, Ash. You can't just run to your little friendy-wendy and cry rape now you feel bad about it."
Did I want it? I don't remember. I wanted something. I wanted love and attention. And I was curious. And I fancied him.
But I didn't want my head pressed down into the ground. I didn't want my body pulled around without my permission. I didn't want everything bare and on display in the middle of a public place.
I didn't want Jaxon intruding into me. I didn't. And I never once said that I did.
"I was drunk and I said no," I repeat, so sure of myself now that I know he'll never convince me otherwise. Not this time. "You were wrong to try and force me. You were wrong."
There is a long silence where Jaxon simply stares, the realisation of his own actions slotting into place. I wonder how much he remembers of that night himself. He's claiming I'm the delusional one here, but he's obviously been seeing a very different version of the truth as well.
He scrambles in his back pocket for his phone, tapping the screen with shaking fingers.
"Oh yeah, I'm such a monster. Well, guess what? Maybe I DO have that precious photo you're both so keen to see. I think you'll find it shows a very different story to whatever you've decided to make up."
Chunk throws the laptop he's holding onto Jaxon's bed and charges forward. "Give me your phone, NOW."
Jaxon leaps backwards, holding the phone up high in the air just out of Chunk's reach. There on the screen is me. Naked. Breasts bared. Winking at the camera. Chunk sees it and I want to curl up into a tiny ball and die right there on the spot.
"GIVE IT TO ME," Chunk yells, so fiercely that I'm surprised the neighbours aren't banging on the door to see what the commotion is.
"THIS is the truth," Jaxon exclaims, still waving the phone around so Chunk can't get to it. "Does this look like someone about to be raped? She wanted it. She was GAGGING for it. And I was more than happy to scratch that itch since she wasn't going to get it from you. She was starving for some decent cock and that's what I fucking well gave her!"
I barely have time to digest any of what Jaxon is saying because the next thing I know there is an almighty cracking sound as Chunk pulls his strong arm back and punches Jaxon in the face. His action is so swift, so brutal and full of intent that I can't help but gasp aloud in surprise.
The phone with my photo crashes onto the ground.
And Jaxon falls with it, clutching his bloodied nose and bursting into quite sudden hysterical tears.