Destined to Change (17 page)

Chapter 8

Jaxon – 17 years old

“Son, its time for you to make some difficult life choices. You’ve been in front of me on more than a couple occasions. I’ve watched you get a little more lost each time you’re brought in. I know you haven’t had the best lot in life, but when a boy gets to a certain age he has to decide what kind of man he wants to be, and son, you need to be making that decision soon.”

I knew Judge Powell was right. If I didn’t make some changes I was going to end up in prison or in the ground. This was a fact - true history - as my mom would call it, but I just couldn’t get my life straightened out. I didn’t care what happened to me. I never had really.

I grew up in Richmond, California. My mom, Sue, tried to raise me right, but my dad left when I was a baby so everything was much harder for her. My mom was born and raised in a small town in Missouri. She met my dad, Jack, when she visited Camp Pendelton for a cousin’s bootcamp graduation ceremony. He was a contractor who worked on the base there. They had a whirlwind week long romance.

When she got back to Missouri and found out she was pregnant, she contacted my dad. He apparently wasn’t real excited about being a dad, but he told her if she would move to Richmond with him he would marry her and raise me. That marriage lasted until I was two months old. Then he took off and that was that.

Life was hard for my mom and me. After my dad left, mom had to work three jobs just to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I loved her with all of my heart. She was the most amazing woman ever, but after my dad took off on her, she was never really the same, or so I’d heard.

She could’ve moved back to Missouri and lived around family, but she was embarrassed and ashamed of what had happened with my dad. So we stayed in California and she tried her best to raise me right. I did not help her with that at all.

I started out drinking when I was about twelve. Drinking was an awesome way to get my mind off of what was going on in my life. I got my first piercing when I was thirteen. I was drunk. Some guy at the party I was at took a needle and pierced my eyebrow. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but in a room full of badass kids I sure wasn’t going to show any pain.

Soon drinking just wasn’t enough, I needed more. My friend Ratz, - his real name was Toby Ratzen - started dealing drugs when we were fourteen. He introduced me to a whole crazy world of hell. I just wanted to get out of my head, but what Ratz got me into almost got me out of this world.

I woke up and I couldn’t figure out why I was so hot. I was smothering and I couldn’t quit shaking. I felt like I was literally going to shake out of my skin. And it was so fucking bright in that room. I felt like if I tried hard enough I could reach out and touch the sun.

“Baby,
oh God
, baby. Please wake up. Please be okay. I can’t live without you Jax, wake up!” Stacy was screaming at me. Stacy and I had been together for two years. We planned to get married and get the hell out of this horrible town as soon as she finished high school. I quit last year, I didn’t need school, I just needed her and my next fix.

Soon pot wasn’t enough, and I had to start dealing with Ratz so I could feed my own addiction. Stacy was so fucking pure. Like the snow. No matter what I tried to give her, she wouldn’t use drugs. She really loved me and wanted a future with me. Why couldn’t she understand how fucked in the head I was? I never understood why she wanted to be with me. But she did, so I decided I was going to straighten up. I didn’t give a shit about me. I had to do it for her.

That’s what had started the downward spiral that got me in front of Judge Powell today.

I tried to open my eyes. Stacy was still screaming, and I could feel something seeping down my face into my eye. My pants were wet. Oh shit, I’d pissed myself. I couldn’t do this to her. I had to get away. She deserved so much better than me and my fucked up life.

“Jax, please tell me you're okay baby, please. I’m so sorry I was late, I had to take Megan home after school. Mom couldn’t pick her up. I should have been here with you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to help you.” Stacy cried. I finally got my eyes open and the look on her face absolutely broke my fucking heart. The time was now, I knew what I had to do.

“Get the fuck off me bitch! Get the hell out of here. I don’t want you. I don’t want to ever see your fucking face again. GET OUT!” I didn’t want to do this, and it was breaking my heart, but I couldn’t put that look on her face ever again. She would be so much better off with some nice guy that could give her what she needed. Stacy sobbed and ran out. Mission accomplished.

After I kicked Stacy out, I went cold turkey. I quit the drinking, I quit the drugs, and I told Ratz that I couldn’t work for him anymore. I’d almost OD’d. I’d fallen and hit my head and was bleeding all over everything, I’d pissed my pants. I’d lost so much weight that I was barely even myself anymore. I was going to become a better man and maybe then I would deserve Stacy. I could beg her to take me back. After everything I said to her, it probably wouldn’t happen, but I had to try.

The day before I appeared in court, had started off like any other day in my new world. I woke up, took a shower, and headed off to the garage I worked at to start my shift at eight a.m. I got the call at eleven-thirty a.m. Ratz, what the fuck could he want?

“Uh, man, I need you to do a job for me tonight.”

“You know I don’t do that shit anymore Ratz, leave me the hell alone!”

“I need you man, I know you gave it up, but I need you to do this. Don’t make me do something you’ll regret,” Ratz threatened.

“What the fuck, man? You’re gonna threaten me now. Fuck you!” I screamed and slammed the phone down. What the hell did he think I would do, just drop everything and go do a job for him? I didn’t do that shit anymore and I wasn’t getting back into that life.

I‘d been clean for six months, trying to work up the courage to go back to Stacy and beg forgiveness. It had been so long since I had seen her, I just needed to make sure I was completely out of the life before I went back to her.

When I got off work, I started for home. I looked over and saw Ratz’s jeep parked across from my garage. I walked over to him ready to knock his head off, when I noticed someone sitting in the front seat. It was Stacy.

She was completely wasted out of her fucking mind. She was skin and bones, her hair was falling out, she had on an outfit that a hooker wouldn’t wear, and Ratz had his tongue down her throat.

Ratz had planned this whole thing. He knew how upset I would be about Stacy, and he thought that I would just give in and use. Do whatever he needed me to do. I think I changed his plans a little when I punched through the window, grabbing him by the throat. I pulled him out of the window with my bloody arm and cut the hell out of him and myself. Then I started pounding him. I heard his nose break. His jaw was cracking.

I wanted to bash his skull in for what he had done. When I got to jail, they told me I almost killed him. He fucking deserved it for what he did to Stacy. My sweet, pure, innocent Stacy.

“What do you have to say for yourself, son?” Judge Powell asked me.

“Sir, with all due respect, the bastard deserved it. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but you have no idea what he’s done.”

I tried to control my anger, but I could feel it raging through my body. My hands were clenched into fists and I could feel the sweat beading on my forehead.

The judge said, “I know Mr. Ratzen. He has appeared in my court several times, and I believe you when you say he deserved it. I don’t like what you did, but I understand that you were trying to protect Ms. Roberts. I’m going to sentence you to community service and one year probation. I want you to know that Ms. Roberts was taken in and she will be placed in a mandatory rehab program for three months.”

I was so relieved not only for myself, but that Stacy would get clean. This was all my fault. I had done this to her. I knocked her down with my words and she went to the one thing that would make her forget, just like I had done so many times before.

I waited thirty days before I visited Stacy in rehab. We talked for hours every day, and I explained to her why I had said such horrible things to her. She told me she understood that I was trying to protect her from that life.

By the time she got out of rehab we had decided to get an apartment together. Stacy started cosmetology school, and I continued to work at the garage. Within a year we were married and talking about buying a house and having kids. I was so happy to be with her and together we were happy.

Jaxon- 25 years old

Stacy and I had been married for almost seven years. For the most part we were really happy. She worked full-time at a beauty salon by our house. I still worked at the garage, but now I was the manager. We had been trying to get pregnant ever since we got married, but it hadn’t happened. I would wake up sometimes in the middle of the night to Stacy crying in the bathroom because she started her period. I knew how bad she wanted a baby, and it killed me that I couldn't give her the one thing she wanted more than anything.

The past couple of months Stacy had been acting weird. She would go out with her girlfriends a few nights a week and I would hardly even see her on the weekends. I decided I should give her some space, because I knew she was so upset about the baby situation. But her behavior was really starting to worry me.

When I opened the door to our house that night I knew something wasn’t right. I took off early so I could surprise Stacy. I stopped and bought her a dozen red roses and got her a box of her favorite chocolates from the little store on the corner.

I heard voices when I started for the stairs, and then I heard something I never thought I would hear. I heard Ratz scream out “Stacy” and then a loud moan. I walked into my bedroom and found him on top of her. She was so wasted that she actually reached for me and asked me to join them. I wanted to kill him, I wanted to kill her, but all I could do was stand there and stare as my life was ruined.

I turned around and walked out of our house. I got in my car and drove to my moms house across town.

“Son, is she using drugs again?”  My mom asked.

“I think so. She’s been acting really strange.  I wanted this to work so bad.  I love her, mom,”  I said as I held my head in my hands sitting at the table in my mom’s kitchen.

“She’s your first love, Jaxon.  We all think that our first love is forever, but ninety-percent of the time it isn’t.  I’ve been concerned about that girl for awhile.  I was wondering how long it would take you to see it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, looking up.

“You needed to see it for yourself, son.  This isn’t something your mom can do for you.  You needed to figure it out yourself.  And now you need to plan your future.  You have to decide if Stacy is going to be part of it.”

“I honestly don’t know.  I thought she was my future, but now I’m not so sure.  Can I stay here with you for awhile?  Until I work some stuff out.”

Mom stood up and walked over to me.  Placing her arms around my neck, she said, “Of course, you can, Jaxon.  You can stay here as long as you need to.  Whatever you need, son.  I love you.  Don’t ever forget that.”

The next day I went back to my house and found a note from Stacy:

Jaxon,

I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. I hope one day you will forgive me. I’m leaving and I don’t know if I will ever come back. Please don’t hate me.

Love, Stacy

I waited a year for Stacy to come home. I searched for her in every hole I had ever been in and in every rehab I prayed she had checked into. I finally filed for divorce, sold the house, and moved in with my mom. Since nobody knew where Stacy was, I couldn’t finalize our divorce. I didn’t see anyone, I didn’t go out, I didn’t do anything but work. I didn’t care what was happening in the world. All I knew was that mine was shattered.

Another year passed, and I was leaving work one night when I looked over and saw a familiar jeep parked across the street. I really didn’t think Ratz was that fucking stupid, but he surprised me. He stepped out of his jeep and motioned me over to him. The look on my face should have told him to get the hell away, but Ratz never was the brightest bulb in the box.

I tried not to hit him. I swear to God, I tried not to slam his head into the front of the jeep. I really did, but I just couldn’t control my anger. I couldn’t move past the last time I saw him and the sounds he was making and what that meant to my world.

I asked him where the hell Stacy was and he swore that he hadn’t seen her since that night. He swore this as I held him by the throat over the hood of his jeep with a look on my face that had to scream “I’m gonna kill your ass.” So I believed him. To this day I don’t know why he was there that day, and I really don’t give a fuck.

That was the day that I decided I needed to get the hell out of this town, this state, this life. That was when my mom called my Uncle Jake and asked him if I could come stay with him for awhile. He told her to send me his way, and I was welcome to stay with him as long as I needed to.

Chapter 9

Loralei

I hadn’t seen Cade since I left his room yesterday morning. I hadn’t really been trying to avoid him, I had just been lucky. Emma left last night. She needed to get home to Eric and I needed to go back to being Loralei. I didn’t know what had happened to me over the past couple of days, but I needed to get myself back. I had been acting like a totally different person. The Loralei I had always been was not the person in this hotel room today. I had changed, and not for the better.

I just had one more event that I had to attend. Then I could head home. The final event was basically a “we’re so glad you came and spent all of your money on our cattle” party, but it was really an integral part of the schmoozing process. I had a bad feeling that I wouldn’t be able to avoid Cade tonight, but I knew I wouldn’t be ending up in his bed.