Page 35 of Masked Instincts

My heart is still beating profusely in my chest, echoing in my ears like a snare drum. When I booked it from Luna’s apartment after she called the police, I hid around the corner in an alleyway. After secured in the dark, hidden in the shadows, I pulled out my phone. I watched the camera feed and clicked the sound on to listen to her lie to the police. She lied to protect me.

Luna can act like she hates me and wants to see me burn, but would she lie to them if she did? Would she find a way to make it seem like fugitive Jax Turner wasn’t the man behind the abuse of her close friend? My moon can lie to herself as much as she pleases but can’t lie to me when I wrote this play. It doesn’t matter that she’s years younger than myself. The only thing that matters is the way she feels for me. Regardless if she wants me to be different or a better man. She’ll dream and wish, but it’ll never come true. She will love me anyway. All the broken and dark pieces that make the anatomy of who I am—the messy soul inside of my broken chest that lives to wreak havoc.

I never actually considered myself broken. A coward, maybe, up until I changed everything to protect the only person I ever knew how to love. The one person who saw my light through the darkness. My mama.

But I’m still not sure how to feel the love she gives. Whenever she does me favors, say like, funding my home, I still feel like it’s out of obligation. Maybe she feels she owes me for saving her. I turned my life upside down to save her.

And if I could do it again, I wouldn’t.

Maybe that makes me a bad guy, but that’s old news, and I don’t care. I hate my life—every inch of it. The only thing I can’t seem to hate is Mama and my moon. But how can I claim to love my mother if I wouldn’t save her over again? I’m a weak fuck who would go back in time to let myself be beaten. But what would happen when he hit too hard or kicked too hard and brought me to my death? Indeed, Mama would be the next to go. But if I died, I wouldn’t have to live with that. These thoughts are my burden. Mama would never look at me the same way if she knew what was inside my head.

Back at my Ranger that’s parked just down the road, I hop in and drive right outside of town to my new house. It feels weird to say that. My house. It's as if I am a man who deserves such a luxury.

Mama sits on the porch with her feet up on a small ottoman, a blanket wrapped around her body. Her hair is no longer a vibrant cherry cola but a faded red like a dying fire. It’s longer than when I saw her for the first time fifteen or so months ago.

“Where’d you go? Where are your clothes?” She asks, but I have a strong gut feeling she knows the answer. I stare at her with a blank expression. “Was it Luna you went to see?” And my gut was right.

“It was." Ignoring the comment about my clothes, I sigh. My fingers run through my long hair before trailing down to play with the beard that has formed along my chin.

Every piece of me is something I don’t recognize. The long hair, the facial hair, the bags beneath my eyes, and the weight I’ve lost. I’m not someone I want to be, and I dread waking up every single morning. Today was the best day in a long time because it ended with seeing Luna. Despite how it went, it confirmed that she’d been thinking of me all this time. All she did was think about me, which has me grinning like a schoolboy who finally got the courage to talk to his crush.

“You can’t hold on to her, you know that, right?” Mama asks. The words punch me right where intended, but I don’t let it show.

“And why not?”

“You live out here in the middle of nowhere running for your life. How can you be with someone with a life like that?”

“I wouldn’t have to run for my life if you would have just left my father,” I spit. Before I can think twice about what I’ve said, she rises to her feet and walks inside. “Mom!” I call out, instant regret hitting too hard.

When we are both inside, she whips her head toward me when I call out to her again.

“All I have thought about is how I failed you. I’m your mother, and I couldn’t save you. You did more protecting than I ever had. I owe you so much, Jaxy. I owe you everything.”

“I don’t care what you owe me or what you think you do. Do you expect me to live my life under a rock? I’m not stupid, Mom. I know how to be hidden. Whether I need to live in the shadows or not, I still deserve to have something that’s important to me. Do I not? I deserve to drive for some sort of happiness,” I sigh as I begin to pace around the room. My hands start to shake with anger, but I hold it all inside. I try to keep my tone neutral as I speak. “Every time I wake up, I wish I hadn’t. Every day, I look in the mirror and don’t know who I see anymore. I want everything to change and start over, but you want to know the only time I don’t feel that way? When I’m with her. Luna sparks something inside of me. She makes me feel something that I’ve never felt, and I can’t quite place this feeling. Do you want me to let that go? The one ounce of happiness I have dared to feel in years? I let her go for far too long and will not make that mistake again. I will get her back. Whether you like it or not. Whether she likes it or not.”

Mama looks at me with a concoction of anger and sadness in her green eyes. It's like looking into a mirror, eyes that reflect my own. “I don’t want to take away your happiness, but what do you expect to gain from this? Are you going to run into the sunset together and live happily ever after?” Mama basically mocks me—her tone crude and filled with disappointment. “I paid for this house to be built for you. To make sure you are secure. I don’t want you to throw your life away for a girl.”

“Don’t,” I snap. “Do not throw this house in my face. I told you that you didn’t have to. Do not fucking throw it back in my face!”

“I’m not trying to rub anything in your face. I’m your mother. I care about you.”

It’s always ‘I’m your mother’ this and that, but what happened to being my mother when I needed one? When my father hit me and kicked me. Where was my mother when I was shaking and crying in the corner, scared for my life? Where the fuck was she?

“You’ve always had a funny way of showing it,” I spit out.

“Enough is enough, Jax. Your father is showing. Don’t let him slip out.” Her words physically push me back. My feet falter, and I nearly fall to the ground: hurt, anger, and my life’s pain bubble to the surface. The lid can’t contain it any longer, and a tear slips from my eye for the first time in forever. Another and another follow down the trail until they don’t stop coming.

There used to be a time when I wanted to be a man my mother could be proud of. What happened? What happened? What happened? What happened? The question repeats over and over again in my head until all I can think about is the reason I have the scar on my cheek. The one motherfucker who started my downfall. Who unlocked the anger that I kept hidden inside.

Every punch I threw in prison, every knife I stabbed, every kick I kicked. They run through my head like a movie in fast forward.

Luna

A knock sounds at the door. I've been sitting here on the couch, spiraling and going over everything that has happened. My first thought is that it must be the police, but when I answer, it's not. A woman with faded red hair looks at me, and her eyes are green like Jax’s. She feels familiar to me, as if I might have seen her before.

“Hi,” she says softly. A sweater is wrapped tightly around her small frame. The boots on her feet are coated with snow. I’ve recently enjoyed the winter months because the coldness I feel inside blends in, making it easier to ignore how I've felt.

“Hi. Can I help you?” I ask.