If I Recall

Chapter 10

Jax and Brenda spent an easy evening with each other.  There was no more talk of sadness, only laughter as they tried to get back some of what was missing.  Around eleven o'clock, Brenda was sitting on one end of the couch while Jax sat on the end.  They both stretched out so that they lay horizontally, facing each other.  Brenda was reading one of the quizzes from an old magazine to Jax and trying to get his answers.

"Ok, Jax, last question.  How would you feel if your best friend fell in love with a member of the opposite sex and seemed to forget about you?  Would you be jealous, angry, supportive, or something completely different?"

Jax smiled sleepily and thought about it.  "Mm, how about all of the above?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, think about it.  Hypothetically, of course, if you fell in love with someone else and forgot about me, I think I would probably be jealous of the man who was taking you away from me.  Angry at you for not getting priorities straight, angry at him for taking you away.  Supportive of you because I would know how much you loved this guy. And I'd probably also feel protective of you."

"Protective how?"

"Well, if this hypothetical guy were to hurt you, I'd want to protect you from the pain."

Brenda smiled.  "Okay, I see your point and I have to admit, I'd probably feel pretty much the same way about you."  She flipped the pages of the magazine to see what else was of interest.  By the time she glanced back up at Jax, he was asleep.  He had his arms crossed over his chest and his head rested against a pillow on the arm of the couch.  His face was tilted toward the back of the couch as he slept.  She smiled again, but was slightly concerned.  She'd never seen Jax sleep so much before and she wondered if he was still recovering or if it was something more.

Maybe it was the play on his emotions he'd had recently.  She put the magazine down on her lap and watched him sleep for a few minutes.  She truly was grateful for the gift this man had given her this day.  He'd made her holiday by giving her back a friendship that meant more to her than anything else in her life.  She had been dreading Christmas this year, as she imagined he had been, because of everything that had happened and also because it would have been the anniversary of the day he proposed to her.

She knew anniversaries meant more to her than they did to him.  She supposed that was because she had almost lost him the year before on an anniversary of theirs.  Though he always swore it was not her fault and that he even admired her bravery, she still felt responsible for him ending up in hospital that night.  She had always jumped too soon, too quickly.  She tried to be brave when she shouldn't have been.

She still did.  She made a silent promise to herself as she thought.  She promised not to act on something before she truly thought it through.  She knew that if she had done that before, it might have prevented what had happened six months before.  She knew that if she had given it a second thought, and even a third, she would have realized that Jax could be trusted and that he had not betrayed her.  But she hadn't and now she had to look at where it had gotten her.  So, now, she made that promise to always think before she acted.  Maybe this time it could protect what she had so recently been given back.

Brenda picked up the magazine again and sifted through the pages again.  She found a few articles to read and settled in while Jax slept.  An hour later, she put the magazine down, yawning.  Jax was still out on his end of the couch.  She didn't want to wake him, so she left him where he was, knowing if he woke and wanted to, he would come to bed in the bedroom.  She got up and went into the bedroom, careful not to disturb him.  Changing quickly, she climbed into the soft bed and fell asleep.

A loud noise jolted Jax from sleep the next morning.  He sat up straight on the couch, his heart pounding.  As he sat up, a muscle pulled in his neck, causing him to cry out.  Nevertheless, he got up and went over to the window to see what was going on.  What he saw surprised him.

Down the road was a large truck, hauling the two tree branches away from the center of the road.  He could see three people outside the truck with one man still inside operating it. 

"Jax?" Brenda's voice called to him as he stood at the window.  "Are you okay?"  She was making her way into the room, having been woken when he cried out.  She saw him standing in front of the window, looking outside, one hand at the base of his neck on his shoulder gently massaging his muscle.

He turned to her, wincing as the muscle pulled again.  "Yeah, I'm fine.  Come look at this.  You're not going to believe it."  He pushed back the drape and showed her what he'd been looking at.

"They're taking away the trees!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"It looks like it."  He went over to sit on the couch and pull on his boots.

"Where are you going?"  She followed him over to the couch and watched him carefully.

"I'm going to go down there and see if they need any help."  He stood up and got his coat from the hanger by the fireplace.

"It looks to me like they're doing just fine without you," she said.  "I don't think you need to go down there."  She wasn't concerned about his health more than she was about him hurting himself.  She watched as he struggled to put his coat on.

He went anyway, despite her warning not to.  Once he was down to where the three men were standing, he introduced himself and asked if they needed any help.  They told him no, that they had it handled, but he stayed down there anyway.  In the end, he did help them dig Brenda's car out of the snow a little bit more, so that it could be moved when the road was plowed.  They assured him that it would be plowed later on that day.

Jax returned to the cabin about two hours later, cold, but not frozen.  Still, Brenda made a big deal over the fact that she'd told him not to go. 

"Brenda, will you let it go?" he finally said when he'd had enough.  "I am fine."

"I'm just saying that it wasn't so long ago that you were sick.  I don't think it's a good idea for you to be out in the snow right now."

"This from the person who started a snowball fight just yesterday, right?  Come on, Brenda!"  He threw his coat on the hanger and took off his boots.  "You know we were out longer than that."

"That's not the point, Jax."

"Then what is?"  His voice raised slightly in irritation.  "Whatever it is, it's over with, all right?  I've been out and now I'm back.  Like I said, let it go."

"Jax--"

"Brenda!" he exploded and threw his hands up in the air, but he didn't go further.  Instead he went into the kitchen and began to make them breakfast. 

Brenda waited a few minutes before she followed him and offered him her help.  He didn't say anything, he only pointed to what she could do.  His movements were quick and jerky like he was trying to control his anger.  Maybe she had pushed him too far.

"I'm sorry, Jax," she said finally.

He didn't stop what he was doing.  "It's okay," he replied through clenched teeth.

"If it's okay, then why are you attacking those pieces of bread like they're trying to get away from you?" she said softly, trying to smile a little bit.  Jax stopped and put the knife down carefully on the countertop.  He didn't say anything.  "Jax, what's wrong with you this morning?"

He glanced over at her and then he turned around to lean against the counter.  "Nothing's wrong," he answered her after some serious consideration.

"I think I know you better than that.  Tell me, please?"

He knew it was ridiculous for him to be acting this way over something so stupid.  It was part of the reason he didn't want to tell her, but if he didn't, nothing would be solved and he'd probably just stay mad.  "I met Tom this morning, Brenda."

"Tom?  So what?  I told you he was up here."

"I know.  It's funny, you know, he thought I was your boyfriend."

"Oh Jax, is that what this is about?  I only told him that so he wouldn't think I was alone here.  You were asleep.  There was no way for him to know you were really here unless he took my word for it.  Like you said, he could have been dangerous and it could have been a really bad thing for him to think I was alone."

"No, Brenda, that's not the problem.  I understand why you did that.  I think it was quick thinking for you to have said that.  But I did set him straight."

"Set him straight how?"

"I told him we were just friends and that I figured that's what you did."  His face clouded over again and he knew he was being petty and childish for being like this. 

"And he said…?"

He decided not to let this go further.  "Nevermind, Brenda," he said, frustrated.  He couldn't even figure out why he was acting this way.  It wasn't like he had any claim over her, any reason to feel this way.  Brenda was just his friend, right?

"No, Jax, tell me."  She wouldn't give up.  She wanted to know what was causing this.

Suddenly, it was all funny to him.  He started to laugh out loud.  It was so ridiculous.

"Jax?" she asked, bewildered.

He was laughing too hard to respond.  In an effort to pull himself together, he left the kitchen and went into the other room.  He collapsed onto the couch, still laughing.  Brenda followed him, completely confuse.  When Jax could finally breathe again, he looked at her.  "I'm sorry, Brenda."

"What has gotten into you?"

"Nothing," he laughed a little again.  "I'm sorry.  It's just that it's so ridiculous.  I was actually mad at you because that guy, Tom, told me he was interested in you."  He laughed again for a second.  "It was like…I was jealous about it.  And that was so ridiculous, right?"  He almost started laughing again.

Brenda was a little surprised by all of this.  She remained silent for a second and then finally responded uncertainly, "Right."  She left the room and went back into the kitchen to finish fixing breakfast.

Jax stayed in the other room for a second before he got up and went into the bedroom.  Once behind the safety of the door, everything stopped.  He leaned heavily against the door and closed his eyes.  He slid down the back of the door and sat on the ground, his head in his hands.  He wasn't laughing anymore.

It wasn't funny and he wasn't even angry about it.  He was so confused by what he was feeling inside.  When Tom had asked if Brenda was seeing anyone, it had knocked the wind out of him in an instant.  He'd somehow found the words to speak and make the excuse to go back up to the cabin.  And then Brenda had started in on him almost immediately.  Everything inside of him twisted into something he could no longer handle.

He put the palms of his hands against his eyes to stop a flow of tears from starting.  This was too much.  Not in the sense that it was overwhelming, just that it was amazing to him.  He couldn't believe that he was feeling any sense of jealousy over something Brenda had every right to do.  She was allowed to date.  Other guys were allowed to be interested in her.  He had no claim to her whatsoever anymore.  The only question he couldn't answer was did he want any?

Brenda noticed Jax had been in the bedroom for a long time when she finally finished fixing breakfast.  She went to go get him.  Knocking softly on the door, she called his name, "Jax?  Are you in there?"  She knew he was, but she wasn't sure if he would want her to just walk in the room.  She heard him stand up and was surprised to realize he'd been sitting against the door.  The door opened and Jax appeared to her.

"Is breakfast ready?" he asked in a voice she couldn't describe.

She nodded silently and watched as he walked past her to the kitchen.  All through breakfast, he refused to talk about it.  Anything else was fine, but what had happened before was off limits.  It made for a few awkward silences.

At about eleven o'clock, there was a knock on the door.  Brenda ran to it and opened it quickly.  There was Tom, standing in the doorway.

"Tom!  What are you doing here?" she asked.  Jax was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel.

"Morning Brenda," he smiled.  He looked past her and nodded to Jax.  "Jax.  I just wanted to let you guys know that we've got the road plowed and we were wondering if you wanted us to dig out your other vehicle up here."  He was referring to Jax's dark blue Jeep Cherokee in the driveway.

"Oh you know what?  That would be great!" Brenda responded.  "Does that mean that my car is already out?"

Tom nodded.  "Yeah, we did that a little while ago.  We even pulled it out of the deeper snow for you, but it is still down there.  Since we didn't have the keys, we couldn't start it."

"Wonderful!" she smiled again.  "when you guys are finished up here then I'll go down and make sure it starts alright, okay?"

"Sounds like a good idea.  All right, well, we're going to go get started here.  It shouldn't be too long."

"Great.  Why don't you just come on back up and knock when you're done."

"Will do."  He turned and headed back down to where the other three guys were in their trucks.  A few minutes later, Jax and Brenda could hear the plow working on the drive to the cabin.

Brenda turned around and smiled, but Jax wasn't standing in the doorway anymore.  She hadn't noticed he'd left.  "Jax?" she called out to him.

Jax took several slow, deep breaths trying to calm his shaky breathing.  He put a hand over his heart and then stood up.  He couldn't describe it.  It was like something was reaching in and twisting his heart in so many different ways.  He knew he shouldn't be feeling this way, but he did.  And he didn't know what to do about it.  The only thing he did know was that he couldn't let Brenda see him like this.

He was in the darkened kitchen when she called out to him.  Slowly, he turned around and walked toward her.  When he came into the light, he said, "I'm right here, Brenda."

"Oh Jax, where'd you go?"

"Nowhere, I was just in the kitchen finishing up the dishes."

"Did you hear what Tom said?" she said excitedly.

There it went again, but he kept his composure.  He nodded, "Yes, I did.  It sounds like we'll be able to get out of here pretty soon."

"This is great, you know?  We can finally get back to civilization!  I'm sure everyone's worried about us by now.  I mean, I was supposed to spend yesterday with Ned and Lois and I'm sure when I didn't show up or call, they were really worried.  And what about you?  Your mom is probably pretty worried by now.  I mean, she tried to call you and then the phone went dead." 

Jax listened to her rattle on as she moved around the cabin.  She was actually beginning to pick things up and put them away.  She was getting ready to leave, he realized.  It dawned on him that she would probably want to leave as soon as she knew her car would start and she could get out of here.  She went into the bedroom to start packing her clothes up.

A few minutes later, there was another knock at the door and Brenda ran to get it.  She found Tom behind it again and left with him to go down to her car.  Jax watched from the window.  He watched them talking as she tried to start the car and when it did start, she jumped out and actually hugged Tom, she was so excited.

Jax staggered back from the window and sat down heavily in the chair.  It physically hurt him to watch her with another man.  Oh God, what was going on?  Why did this bother him so much?  They had agreed to just be friends, so why, all of a sudden, did he feel this protective urge for her?  Why was he jealous of this made she had every right to like?  He couldn't answer any of those questions.

Suddenly the door flew open again and Brenda raced.  "Jax!"  She came to stand in front of him.  Her face was practically glowing with excitement.  "It's done!  We can go now!  We can really leave!"

He feigned happiness that he didn't feel.  He stood up from the chair with a smile on his face.  "Great!"  Together, they packed up the rest of the things in the cabin and began to load the cars.  When everything was done, Jax stopped in front of the fireplace.  He needed to put out the flame and they would be ready to go.

Brenda came back into the cabin when he hadn't appeared outside.  "Jax?  Are you coming?"

He turned to her.  "Why don't you go ahead, Brenda?  I'm going to stay and make sure we didn't forget anything."

"But we've looked twice already," she protested.

He sighed and turned back to the fire.  "Just go ahead.  I'll be right behind you.  I just need to put out the fire."

"Okay," she agreed.  "Drive carefully."

"You, too," he replied.

"Then I guess this is it.  I'll see you back in Port Charles."  She gave him one last smile and walked out the door.  She started her Explorer and when she was at the end of the driveway, she honked twice.  Then she was gone, on her way home.

Slowly, Jax picked up the picture on the mantle of the fireplace.  He ran his fingers over the glass and smiled sadly.  Sitting in the chair next to the fire, he closed his eyes and put his head against his hand. 

The fire died out by itself while he sat there.  Finally, when just the orange embers remained, he got up and doused them.  It was a little darker outside as he left the cabin with the picture in his hand.  Locking the door for the last time, he looked around one more time.  He started his car without any problems and started down the driveway.

As he drove away, he looked back only once at the now completely dark cabin in the mountains.  The cabin where everything had changed in the span of just a few days.  And now, he wasn't sure what he was going to do.

 

Chapter 11