Straight From the Heart

Chapter 9

There is a river where I go
My deepest wishes only the river knows

Jax leaned on his elbows against the railing of the bridge as his mind drifted to the past and he remembered again. Everything they'd ever done together and ever been together. He always remembered when he came here to this bridge, to place the letters in the water. Tonight, he started at the beginning.

I sit by the river and imagine
You are beside me, standing there
We stay for hours and hours, thinking and dreaming
Watching the river carry away our cares

He remembered clearly the day Brenda had shown up at his doorstep to return the ring to him. It really had been an omen that she got there just as he won his game. He smiled wistfully as he thought of how much he really had won that day. It wasn't just the game, it was the love of his life. The brazen girl who had been at his door that day had become the woman he fell so deeply and madly in love with, the one he would have given his life for.

I will go with the river to a far away dream
And in the pools and mirrors, I have come to see
Love, like the river, cuts the canyon deep
Oh Love, is the river that flows inside of me

He had been more than prepared to spend the rest of his life with her the day she was taken from him. He'd been so anxious, he'd wanted to move up their wedding day. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember why he'd wanted to do that. There was just this deep feeling in him that said if he didn't do something now, it would be too late. But it already was.

Bent at the waist, he leaned his head into his hands as the first tears began to fall again. He rocked slowly back and forth as the memories continued to flood back to him.

His favorite night was the night he married her for the first time. They'd had some wonderful times after that, but he never forgot what he'd told her that night. He was going to make falling in love with him painless and so painless that she would hardly know she was doing it until it was done. And though he'd had no idea if he could accomplish that feat, she had fallen in love with him.

She was head over heels, in old-fashioned love with him, she'd said. It made him ridiculously happy. She'd never said she loved him before at it was when he knew that his impossible feat had been achieved. He'd loved her for more almost a year by then, but to have her finally say those words back to him, it was beyond words itself. But then Sonny had brought Miranda and things had slowly unraveled. He still loved her, he'd known that without a doubt, but she doubted it. She began to doubt herself and her love for him. It made her revert to her old insecurities and she went back to Sonny, thinking it was what she wanted. All the while, it broke his heart when he knew it wasn't what she wanted, but he wasn't going to tell her that. He wasn't about to dictate what she was going to do with her life. No, that was Sonny's job.

And he did it well, almost to the point of taking her away permanently. He'd come so close to losing her the day she was supposed to be married. Even though it had nearly destroyed her, he thanked God every day for Sonny leaving her behind. It was the one thing he actually approved of Sonny doing. The reasons were warped, but in the end, they made sense, and Brenda was his. It had been a long and weary road back. Jax had sworn he'd never fall in love with her again. He'd promised himself.

But it was like promising not to breathe. He'd never stopped loving her, he just stopped telling her. Everything he ever did was for her. She was the first person she thought of in the morning and the last person he thought in the night. He realized when he almost lost her to the plane crash that there was no way he could live another day of his life without her in it. So, he'd fallen in love again.

Even in death, nothing could shake that love he felt. He truly felt there was a person everyone was destined to love and Brenda was that person for him. He would have met her someday, somewhere, no matter what he'd been doing in his life. She was his destiny, his one true love. And he would never let her go.

Caitlin watched the man on the bridge with interest. He looked so sad and forlorn standing alone against the railing. He looked lost in thought while she stood in the shadows on the edge of the scene. She felt like she was watching an intimately private moment and she almost turned to leave. Just as she was going to turn and walk away, she saw him put his head into his hands and begin to cry. He was silent, but she could see his shoulders shaking with emotion. Her heart broke at the sight, but nearly as much as she imagined his was breaking.

Slowly, she walked towards the man with his back to her. When she was within two feet of him, a sob came from deep within him and he began to cry harder. A silent sob caught in her throat as she listened to the anguish in his tears. She reached a shaky hand out to him, not wanting to interrupt, but she had to see if he was all right. Then, she pulled it back.

Jax was remembering their last time in Malibu and saw in his mind's eye, the two of them sitting on the beach at sunset. He was telling her that he would marry her again and this time nobody would leave. No matter what, nobody would leave. It was his breaking point as he thought of the fact that they couldn't hold onto that anymore. Somebody had left and for the first time, he found he was angry about it. The tears of sorrow turned to anger and then he realized that he wasn't angry with her. He was angry at the higher powers who had taken her from him. Had it not been for them, she would still be here today. He would not be so alone. His heart would not be torn in two with no hope of repair. The only person that could heal him was gone and he didn't know if he would ever see her again.

He began to calm down as he made a resolve to himself, the same resolve he made every night his thoughts were like this. She may have left him, but no matter what, he was not going to leave her. She would always be in his heart and in his soul. His tears subsided to sadness again.

Caitlin watched the whole transition silently. She almost felt the heartbreak he was going through. Somehow she felt connected to it, like she was experiencing the same thing. She put one hand to her lips as she reached her other hand out again and touched him gently on the shoulder.

Jax felt a touch as light as an angel on his shoulder. He almost didn't believe he had felt something. Straightening up, he ran his hands over his face to wipe away the tears and then back up through his hair. Then he turned around slowly.

He staggered back against the railing in silence at the vision in front of him. He didn't know whether it was real or not. It couldn't be. He had to have manifested this from his thoughts and she was just a hallucination. It had to be.

Caitlin recoiled in shock when she saw the man's face. It was him. But before her mind had processed the picture she'd known, she knew it was him. She felt it and she knew him. She took a step back from him.

As she stepped away, she was bathed in the light of the bridge lamps. She appeared to be surrounded by the light, further confusing Jax. She looked more like a vision of his mind now. He quickly rubbed at his eyes to see if he was, in fact, envisioning her. When she didn't disappear, he stood up straight and tentatively took a step forward to her. She didn't back away. "Oh my God," he breathed so softly he barely heard himself.

I search the layers and layers of blues and greens
Just like your eyes when they're looking into mine

She looked directly into his eyes and suddenly she knew, without a doubt in her mind, that this was the man she loved. Something in his eyes connected deep within her heart and pulled at something she didn't even know was there.

In the next instant, she was in his arms. She held on so tight she thought she might be choking him. The tears streamed down her face as he held her as tightly as she held him. "Jax," she whispered over and over again. And it wasn't just her mind speaking, it was her heart and her soul.

Jax nearly sank to his knees when he heard her voice. His tears had renewed and were falling as he held his vision in his arms. He couldn't believe she was in his arms and she was real. Every day and every night he had ever envisioned this reunion paled in comparison to this moment. This was more real than anything he had felt in a long time.

Suddenly, she pulled away from him and broke the embrace. She realized that as she stood there, in his embrace, everything was coming back to her. She remembered every day, every minute, every second she had ever spent with him. It was as if something had been waiting for her to see him to remember.

In time the river smoothes edges once so rough
The way love softens places in the heart

She began to sift through her memories. She saw him standing over the pinball machine, playing his game and she heard herself saying something about an omen. She'd always felt it had truly been an omen to have met him that day. She was at a time in her life where the one thing she wanted was the one thing she couldn't have. But Jax had given her something she hadn't even known she needed. What started out as friendship, ended up with the greatest love she had ever known.

She thought back to the night she lay wrapped in his arms as he told her she was going to fall in love with him. She thought he was crazy. She knew what she wanted and at that moment, it wasn't Jax. It was Sonny. But Jax changed all that. As she grew up with him, she came to realize that the man she thought of as her best friend and lover was, in fact, the love of her life. She remembered telling him that she was in love with him right before they were to be married again. She had made him so happy. It had given her the greatest joy to know that she had given that to him.

But there was always Sonny. Somehow she had let him get to her again and she made herself believe it was the love speaking. She knew now that it hadn't been. She was prepared to leave everyone and everything she had come to know and love for one man. And it hadn't been Jax. She was grateful now that Sonny had left her at the altar on their wedding day. She didn't like what it did to her, but she had to feel something, and loss seemed like the best idea.

That day when she'd gone to speak to Lily at her grave was a turning point in her life. She'd made a decision and a goal that day and she had fulfilled them. It took her longer than she thought it would. She almost thought she had lost Jax. She knew he would always be her friend, but she didn't want that anymore. She wanted so much more than that. So she told him. Everything she did really had led her back to him and when she said it to him, she was saying it of her own free heart. But Jax protected himself and his heart. He'd been hurt by her too many times before to step blindly into the same situation again.

So she'd gone about it slowly, doing everything he did for her. It almost didn't work. She truly thought that if it hadn't been for that plane crash, she might not have won. At least not that quickly. She always knew that she would get Jax back or die trying. He was her life, her love. She would give anything in the world for him and to be with him. She knew that now. She could even point to a day when she had been so completely sure she wanted and needed Jax and only Jax.

She'd been terrified he might not actually make it out of the warehouse alive. Jason and Robin were both telling her that he was almost certainly dead by then. But she knew, she knew he wasn't dead. In the instant that she felt him coming from the warehouse, she'd taken off running. She had one thing in her mind, Jax. As she looked back on it, she couldn't even tell where Sonny was at the time. It didn't even matter to her that he was alive. All that mattered was Jax.

Knowing what she did, she could almost imagine what Jax had been feeling for the last three years. Her heart broke for what she had done to him by being gone so long, by blocking her memories for so long. She vaguely rationalized that it wasn't her fault, but that didn't matter now. She hadn't been there. She held to him tightly as her tears fell again, but this time they were tears of sadness. "Oh, Jax…Jax, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," she sobbed in his arms.

Jax had seen the difference and he felt the difference in her embrace. At her words, he tightened his grip on her. He smiled for the first time through his amazed look. "Shh…shh, Brenda, it's okay," he soothed as she cried harder upon hearing him use her name. "Shh…sweetie, what's wrong? It's okay." He smiled wider at the thought. It really was okay. He didn't know why she was crying, but he knew it would be okay because she was here and she was in his arms. That was all that mattered now.

"No, it's not okay. I'm so sorry, Jax," she continued to say.

Finally, he broke the hold they had on each other. "For what? What are you sorry for?" He looked directly into her eyes as he held her face gently between his hands.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered again. "I've been…I've been gone…I'm sorry, Jax. Nobody leaves, I'm so sorry. I…I…didn't mean to. I'm so sorry." It was an almost hysterical rush of words, full of emotions, and she began to sob again.

He pulled her back into his arms, still dumbfounded at the whole situation. He was silent for a minute as he stood there just holding her, listening to her, feeling her. "Shh, Brenda," he said again. "It's not your fault. I know you didn't want to. I know…" he repeated the words in her ear over and over again.

It seemed like hours had gone by when her tears finally subsided. Brenda drew back from him and he looked down at her.

As he looked at her silently, it sank in and he fell to his knees. He felt the emotional strength he'd had for her leave him in a rush. He looked up at her with tears brimming in his eyes again and when she looked back down at him, they overflowed. He put his arms around her waist as she stood before him and gripped her tightly. His whole body shook with emotion as he cried in relief.

Brenda kneeled with him and held him tightly, wondering how he'd been so strong for her only moments before. It had to have shocked him and she realized he was giving into it now. She rocked him gently back and forth. She heard him saying something, but it was so soft she couldn't understand what he was saying. She put her head to his and finally, she understood.

Jax had prayed and lived for this moment every day for the past three years. As he cried in her arms, he thanked the higher powers for giving her back to him. The same powers he'd been cursing before were now his saviors. He whispered, "Thank you," over and over again.

Finally, they were both finished crying, believing every tear to be gone from their bodies. Jax pulled away from her shoulder and took her face in between both of his hands, feeling every inch of her that he had been missing for three years. He closed his eyes and put his forehead to hers as she held him the same way.

She smiled and spoke, "So now what do we do?"

"I thank God every day for the rest of my life," he responded. "You don't know how long and how often I have prayed for this day to come, Brenda."

His comments chilled her briefly. She knew he was right. For three years, she hadn't known the same pain he felt, but she had felt a pain that was close. And now for the first time in three years, she knew why it had hurt so much to not know who she was. She knew what she had been missing for all that time.

"Jax, if I haven't said it enough in my life, do you have any idea how much I love you?" she said, her voice soft and filled with emotion.

He sank against her as the tensions began to leave his body. "Not nearly as much as I love you," he whispered.

"More," she insisted, drawing a smile from him.

"Never." They sat for a long time just holding each other. Neither one wanted to let go and have the chance that this was only a dream. It felt too real and it would hurt too much.

 

Chapter 10 

 

Song Excerpt from 'River Canyon' by Leslie Tucker from the album 'In This Room'

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