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fifteen
JAX
Mama had always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, and Niagara Falls.
So, we went.
It’s been three months since I last saw Luna, and we’ve spent the time visiting state park after state park. Well, Mama sees them. I wait at a dingy motel or in the car until she’s fulfilled her fun. I’ve been itching to talk to Luna, but Mama never lets me. A phone call. A letter. I want her to know that she’s still on my mind. That I haven’t forgotten her.
I’m sitting in another motel room in Kentucky, Mama is who knows where, and there is a pen in my hand, a piece of paper on the table. I’m going to write a letter. Even if she never sees it, at least my feelings will be free.
Luna,
I’m in Kentucky right now. The room I’m in smells like piss and beer, which basically smell the same. I’ve been thinking about that night I left you. What you told me. What your parents did to you when you were just a girl. I hope that night helped you forget a bit helped you think of yourself as worthy. You are in my eyes. You’re wanted, needed, needed so desperately. I breathe every day still hoping that I’ll see you again. I’ll come back one day, I hope. I want to promise you, but I can’t. I don’t see my face on the news as much. Maybe they’re beginning to forget about me. Maybe people think I’m dead. I don’t go out much.
Mom has seen the world. Places in the USA, not outside of it, but I just hide in the car or a motel room. Every day, I also hope that I’m forgotten enough to come home to you. Connecticut was never my home, and maybe it’s still not. It’s wherever you are that I’m home. I’m thinking about you every second of every day. I wonder if you think of me, too. I’m losing weight, you know. I’m not eating right, not sleeping right. I’m tired, and I don’t like the person I’m becoming. I’ve never liked the person that I became. Who cares about that, right? Haha. There’s only so much I can do with this life, but I hope one day it ends with you in it. Talk soon. I’d say see you soon, but I’m not sure I ever will. I'm not even sure you'll ever see this letter.
Bye, Jax
The pen clatters against the table just as Mama walks into the room.
“What are you writing?” She asks.
“A letter.”
“Jax, I told yo-”
“God, I fucking know.”
I should have fucking left this woman back in Connecticut because she is getting on my last nerve. It makes sense. What thirty, almost thirty-one-year-old, hangs out with his mother every day? That sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, and it is if you call my life a joke. I do.
“What?” Mama asks as if she can hear the gears in my head grinding together.
“I’m tired.”
“It’s two in the afternoon.”
“I didn’t realize there was a limit on when I could be tired,” I snap.
“You should go grab lunch. You haven’t eaten in a day.”
“I’m fine.”
“Ja-”
“Enough, Mom. Drop it. I’ll sleep and eat when I want,” I bark. “I have nothing else to do anyhow,” I add in a low voice.
Her head tilts at me, eyes coated in sadness. “This isn’t a life.”
“What the fuck else do you expect me to do, huh?”
“You have a bad attitude on you, Jax.” I shrug my shoulders at her, and she sighs before turning around and leaving. I watch her as she walks away. I’m not sure where she’ll go or what she’ll do, but she can do whatever she wants so long she gets off my ass.
The room is silent again, and it’s a beautiful sound. The voices in my head are quiet for once. Rising from the chair, I go over to the bed and lie down. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I pull up the app I never deleted. The one that gives me access to the cameras in her apartment. I never told her about them, she never found them. Finding her in her bedroom, notebooks and books thrown across her bed, I watch. For hours I watch until I fall asleep.
Mom doesn't come back for two days, but I never bothered to ask where she went. Even if she never walked back through that door I wouldn't have cared enough to look. I don't feel anything anymore. Not since I walked out Luna's door.
sixteen
