When I Surrender

Chapter Twenty Knox

“Do you want to talk about it or are you going to keep moping around here like someone kicked you in the balls?” Jaxon asked, glancing up from the TV.

“Are you going to watch the game or are we going to pretend this is Oprah?” I asked.

He smirked. “Fine. But the guys know something’s up. You’re not yourself. You’ve been acting like a dick ever since McKenna took off. Care to tell me what’s really going on?”

The feeling that I’d lost McKenna churned in my gut. I couldn’t sleep. Food didn’t taste right and when I tried to drink to numb the pain, I couldn’t even catch a buzz. Luke had taken Tucker to the public library, so it was just me and Jaxon at home today. “I talked to McKenna. She’s coming home soon.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Yeah, I mean, I think so. But she said we have to talk when she gets back. I think she’s had some sort of realization about her past and finally accepted that her parents were killed by a drunk driver and not because of anything she did.”

“And?” Jax drew out the word.

Apparently I needed to spell it out for him. “And she doesn’t know I was arrested for drunk driving and that my sentence was what brought me into her class in the first place.” Not mentioning it at the time was an omission – it just never really came up, but keeping it from her now felt like a deceitful lie.

“Shit. That sucks.”

I blew out a frustrated breath. “Tell me about it.”

Jax flipped the channel on the TV. “That’s why I don’t do love. As soon as you let your walls down, shit falls apart and then you’re the one sitting there feeling like shit. It’s easier to hit it and quit it.”

“Nice, Jaxon.”

He shrugged. “It’s just the truth and you know it. You lived that way for years.”

I couldn’t argue; he knew my history too well. “Well, sometimes feeling something is a good thing. It reminds us that we’re still human.” I’d rather be having no sex with McKenna than be sleeping with a bunch of random girls, but I knew nothing I said would get through to him. He’d have to figure all this out on his own one day, too.

Jaxon rose from the couch and handed me the remote. “I know I’m not good at this shit, but you know you have to talk to her, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks, bro.”

I knew I needed to talk to her, but I wasn’t sure that would make a difference. With her new-found clarity and anger toward the drunk-driver who killed her parents – what could I possibly say?