5. Jaxson
5
Jaxson
C hicago has been my home my entire life, and despite the fact that my father lives there, I’ve never had any desire to truly leave. I’ve never felt any relief from being away from there and arriving anywhere else. So the relief I feel when my plane touches down in Georgia, like I can finally breathe again, is new to say the least. Or maybe it has more to do with the fact that I’m finally back in the same place as Lauressa. Where I can easily get to her. See her. Put my hands on her if I want to. Away from the prying eyes of the Sovereignty and my father.
Part of me almost wishes that I hadn’t taken her to Chicago at all. That I’d just left her here until I was able to take my father’s seat, and I could steal away and be with her in our own little secret world away from the Sovereignty. I’d thought about it but ultimately decided it was too risky. Especially if my father got tired of me putting off a marriage and decided to take matters into his own hands.
I dismiss any regrets and wishful thinking about what I could have or should have done. Ultimately, my father was always the wild card in all this until I figure out how to remove him from the table—something I still haven’t figured out and need to have figured out before the weekend is over. Or else lose Magdalene as an ally or have her resort to a course of action that will hurt my plans more than my father already has.
But that can wait until after the funeral.
According to Lauressa’s tracker, she’s continued to stay at her parents’ house since she arrived back and has barely left except to go to the funeral home and visit the site of the graves. I arrive in the city the night before the funeral but don’t go to her parents’ house until a few hours before. I’d hoped I could glean something from all the files that Magdalene sent over, but none of it is anything that could help me both get my father to publicly take back wanting to make Lauressa one of his conduits and get him out of the way.
So far, I’ve only come up with ways that allow me to have only one or the other. But I refuse to believe that’s it, that it’s either one or the other. That I either keep my standing in the Sovereignty and lose Lauressa or have Lauressa and destroy all my standing in the Sovereignty, and thus the Sovereignty with it. In that, Magdalene is right to be apprehensive. If I can’t have the Sovereignty, I’m going to make sure that no one can have it. There are enough damning things going on and that have happened that the feds would love to get their hands on and make a public spectacle of.
But that’s only a last resort. After I’ve exhausted all means.
When I arrive at Lauressa’s parents’ house, there’s a bunch of people from Loving Eden moving about in a flurry, setting up seating and tables on the inside and outside, cleaning, and cooking in the kitchen .
“Are you here to pick up Lauressa and Abigail?” one of the women, a church mother, asks upon seeing me. “You’re not supposed to be here for another two hours. We didn’t mix up the time. Did we?”
Before I can decide how I’m going to answer that, Lauressa’s friend, Lyssa, appears and perks up upon seeing me.
“Oh! It’s you,” she says.
Not sure exactly what Lauressa has told Lyssa about me, I say nothing as she crosses the room to me, grabs me by the arm, and starts to pull me upstairs.
Assuming that she’s taking me to Lauressa, I allow her to, and sure enough, we stop in front of Lauressa’s childhood bedroom door.
“Res,” Lyssa sings.
“I told you. Don’t wake me until thirty minutes before the ride gets here,” she says through the door.
“You have a guest,” Lyssa says.
“I’m not seeing anyone until the funeral and repast,” Lauressa answers.
Before Lyssa can argue with Lauressa more, I say, “Lauressa.”
There’s a long pause during which Lyssa looks at me and shrugs until that pause finally becomes complete silence, indicating Lauressa isn’t going to answer.
“Thank you for your assistance,” I say to her. “I can handle it from here.”
Lyssa nods and walks off. As soon as she’s gone, I unlock the door and let myself into the room.
“I didn’t say you could come in,” she says from under the cover .
“You know better than to think that a flimsy bedroom door lock would keep me away from you.”
She scoffs. “Yeah. The only one that can do that is your father.”
“If that were true, I wouldn’t be here,” I state.
She huffs. “We’ll see just how long that lasts.”
Tired of talking to her through the blanket, I go over and remove it from her head.
“Hey,” she snaps and pulls it back over her head, this time holding on tight when I try to remove it again.
“Lauressa, this is pathetic. Stop acting like a five-year-old and get from under the cover,” I say with a patient sigh.
“I’m in mourning. I’m allowed to act however I want.”
“If you’re in mourning, then I’m a perfectly sane, well-adjusted man who respects your boundaries and will give you your space,” I respond.
I wasn’t expecting a particular response from that, fully expecting that I’d have to resort to drastic measures to deal with Lauressa’s stubbornness. But to my surprise, a laugh escapes her as she removes the covers from her upper body, revealing messy hair and an oversized t-shirt.
“So you admit it? You’re a madman.”
“I can be insane and maladjusted while not being a madman.”
She rolls her eyes. “Sure you can.” She pauses. “What are you doing here?”
“To be with you for your parents' funeral. I hear that’s what supportive fiancés are supposed to do for their future wives, especially when trying to keep up the appearance of not having murdered said parents,” I reply.
Lauressa’s face falls into a scowl as she says, “Of course, it’s all for appearances' sake,” before pulling the covers over her head again.
To think I thought for one moment she was going to be reasonable.
I snatch the blanket off of her and then snatch her out of bed.
“Hey. What?” she snaps as I drag her to her feet. “You asshole. I told you. I’m in mourn—”
“If you were actually in mourning, I might actually allow you to temporarily wallow in your self-pity. But you’re not. You’re being immature and—”
“Aren’t I?” she asks.
“Aren’t you what?”
“In mourning? I literally blew up my whole life thinking that if I was going to blow it up, at least you would be there. And now? Now I don’t even have that? So forgive me if all I wanna do is lay down in bed and wallow over the fact that your father, a man even more mad and dangerous than you, has decided he wants me to be his. Excuse me if I’m upset that the man who drank my fucking period blood to show how committed he was to me was all a bunch of show and disappointment,” she snaps.
She’s wrong. I’m no less committed to her than I was before we went to Chicago and my father blew everything up in our faces. But empty platitudes like that don’t do anything when I still don’t have a plan. Something concrete that Lauressa can believe in. Something concrete that I can believe in so that I’m not lying to her. But for the first time in a very long time in my life, things are uncertain, and I don’t know what the next course of action is to get me to my goal.
Since I have nothing helpful to say, I decide on saying nothing.
“Nothing to say, huh?” she asks with a scoff. “You’re so big and tough when you know you have the upper hand and you know there’s no way you can lose, but a coward when it counts. Maybe I should be grateful to your father for taking you off my hands. Maybe being his young little concubine won’t be so bad. Maybe after the funeral, I'll catch a flight to Chicago and tell him we should get on with the marriage, or whatever the fuck the Sovereignty calls it, right away.
From the moment we met, Lauressa has always known exactly where to strike to get a reaction out of me. Like she’s able to see right through me and see every weakness, every crack, every shatter point. Like she watched a movie of my entire life and took notes.
Regardless of how she does it, her statement makes me snap.
The next thing either of us know, I have her pinned to the bed with my hand around her neck right under her chin.
"You," I tighten my grip. "You. Are. Mine."
She chokes out a laugh and says with a grin that makes her look like the madman she accuses me of being, “So that’s how it is? If you can’t have me, no one can? Going to kill me? Going to choke me out and then hang me in the closet and make it look like I killed myself? Oh wait. You’d have to hide the bruises from your hand around my neck."
“What do you want me to say?” I snap, unable to hide how out of control and off-kilter I’ve felt since Sunday. “That I didn’t plan for any of this? That I didn’t plan for you? That I didn’t plan for how much just your presence was going to alter everything I thought I was certain of? That I’ve spent every waking and sleeping moment trying to figure out how the fucking hell I’m going to take control again? How I’m going to outmaneuver my father? What I’m going to choose if it comes down between you and the fucking Sovereignty?
“You want me to do something completely unhelpful and lay down next to you and wallow in my own self-pity like you are because things suddenly aren’t going exactly how I expect them to? To break down and cry like a little child? Is that what you want? Is that how you need for me to act to prove that I’m affected by all this too?”
I let out a laugh. It’s mirthless. It sounds insane and mad and all the things Lauressa has accused me of being.
“Before you, the answer would have been clear and obvious. Nothing and no one gets in the way of me becoming Oracle and shaping the Sovereignty in my image. Using that money, control, and influence to shape the world in my image. Nothing else mattered. And now… now you do matter, and the choice that was once so apparent it was transparent is now opaque,” I growl. “Is that what you wanted to hear? To prove that I’m exactly the weak coward you think I am?”
Lauressa doesn’t answer, continuing to glare up at me. When she continues to be silent for too long, I shake her like she’s a malfunctioning electronic. She may as well be. Lauressa always has a comeback .
“Now who has nothing to say,” I say, giving her a final shake and her neck one final squeeze before getting off her.
I have to get away from her. Being around her has always taken me out of character, always forced me to change course with no warning. But this last week has been that dialed to a thousand, and I’m at a loss for how to get back in control and stay that way. Because only once I’m back in control will I be able to figure all this out.
As I’m leaving, I throw over my shoulder to her, “Now stop wallowing in self-pity and get dressed.”