Chapter 49 Jaxon
Chapter forty-nine
Jaxon
Leaving Izzy less than twenty-four hours after promising her I’m here for good feels like a terrible idea, but she was understanding when I kissed her awake to tell her about my meeting with Matt.
Or she’d been too tired after a day of reconciliation and makeup sex to care.
But now, with the gravel crunching beneath my tires and my dad’s house coming into view, something uneasy settles in my chest. It’s not regret. It’s not even fear. It’s the kind of emotional weight that only shows up when you’re doing something that matters.
The truth is, I spent so long chasing a dream that I never asked myself what I’d do if I actually caught it. Luckily, I’ll have Izzy here to help me figure out what my dreams look like now.
The sky is bright, the deep blue streaked with thin white clouds and sunbeams, as if it too recognizes today is the start of something new. Something wonderful.
Matt’s already waiting when I pull into the gravel drive in front of my dad’s house. He’s leaning against the tailgate of his truck like he’s been part of the landscape all along, boots dusted with dirt, coffee in hand.
“Thought you might bail,” he says when I step out.
“Nah.” I slam the door shut behind me. “This one’s overdue.”
Inside, we sit at the kitchen table—me on one side, Matt on the other, a stack of papers and a silence that feels like understanding instead of awkwardness between us.
We’ve already gone over the terms over the phone: I’ll retain ownership, but he’ll take care of the land.
Matt pulls out a pen from the center of the table and taps it once, slow and thoughtful, before handing it to me. “My dad likes to say this land will outlive us all,” he says. “Says we’re just borrowing it from whoever comes next.”
I take the pen. My fingers curl tight around it, but I don’t move.
“First time I ever drove the tractor,” I say, voice quiet, “I hit a parked sprinkler and cried like a baby. Thought my dad was going to kill me, but he just told me it was as good of a time as any to learn how to fix a sprinkler.”
Matt chuckles. “It’s always a good time to learn to fix a sprinkler. The damn things break all the time, with or without a tractor running into them.”
I let out a breath, shaky and soft. Then I start to sign the documents.
It takes longer than it should. My hand isn’t as steady as it normally is, but when it’s done, something unknots in my chest.
Matt flips through the pages, careful and precise. “Guess this makes it official.”
“Yeah,” I say.
He looks up. “Your dad would’ve liked this plan.”
I nod, too full of things I don’t know how to say.
“You selling the house too?” Matt asks, his voice easy but curious.
I glance toward the hallway. “Only if you want it.”
He shakes his head. “Got a place already. It was my grandparents’ home. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
I smile, though it stings just a little to realize how committed Matt is to his own family’s history. How tied he is to his roots.
“Then yeah. I’ll list it eventually. Hopefully, sell it to someone local.”
He nods, flipping the pages back into a neat stack. “You planning to come back much?”
“I’m not sure yet. Izzy and I still have a lot to figure out. I’ll be back at least once a month to check out the land and the crops, though. Maybe take a week or two off to help with harvest if that’s okay with you?”
His lips twitch into a grin. “It’ll almost be like you’re a local again.”
I pause at that. The unspoken welcome home.
We walk out together, the air cool and clear around us. I clap him on the shoulder before he climbs into his truck. “Thanks, Matt.”
“For what?”
“For keeping this place alive.”
He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “It’s not just land, Jax. It’s a legacy.”
And then he’s gone.
I stand alone in the gravel for a beat, then head into the house.
In my room, I sit at the edge of the bed, taking in everything. Saying goodbye.
My gaze snags on the frame lying face down, the one I turned over when I first got here. The version of Izzy and me I couldn’t face. I pick it up, trailing my finger over her smiling face. Her happiness. My happiness.
I’m never letting it go again.
Finally, knowing it’s time, I make my way to the room I’ve avoided since I came back.
I stand outside the door for a long while, the mark on the carpet from the door an impenetrable line and the only witness to my indecision.
It’s stupid. It’s a room. But today, something about the silence on the other side feels louder. Like it’s finally asking me to come in.
My hand hovers near the knob. I brush my fingertips against the wood, like it might permit me to enter.
“Okay,” I whisper to myself. “Okay. Go.”
But my feet stay planted.
For a second, I think about turning back. About going back to Izzy’s and asking her to do this for me.
Knowing she would.
Not wanting her to.
Slowly, I push the door open. It groans a bit as it moves. The air smells like dust and cedar and something faintly like old cologne. The bed is still made, a flannel still on the hook behind the door.
And on the closet floor—three boxes labeled in thick black marker:
JAXON—DO NOT THROW AWAY
I don’t sit. I drop. Straight to my knees.
The first box is full of clippings—concert reviews, magazine features, even bad interviews I thought had faded into obscurity. One is circled in red: “Farm Boy Makes Good.”
The second is packed with framed concert posters, and a photograph that stops my breath.
My dad and I, years ago after one of my baseball games, arms slung around each other’s shoulders.
He looks proud. Not in the flashy way. But in that quiet, satisfied way I never noticed when I was too busy trying to prove myself.
The third box holds yellowing spiral notebooks.
Lots of and lots of notebooks.
I pull out one cautiously and flip it open with shaking hands. The pages are messy and barely legible. Lyrics I wrote before I knew how to be vulnerable, when I thought angst was depth and metaphor made me brave.
He kept them.
Every single scrap of almost-music I ever scribbled into being.
And then I see them—tucked on the other side of the box, a neat stack of letters. My breath catches as I pull them out and flip through, realizing every single one is addressed to me. Not a stamp in sight. None of them ever meant to be mailed.
I open the first, unfold the sheet of computer paper, and instantly recognize my dad’s scrawl. It’s recent—from my last birthday.
Jaxon,
I heard the tour was sold out. I can’t believe how far you’ve come. I wish your mom could see it. I’m proud of you, son. I’m glad you’ve got people like Kelsey and Carter looking out for you. Maybe it means you’re ready to come back for a visit.
I blink hard. My throat tightens as I move toward the end of the page.
I’m sorry for what I said all those years ago. The truth is, I blamed myself. And then I blamed you. I didn’t know how else to carry it. I see now how wrong I was. I hope someday you’ll forgive me.
My hands shake as I reach for the next one. The date in the corner makes my chest squeeze—four years ago.
Happy birthday, Jax. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this. Maybe that’s what makes it easier to be honest. I miss you. More than I can say. I don’t know how to fix what I broke.
Another.
Another year, another letter. I saw you on TV tonight. You looked strong. Confident. I hope you know I always believed you had it in you. I just…didn’t know how to say it without it sounding like I was weak. I guess that was my pride. And it cost me everything.
It’s why I came to your concert last year. Why I tried to come backstage to see you. I don’t blame you for turning me away, though. I would’ve done the same thing in your situation.
Each letter feels heavier, the words stacking like bricks on my chest. A story unfolding of a man who never forgave himself, who didn’t know how to bridge the gap with his son. One argument, one night of anger, stretched into silence that lasted the rest of his life.
By the time I reach the last letter, my vision blurs. I lean back against the bed, the stack clutched to my chest, and for the first time since he died—I cry.
Not the kind of cry that sneaks up and disappears. The kind that builds slowly. That presses behind your ribs until your whole chest caves in around it.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Izzy
You okay?
I call her.
She answers on the second ring. “Hey.”
I swallow hard. “I went into my dad’s room.”
There’s a beat of silence. Not the kind that’s awkward. The kind where she’s giving me space to say more if I want to.
“I found these boxes,” I continue. “Labeled with my name. Full of stuff I thought he didn’t care about. Newspaper clippings. My first CDs. The notebooks I used to write lyrics in before I could even play guitar properly. Letters.”
Her breath hitches softly through the speaker. “What did they say?”
“How sorry he was.” I rake a hand through my hair. “But he never sent them, Iz. Why didn’t he send them?”
“I don’t know, Jax.”
“I spent so long being angry at him,” I say. “Resenting him just as much as he resented me. Desperate to become something just to prove to him and myself that I was someone worth the loss of my mom.”
“You were always something,” she says gently. There’s a quiet moment where I think she might cry. Or maybe that’s me again.
“I’m proud of you,” she whispers.
“I’m still mad at him,” I say.
“That’s okay, Jax.”
That’s when I lose it again.
Just a few more tears. Quiet but honest.
“I want to keep the house,” I say, wiping my face with my sleeve. “Not just the land. All of it. This house. The memories. Even the hard ones.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I want to fill it with new ones too.”
She doesn’t say anything for a while. Just stays with me.
“He talked about how proud he was of you all the time in the last few years,” she says finally. “But I know he’d be even more proud of you now. Now that you’ve figured out how to chase your wild dreams without leaving your roots behind.”
“I should’ve come home a long time ago.”
“Maybe. But maybe you needed this time to figure out who you are and what you want.”
There’s another pause in our conversation, but I can hear her breathing, and there is something about the sound that anchors me.
“So are you really going to keep the house?” she asks.
“Yeah. Not just keep it. Live in it. Make it mine…ours. You, me—Hell, maybe a dog. Christmas mornings. Burned toast. Arguments over which way the toilet paper roll goes.”
She laughs, watery and real. “Just diving right in, huh?”
“Always,” I say. “You wouldn’t want me any other way.”
After we hang up, I sit with this new version of me for a while. The silence isn’t so loud now. The grief not so sharp.
I look around the room again, and for the first time, I feel like I’m home—not just to a place, but to the man I was always meant to be.