Chapter 7
Jax stepped into the cramped motel room, ducking his head instinctively beneath the low doorframe. Leo slipped in right behind him, instantly gravitating toward the edge of the unmade double bed where a half-empty glass of water sat on the nightstand beside a plastic orange pill bottle.
The room was depressing in its temporary transience—water-stained wallpaper curling near the ceiling, a scarred dresser with a cigarette burn on the laminate, and a humming box television casting a pale, flickering blue light over the worn carpet. This was where Sarah had spent her final weeks, rationing medicine and hoping against hope that a ghost from her youth would answer a desperate call.
Sarah sank back onto the edge of the mattress, pulling a thin gray blanket over her shoulders to ward off the chill. She didn't look at Jax at first; her gaze was fixed entirely on Leo, who was standing beside her, gently patting her arm with a small, comforting gesture that was far too mature for an eight-year-old boy.
“I told you he’d come, buddy,” Sarah murmured, a faint, tired smile touching her pale lips. She looked up at Jax then, her eyes searching his weathered face for any sign of the reckless kid she had known in Arizona. What she found was a hardened stranger whose eyes held an unexpected depth of sorrow.
“You shouldn’t have sent him out in that weather alone, Sarah,” Jax said, his voice low and gruff, though the rough edges lacked any real anger. It was the voice of a man trying to find purchase on a cliffside that was constantly crumbling beneath his boots.
“I didn't have a choice,” Sarah replied simply, her voice devoid of defensiveness. “The clinic called this morning. They said the insurance paperwork fell through. And my body… well, my body isn't taking the treatments anymore, Jax. I’ve been coughing up blood since Tuesday. I couldn't drive. Leo had the photo. I told him how to find the Rustwater Diner because I knew you worked the graveyard route through here years ago. I didn't think he’d actually make it all the way.”
Jax stared at her, feeling a cold knot twist in his stomach. He had spent fifteen years convincing himself that Sarah was resilient, that she didn't need him, that his absence was a favor. Seeing her now, reduced to skin and bone in a seedy roadside motel, the delusion shattered completely. He was the coward who had run away while she bore the consequences alone, twice over.
“How long?” Jax asked, the words catching in his throat.
May you like
“A few weeks, maybe less,” Sarah said without self-pity, looking straight into his eyes. “I’m not asking for forever, Jax. I know who you are. I know what you are. But I need to know that when I’m gone, he isn't going into the foster system. I need to know he has a roof over his head that doesn't leak every time it rains.”
Leo looked up from the bed, his big hazel eyes shifting between his mother and Jax, sensing the gravity of the adult conversation without understanding all the pieces. He reached out and grabbed the edge of Sarah’s blanket, holding on as if that simple act could anchor her to the world.
