The Navigator

40. Living Possibilities

Author's Note:

Song Credit: Wolf in the Darkest Room, Matthew Mayfield

This Chapter contains some mature language and sexual themes. This story is rated mature so discretion is advised.

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Addy's heart was pounding, and she didn't really understand why. The actions of the day weren't unexpected or unwanted, in fact she had wanted them very much, more than she would have imagined was possible until the very moment the option was presented to her. She didn't want to spend another moment of her life with her family fractured, not one more night staring up at a dark ceiling imagining if the love of her life was missing her, too. No, she wanted to roll onto her side and see him there, confident that she was not only desired, but needed.

So why was she pacing in the alley behind her apartment, her chest constricted in panic and her mind running a million miles an hour? The last of her things had already been moved and she had stayed behind to finish the last of the painting. Maybe that was it, the covering up and disappearing of Gemma's mural sending her hurtling into this whirl of panic and anxiety. Or was moving in with Jax this soon after her break up just such a terrible idea she was having a visceral reaction to it now that it was done? If her body was telling her something, she should listen.

She continued to move, hoping the blinding adrenaline that was now inexplicably rushing through her would burn off soon. Allowing her to think rationally instead of whatever this was. Maybe it was the fumes from the paint? She had been starting to feel nauseous too, which is why she had gone outside in the first place. Really, she had wanted to wander into the pub and maybe drink a cold glass of water at the bar, but these days she never knew who was inside. It was the same reason she also didn't just head to the boardwalk to watch the water ebb and flow against the pilings, the random pattern yet inevitability of the movement soothing her back to normal. Instead she hid here, the shadows of the buildings on either side offering privacy as she proceeded to freak the fuck out.

Jax and Brooke would be back soon to collect her, bring her to her new home and closing the door on this chapter of her life. The one where she lived alone in the room above her favorite bar, sleeping with random men until one of them knocked her up and she romanticized their history in her own mind and manipulated him into accepting her. That's what had happened right? Basically? He really only ever felt bad for her, because there was no way Jax Fairsail grounded himself for a little girl named Addy Murphy, just for who she was.

STOP!

That was probably the dumbest thing she had ever thought in her own head. What was wrong with her? Something wasn't right, because even though it had taken her a while to let herself believe that she was loved, she knew now that it was true.

Jax loved her, and she loved him.

She stopped her pacing and leaned against the wall, closing her eyes and trying an old technique a kindly barge worker had taught her when she was nothing more than a terrified urchin trying to make enough money to eat. Breathing deeply for a count of 4, holding for 4 then releasing and holding. Repeat.

Her heartbeat slowed, her mind stopped spinning, the nasty insecurities that had haunted her throughout her adult life stepped away from her and the warmth of memory took its place. One of weightlessness, burning light, and an entire planet before her. Hovering in the sky like a globe of perspective; existing only to enlighten those who gazed upon it.

The largeness of a single place that contained such a small piece of her people who had spread across the galaxy, and with even greater distance all of humanity could appear to fit in the palm of her hand. At once insignificant and critical. It all mattered. They all mattered. She mattered. The ones she loved were as important to her as the sun was to the planets that were drawn to it.