Consider Me Gone

Chapter 33.

Jax

I walked into the dimly lit house to see Tara sitting on the couch. She had a glass of wine in hand so I knew the boys were asleep. The closer I got to her, I could see the bottle of red sitting on the table before her half empty. Seems like she had a bad day.

"Hey baby," I said wrapping my arms around her and kissing her cheek. She smiled softly and closed her eyes, "Hey, I didn't hear you come in. How was your day?"

I shrugged my shoulders and went to sit next to her on the couch. "Not as good as yours," I joked, gesturing to the half-empty bottle of wine on the table. "Want to talk about it?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted.

"Ouch, that bad?"

Tara shook her head and put her wine glass down. She shifted her body so that she was facing me, and in turn, I did the same. "Am I a good person? Like honestly, if you weren't in love with me, would you want me around?"

I was taken aback by Tara's question and immediately grew concerned. "Yes! You're amazing babe. One of the best people I know, why would you ask that?"

Tara looked embarrassed and tore her eyes away from me. "You see that basket over there," she said pointing to the gift basket that sat across the room. "I tried to give that to Toni today."

I was confused until I looked at the basket and let out a defeated sigh. Patchouli. Toni was extremely allergic to Patchouli. She almost reacted once or twice when she got too close, which was always when she wanted to send Tara a basket of goodies.

"You tried to give her a basket of Patchouli..." I tried to keep my voice light, but I was slightly irritated with Tara's carelessness. I wished she had told me that she was planning on giving Toni a gift because then I would have been able to prevent this mishap. Toni probably thought we were trying to kill her! "How did she react?"

"She got upset and told me that I had always been a terrible friend. She said some more stuff but that was one of the things that stuck with me."

"What else did she say," I asked growing curious.

"Does it matter?" Tara said with a bit of an edge to her voice.

I'm sure my face didn't hide how I truly felt because it did matter to me. Everything about Toni mattered to me. "C'mon babe, what happened? You can tell me anything, you know that."

Tara shook her head and jumped off the couch. "I can't believe that after everything we've been through, she had the nerve to call me a bad friend! We talked about everything with each other. I kept all her dirty secrets, and I never told a soul. And now that she's all high and mighty, now I'm not a good friend!"

"Babe, I'm sure she was just upset. I know you meant well, but your gift could have killed her," I pointed out. Tara glared at me and crossed her arms over her chest, "Of course, you would stick up for her."

"Tara," I began but she cut me off. "No! You've always stuck up for her and she wants nothing to do with you! That's what she said today, she told me to keep you away from her for generations and here you are still trying to be her knight in shining armor!"

Tara shook with anger; snatched her glass of wine and the bottle and went to the kitchen. I groaned when I realized that I'd have to follow her and rectify this somehow because I didn't want to end the night with a fight. But it seems that, no matter what I did, whenever Toni was mentioned, Tara got upset.

"Tara," I pleaded with her when I entered the kitchen, "I didn't mean to upset you."

"Of course, you didn't, you were just protecting Toni as always," Her voice carried a hint of jealousy, and I wrapped my arms around her.