As Hope and Promise Fade

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Jax couldn’t explain the warmth and joy that washed over him to see Ariana. She looked so beautiful, her skin was tan from the California sun, her hair was wavy around her shoulders, as the years went on her curves defined more making him weak in the knees by just looking at her. In the years since they first met she went from a seventeen year old beautiful girl to a twenty year old gorgeous woman.

“Hey.” He forced his feet to move and get closer to her.

She looked around the club to avoid looking at him. “Everything looks really nice.”

“So do you…I mean you look beautiful. All that sun agrees with you.”

“I miss the cold winters.” She shyly looked down at her feet now.

“Is that all you miss?”

“No but it’s all I allow myself. I’m trying to make the best of it but I didn’t want any of this Jax.” Ariana dragged her eyes from the floor and met his, her own laced with the unshed tears of anger and sadness she hadn’t been able to express.

“You always wanted to go to USC and then when the time came you backed out because of me. I couldn’t let you do that.”

“It was my choice not yours.”

“I gave you the out and you took it.” Jax didn’t want to hurt her but the facts were the facts, she had been gone the last year to pursue her dreams of studying science medicine.  

“I couldn’t stay here looking at you everyday not being able to actually be with you so yes I left. I was the coward and ran to another state but you ran first. You told me what we had was a lifetime commitment but the second something didn’t go the way you wanted you bailed.” Ariana was angry, her fists tight at her side as she tried to remain in control of her feelings not to make a scene. It wouldn’t help for Julie or their parents to overhear this.

“It is forever, I haven’t laid eyes on you for nearly a year and all I want it to touch you as if I never have. It’s forever Ariana it just can’t be right now.”

She stared at him with tearful hazel eyes. “What?”

“I love you and I’m so happy you decided to come back home for Julie’s birthday but you’ll have to go back and finish school and it’ll be better for the both us if we don’t make that harder.” Jax couldn’t have her for a day or two and then have to let go again, he wouldn’t be able to survive it. As much as they hurt now it was easier than the alternative.

Ariana turned away before he could see her cry. She went back the way they came in through the back door. She couldn’t look at him another second without yelling at the top of her lunges about the way he was hurting her. She had been a fool to think the worst had been over between them. She had made him promise to never make a decision on her behalf again after he moved out to give her time, he had promised and it had been for nothing.

She took in a deep breath of the cool evening air and noticed she wasn’t alone. “Why aren’t you inside?” now that she thought back to it she realized he hadn’t come in with her and Julie.

“It felt better to give you all sometime alone. I take it you talked to Jax.”

“What gave it away?”

“The tears you’re wrestling with.”

“Oh.” Embarrassed to be caught of the verge of tears she smiled weakly and looked away from his concerned expression. “Can I ask you something?”

Using his foot he pushed off the concert wall he had been leaning against. “Sure.”

“Is there someone else and Jax is just too afraid to tell me?”

“No.” he didn’t hesitate and she took comfort in that. “I think he’s mixed up and scared you’ll end up regretting your choice to stay with him so he’s pushing you away to live the life you had wanted before all of this.”

“I didn’t plan any of this but that doesn’t mean I regret it. I love him, Mitch, Julie and….” She caught herself from saying too much. “And I just don’t get way that can’t be enough. I’m capable of making my own choices.”

“I can see that.”

“There sounds like there sound be a but there.”

He smiled. “But it’s you and Jax and even though his choices don’t make a whole lot of sense he has the right to make them.”

“You don’t agree with what he’s doing?”

“No, when you find the woman you love and she becomes your mate you hold onto her for the rest of your life.”

Ariana’s emotions shifted, she felt less sorry for herself and more sorry for Marc. He was a good guy, smart, funny, gorgeous and fiercely loyal; there was no reason why he should be alone. “Jax once told me you found your mate but she was with someone else. I know it’s not exactly the same but you can find another woman and make her your chosen.” She had spent weeks reading about the differences about true and chosen mates. In the end the love shared between mates, didn’t matter which kind, was something beautiful and enviable by humans.

“No it’s not the same. Once you see the person that destiny chose for you she consumes your every waking moment and in your dreams you get an ounce of peace because you can envision a life together. All of that makes it very difficult to look at another woman and try to feel something for her so I don’t try because it wouldn’t be very fair.”

As Ariana stared at him it was one of the few times she saw the stripped back raw version of Marc, there was no sly grins and flirting, no wise jokes to fill the air. She saw clear as day the torture of which he described.

There was nothing she could do to help him so it seemed best to leave him alone with his thoughts. “I should get back inside before Julie accuses me of ditching her party.”

Marc watched her go with the fiery ache in his chest he was getting used to living with. As crazy as it all sounded he wished Jax and Ariana could work it out. He was fine with stepping back if it meant his nephew and mate could be happy but now with them broken up and at opposite sides he wasn’t sure how long he could stand back without claiming her. That thought scared him the most.

She was ten years his junior and madly in love with Jax, why did the universe have to have such a sick sense of humor? He chuckled weakly at his own rotten luck. He knew he was going to do whatever it took to help them be happy together.