Deep down, aside from the stupid law breaking that thrilled him and the girls that came and went, he was actually very smart. He could remember anything he’d ever read from years past and recite it back word for word. He was great at mathematics and was always doing my math homework for me (after I begged him for three or so hours with a ten dollar note on the side).  He enjoyed reading when no one was around, and the books on his bookshelves in his room were worn out and tattered from overuse. Yet when it came to school itself, he just didn’t care. He skipped most classes, didn’t touch his assignments, and passed only by the hairs of his chinny-chin-chin.

I talked too. About everything. I could tell Jaxon what life was like at home. I could tell him what my father used to do to my mother. I wasn’t embarrassed to say that I still slept on a mattress on the floor and that my mother was still leeching off the government to make it by, and that she still cried almost every night because she was lonely and missed my father. That she hardly ever talked to me. Hardly cared if I was around. In fact, sometimes she looked at me like I was to blame for my father’s absence. That look only drove me further away from the house.

“You’ll get out of here too,” he promised me. “Even if I have to steal you from Gosnells, you won’t be like your stupid mom and you won’t live in this stupid town. We’ll go to Winthrop and you’ll get a good job and be happy. I swear.”

I smiled and relished at that thought.

“You okay, kid?” I jumped at the sound of a guy’s voice from behind me.

My shoulders tensed and my heart beat frantically against my chest as I turned my head around and made out a tall man heading over to the swings beside me. How had I not heard him earlier? I mentally kicked myself for musing so intensely. I hated strangers, and I especially hated strangers in the dark while I was alone at a park much more.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” his baritone voice then said, taking a seat on the swing next to me. His large frame made the swing look ridiculously tiny under him. I wondered if it was going to collapse under his weight.

He was an adult, early twenties. He was donning a black leather jacket, and the emblem of a jackal’s ferocious snarl on the back of his jacket in white ink was inescapable under the full moon’s light. A bikie. I’d never talked to one before. I’d always been told to turn the other way and never under any circumstances get near them. The warning alone had frightened me into obedience. Yet here I sat next to one, and he’d been the one to engage in conversation.

I looked up at his face. He was looking down at his boots, kicking the sand idly. I could make out a sharp, straight nose, and a black beard coming in. I absently thought he looked funny having more facial hair than on his head which sported a buzz cut.

“It’s okay,” I muttered, fighting to steady my shaky voice.

His dark eyes danced about my face for a few seconds before he broke into a wide smile. “I ain’t gonna do nothin’, kiddo. You got nothin’ to be ‘fraid of. Alright?”

I nodded slowly, taking in his friendly smile, and relaxed at this gesture.

“So what’s your name?”

“Sara.”

“You live ‘round here, Sara?”

“Yeah.”

He removed a cigarette from behind his ear and then dug the lighter out of his denim jeans. I intently watched him light it with his hand cupped around the lighter. The cigarette came to life, its orange glow framing the bottom half of his face, making his pointed chin stand out more prominently than it already did.

“What’re you doing in the dead of night outside in a not so well place, birdy?” Birdy?

“Waitin’ for someone,” I answered, entranced by the strange aura that flowed out of this bikie. For my fourteen year old self, he was virile, alluring and so off limits. All these things that had me gulp the humid air to stop myself from dribbling. I wasn’t aware that I was leaning toward him, my legs diagonally positioned as the swing moved closer to his. The smell of his smoke dulled the warning of my senses which were screaming to back away and find an excuse to go home.

If he knew of my feelings – which I didn’t do well concealing – he didn’t show it. He smoked his cigarette looking over at me in consideration.

“How old are you now?” he asked. “Sixteen?”

My cheeks flushed and I was glad it was so dark so he couldn’t see it. “I’m fourteen.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Shit, still a baby.” What did he mean still?

I scowled at his term. “I’m not a baby.”

He laughed in response. I felt a hand tug at my hair before it was swept behind my shoulders. “It’s the hair,” he remarked. “It makes you look older than you are. You’re gonna be a knockout, birdy. You aware of that?”

I shook my head slightly, watching his lips take in more of his cigarette. “You should,” he said, looking impassively over my shoulder as he blew out a thick cloud. “This world ain’t pretty, Sara. I can’t say I like you, a girl at fourteen, sitting on these swings on your own in this neighbourhood. Why ain’t your parents here draggin’ you back to your room?”

“They don’t care about me,” I retorted, angrily looking away. I hated that the second he knew my age, I was being babied.

“Hey now, birdy,” he whispered. I felt his presence close by, and then the clinking of the metal chains of our swings. “I don’t mean to upset you. Just lookin’ out for you.”

I turned back to look at him. He was rubbing his bearded cheek with one hand and putting out his cigarette against the metal pole behind us.

“Why do you even care?” I inquired curiously. “You don’t even know me.”

“Don’t gotta know you to know you, birdy. Just gotta be there to make sure you ain’t in shit you don’t ever wanna be in.”

What a strange answer. Was he high? He looked in control of himself. His eyes weren’t dilated either. Huh.

“How will you know if I’m in shit I don’t ever wanna be in?”

I felt his leather jacket against my cotton pyjama top and watched him angle his head so that it was mere inches from mine. I smelled the cigarette smoke as he breathed out, and a musky kind of cologne that was surprisingly pleasant. I had to shut my mouth so I didn’t stare at awe at his rough beauty. No one would have found this man beautiful. Why the hell did I?

“You’d be surprised,” he softly answered. “One day I might just pop outta the blue and you won’t ever know it. Might pull a few strings, dangle an opportunity in front of you. All the while you’ll be living life unaware of my intrusion.”

I was so fucking lost, it wasn’t even funny. Yet I was so mesmerized by his voice and face, I didn’t stop to swallow the words until long after. He didn’t know me, yet he acted as if he did. But that wasn’t possible because this was our first meeting, and, most likely, our last.

“How ‘bout headin’ home now, Sara?”

I shook my head, defiantly. “I’m waiting for my friend.”

His lips curved upwards into a smirk. “Alright, then, stubborn one. You can wait on your guy. Be careful, though. I don’t wanna see you lurkin’ around here on your own again.” Without expecting it, he ruffled my hair at the top and stood up.

My body screamed No! and my mind kicked back in relief at his departure.

“See you around, birdy.” And just like that, he was gone. Never learned his name. Damn shame. I sat in the stillness of the night a while longer, mulling his words over.

It was right then I wondered how he knew I was waiting on a guy.

Two

I hated high school with a passion. Jaxon promised me that he would look out for me and that it wouldn’t be as agonizing as people made it out to be. Lucinda loomed over my shoulder throughout the summer leading up to my first year. She was itching to have me looking the part of a high school teenage girl.

She sat me down the night before my first day and did my nails for me. I’d never had my nails done by her before – and not from her lack of trying!

“You need to stop biting these off, Sara,” she whined.

“You’re going to cut them off anyway,” I replied stubbornly.

“That’s not the point. You’re in the habit of biting them off, and I don’t want to dare see your new nails bitten off tomorrow. I’m doing these free of charge, young lady. Be grateful.”

I attempted to feel grateful, but her talking about nails was already making me want to chew them off again. She’d been extra attentive to me lately. She insisted I remove the hairs from my face, whining that my moustache was a sin to female humanity -- and don’t even get me started on what she said about my eyebrows…

She gave me my first make up kit and taught me how to apply it. It was a long process that I wasn’t entirely sure I would be able to commit to, but she pushed and pushed until I relented and made her a promise that I would. She took me to the hair dressers and had my hair cut in layers. After my father had left, I had the freedom to let it grow. I never knew how thick hair could be, or how time consuming it was to wash it every night with Lucinda’s “rinse and repeat” method and shampoos she’d given me.

“We can put colour in it,” she’d said, combing her fingers into my dark brown wavy mess.

“Please don’t,” I begged. Her paying for the cut was already too generous.

She spoiled me rotten, and took me to some second hand shops for clothes. With the price on some of the items I wondered why on earth I’d grown up with barely anything in my closet. There was no excuse for my parents not to spend so little on me. How fucking petty of them.

“You see, Sara,” she started, going through the racks of the clothing store, “you find a second hand shop near the wealthy area. Rich people love to throw their clothes away, and you don’t want to miss out on that. Are you listening to everything I’m saying?”

She’d noticed I’d wandered off in thought. “Hmm?” I said, looking at her.

“Sara,” she sighed, “be appreciative of me. I have a lot of wisdom to share, but only if you’re listening. You’re like the daughter I never had.” A daughter you’re trying to vicariously live through, I thought with amusement.

“You need to impress the boys. After I’m done with you, I’m sure you’ll have your first date the same week you start.”

That didn’t give me pleasant feelings. I liked boys, don’t get me wrong, but I was just too timid around them. It was hard enough talking to girls my age; imagine my stumbling ass in front of a cute boy!

When I envisioned myself talking to a boy, I had all the wittiest lines picked out in my head. I imagined myself twirling my long hair with my impeccable make up on, wearing the best outfit I had, and flirting graciously without flaw to a smiling and enamoured muscular boy… And then I brought myself back to reality and remembered just how impossible that reality was. Imagination and reality were two entirely different dimensions. While I was a flawless rock-star babe in one, I was a complete shy scatterbrained mess in the other.

It also didn’t help I was in a phase that included men in leather jackets, buzzed haircuts and light beards! Or the fact that this phase had me intentionally walking past bikie owned shops in the hopes of finding that mystery swing man I’d met. Oh, how pathetic I was!

“You’re turning into such a pretty girl,” Lucinda said as she set my nails under the nail dryer. The heat soaked in pleasantly around the tips of my fingers.

I wasn’t the most confident or most beautiful girl around, but I looked at myself in the mirror enough to know I wasn’t ugly either. I liked what I saw. Ugly Sara was a shadow of what I’d become. I was no longer bones. I was healthy and athletic, of average height, with chestnut coloured eyes and very long eyelashes. My skin was a light tan, and my body was developing speedily at fourteen. My breasts had come in, and I immediately wished they’d stop growing, but Lucinda advised me that they would be my most useful body part.

“You’ll have boys eating from your hand if you strut that stuff.” She emphasized her own by jutting her chest out.

Ugh. I didn’t want to jut mine out at all. I promised her I would, but knew I most definitely would not. Lucinda’s advice was always a hit or miss.

“Make sure you stay away from them bikie kids, by the way,” she’d advised with the kind of seriousness that meant no funny business. “You don’t want to be involved with that kind of trash.”

That was a hit. Unless it was mystery man, the last thing I wanted was to be anywhere near anyone that associated with the Black-Backed Jackals. That MC was untouchable.

I’d been wracked with nerves on my first day, and although I had a few friends with me, they weren’t in any of my classes for the first semester. The first day was lonely and hard up until lunch time when Jaxon spotted me eating alone. If there was one thing about Jaxon I can say I loved the most, it was that he was caring and protective of me. He invited me to his table, introduced me to his friends, and was attentive to me. He wasn’t at all afraid of letting the world know that I was his best friend, and it made the experience a lot easier on me.

I knew many people, but only had a couple friends. Every year those friends would be replaced by others for many reasons: sometimes they weren’t in my class, other times they moved away, and sometimes we just meshed into different crowds. I maintained my personal distance to them, never letting them in, but allowing them to trust in me. I liked when they told me their problems or their stories, it kept the attention off of me.