Losing Control : His Madness, His Cure Chapter 131

Steam still clings to my skin, a faint mist trailing after me as I step into the bedroom. My hair drips cold against my neck, damp strands plastering to my forehead. I tug open the dresser, grab a pair of pajama pants, and pull them on. A T-shirt next, soft and worn thin.

I glance around, expecting him. The room feels too still, too empty.

My chest tightens.

“Jax?” My voice carries, low but sure.

No one answers back. Just silence.

A frown creases my forehead. I pause, listening, like maybe I’ll catch the sound of him moving somewhere...his boots on hardwood, a drawer opening, the faint scrape of a chair. But the apartment holds its breath.

I cross to the door, the floor cool under my bare feet, and step into the hall. “Jax?” Louder this time.

Still nothing.

Dread creeps in, slow but merciless, coiling around my ribs. My pulse quickens, my mind clawing for excuses...maybe he’s in the kitchen, maybe he didn’t hear me over the hum of the fridge. But even as I head that way, I know. I just know. He’s not here. He probably never came up.

The kitchen is empty. No Jax leaning against the counter, no smell of food on the stove, it's just absence...the kind that makes my stomach drop.

The dread floods fast now, a tide rising high in my throat. I move quickly, almost tripping over myself as I rush into the living room, hand reaching for the phone I left on the coffee table. My eyes catch on the bag with the antiques, the canvases stacked against it. And there, propped carelessly against the side, is his painting. That twisted, crude, obscene depiction of me in bed. I run a hand through my damp hair, tug hard at the roots.

What the hell happened?

Did I push him? Was it the conversation outside, the way I pressed when he didn’t want to be pressed? Did I say too much? Did I scare him off?

Or maybe it’s nothing. Maybe he just slipped out to the store to grab something for dinner. Ingredients i definitely didn't have. Maybe he’s already on his way back, and I’m standing here like an idiot, drowning myself in panic.

My thumb swipes across my phone screen, unlocks it.

One message waits for me.

“ *Needed to head to work ”*

My lips part, breath slipping out sharp and uneven. My thumb hovers, useless, over the glass. Work. His work. That goddamn fight club. That fucking brutal place that eats him alive piece by piece. And he tells me like this. In a text.

I sink onto the couch, phone heavy in my hand, eyes locked on the words. I read them again. And again. Needed....

Like it’s oxygen. Like it’s not tearing him apart every time he goes back.

I inhale deeply, trying to steady the riot in my chest. My thumb drags to his contact, presses call. The dial tone rings, once, twice, three times before the line clicks open.

“Yeah?” His voice is hoarse and muffled, frayed at the edges. One word, and it guts me.

I tip my head back, stare at the ceiling like maybe it’ll keep me from unraveling. “Now?” My voice cracks quieter than I mean. “You had to head in now?”

“Yeah.” Final.

My throat burns. I nod even though he can’t see me, teeth sinking into the inside of my cheek. A thousand things press against my lips....come back, you don't have to go—but I swallow them down. He won’t. Because for some twisted reason I can’t reach or understand, he needs this.

“Can you at least tell me where?” The words scrape raw on their way out.

There’s silence on the other end. Just his breath, slow and restrained. Then, softly, like a plea he doesn’t want to voice, “Xander...” My name, and nothing more. He doesn’t want me there. Doesn’t want me close. “It’s better if you don’t know.”

Better? I close my eyes, the word a sour taste in my mouth. There’s nothing better about being shut out. Nothing better about picturing him bloodied and alone, while I sit here.

But I don’t push. Not this time.

“Do me a favor then?” I ask, my voice stripped down, soft as I can make it. He makes a sound from the back of his throat which I take as his response, “Come back to me afterwards. Okay?”

There's another pause. His breath catches faintly like he’s about to argue.

“It’ll be really late,” he mutters.

“I’ll wait.”

The silence stretches, long enough that my chest aches, long enough I almost think he won’t answer at all. So I don’t give him the chance, I hang up first.

The phone falls heavy in my lap. My hand drags over my face, damp hair sticking to my skin. The rain outside has started to drum against the windows, steady and relentless.

And I just sit there, staring at nothing, holding myself together with threads, waiting for him to come back in one piece.

Over an hour later, the rain hasn’t let up. It slicks against the windows, the sound a low, steady percussion that makes the silence in here feel even sharper. I sit hunched forward now, elbows braced against my knees, phone slack in my hands. My foot tapping repeatedly on the floor. The apartment feels wrong without him in it, too big and way too still.

The thing is, today was good. Better than good. I can still feel the warmth of it humming under my skin if I let myself lean into the memory. Him teasing me at the antique shop, the way he held my hand outside the like it was second nature. Even the conversation outside my building had felt like progress, at least to me it had, like we were cracking something open instead of skirting around it.

And now this. Him gone.

It feels like every time we take a step forward, we stumble back two more. Like we’re clawing toward something solid only for it to slip out of reach again. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy with him—Jax is....difficult doesn’t even begin to cover it. He’s walls and shadows and a storm that doesn’t know how to settle. And I walked straight into it anyway, willingly.

But this part, the waiting.

This is what breaks me.

Every time I glance at the clock, I can’t stop wondering if he’s already taken a punch. If he’s bleeding right now. If his ribs are rattling under someone else’s fists, if he’s on the ground with some demented stupid crowd roaring around him. If he’ll even come back to me afterwards like I asked.

It’s a sick, gnawing feeling. Dreadful and frustrating and so uncomfortable I can’t sit still, but I can’t move either. My body feels weighted, my mind running circles I can’t break. It’s anger and worry, helplessness and something far too close to fear all tangled together.

And underneath all of it is the one thought I can’t outrun....I really don’t want to lose him.