Losing Control : His Madness, His Cure Chapter 178

He lifts his hand and touches my cheek, so gently it makes my heart ache. His thumb grazes the skin beneath my eye, and he asks, “Did you cry?”

I blink, completely thrown. “What?”

“Yesterday,” he murmurs. “You looked sad when you walked away. Your eyes were all red.” His gaze holds mine steady. “Did you cry, Xander?”

My stomach flips. I want to look away, but his hand doesn’t move, doesn't let me. And the warmth of it keeps me still. The truth sits right there, burning at the back of my throat. I remember how it felt, sitting alone in the backroom, trying to breathe through the sting in my chest, how the tears slipped out anyway.

“I didn’t cry,” I say finally.

He narrows his gaze, then whispers “You’re lying.”

A shaky breath leaves me that’s half a laugh. “I’m not. I just.... shed a couple of tears. Like, two drops.”

He doesn’t smile. Just watches me like he’s memorizing a version of me he’s already afraid of losing.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I rush to assure him. “I just didn’t like arguing with you.”

Neither of us moves. The world goes still....his hand on my face, the faint tremor in his fingers. The smell of him lingering between us, warm and sharp and real. It’s like the whole room is holding its breath, waiting to see which one of us breaks first.

He tilts his head, his breath brushing my skin before his lips do. The kiss he presses to my shoulder lingers, like he’s trying to tell me something without words. When he pulls back, his eyes lift to mine, and for a second, I forget how to breathe.

“I’ve got this fear,” he says quietly. “Every time you’re out of reach, I start thinking something bad’s gonna happen to you.”

I frown, the words catching me off guard. “Nothing's gonna–”

He cuts me off before I can finish. “I know it’s irrational. I know it’s just in my head. But it feels real.”

He presses the heel of his hand to his eyes like he’s trying to stop something from spilling out. “And you were right,” he says after a beat. “It’s because of him.”

My chest tightens.

“I keep hurting you, Xander,” he murmurs. “And I don’t even mean to.”

I stare at him, that dull ache behind my ribs spreading. The things I said yesterday....every sharp, unfiltered thought I’d thrown his way, echo back at me now like something venomous. I hate myself for it. For letting it out the way I did.

“Jax,” I say, shaking my head. “What I said yesterday, that was me being selfish. It wasn’t fair. You were already hurting, and I just—” I breathe out. “I exploded. I shouldn’t have.”

His eyes flicker toward me but I can’t read what’s behind them. All I know is the guilt in my stomach feels like glass.

He exhales like the words are scraping their way out of him.

“What I meant,” he says quietly, “...with the fixing thing—” His voice falters, his eyes flicking up to mine for a second before they fall again. “ Is that I don’t want that to be what this is about. I don’t want me to be what this is about.”

Something in me twists hard as he goes on.

“I don’t want my issues to be the center of us,” he adds, his tone almost defeated. “I don’t want every good moment to circle back to whether or not I’m doing okay. Or when the next time I’ll shut down or lose it or get busted up will be. I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep tiptoeing around me, afraid of the next crack.”

The words hang there between us. I shake my head, whispering, “I’m not, Jax. And that’s not all we’re about.”

He looks at me for a long moment, a tired, disbelieving curve forming at the corner of his mouth. “It is,” he says,sounding convinced. “I’ve consumed us with my mess.” He stops, his throat working as he swallows hard. “Everything you said yesterday, it was true.”

I start to speak, to tell him it wasn’t, not the way he thinks, but he keeps going.

“That’s why I drank,” his voice cracks faintly on the word. “Because I realized I was hurting you. And all I could think about was how sad you looked when you walked away. How it was my fault.” He drags in a rough breath, fingers trembling as they rake through his hair. “I really fucking love you, Xander. And I’m just as responsible for your happiness as you are for mine. But I keep screwing that up.”

There’s this nakedness in his eyes when he finally lifts them to mine, something small and wrecked and achingly human. Something so small I don't even know what to do about it.

“I love you too,” I tell him, because I don’t know what else to say. It slips out quiet, but it’s the only thing that feels steady enough to hold onto right now. I'm caught between wanting to pull him into my arms and wanting to disappear inside the ache blooming in my chest. It feels like he’s trying to work his way toward something but keeps getting lost in the words before he can get there.

So I take a breath and say, “You remember what I told you, right? That I’d wait?” The words slip out before I even realize I’m speaking. “That still stands. You don’t have to force anything out before you’re ready. You don’t owe me or anyone else that. I’ll wait however long it takes. And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better, Jax. I mean it.”

His eyes flick up to me, uncertain, searching, and I press on.

“We’ve been happy, haven’t we?” I ask, my thumb brushing over the back of his hand. “It’s been good recently. Really good. So one argument...one bad day, shouldn’t undo all of that. We can’t let things we said in the heat of the moment burn down everything we’ve already built.” I swallow, holding his gaze. “We just acknowledge what the other was trying to say, try to do better, and move forward.”

For a long second, he just stares at me. Then the corner of his mouth tugs upward, barely there, but it’s real. “You always find a way to make it sound okay, even when it’s not.” he murmurs.

“It’s true, though,” I whisper back, meaning every word.

He lets out a sigh, then slowly pulls his hand from mine. He shifts forward, sitting on the edge of the bed, feet hitting the floor. His palms drag down his face before resting on his knees, gaze fixed somewhere near the floor. “I know you’ll wait. I don’t doubt that for a second." he finally says without turning to me, “But I don’t want you to keep feeling like you’re sharing me.... with memories I won’t even touch.” His voice fractures a little. “That’s not fair to you, Xander. And I’m the only one who can change that. I can’t keep letting you carry the weight of me just because I’m too scared to even face what’s behind me.”

My heart stutters. “Jax?”

He glances back over his shoulder at me, a ghost of something unreadable flickering through his eyes. “I wanna tell you about him.”