Losing Control : His Madness, His Cure Chapter 212

Her studio is the same as I remember, only fuller. Like it’s been breathing while I was gone. The air smells of linseed oil and turpentine. She’d begged my dad to import these glass walls years ago, said she wanted the world to watch her work.

Books lean drunkenly against one another on the shelves, old canvases stacked like forgotten thoughts in the corners. But even in the mess, it’s beautiful. Her kind of madness.

I take it in her current pieces slowly. An envelope curling open under streaks of blue-grey storm, words tangled into vines that seem to choke the air itself. And another of a man with flowers spilling from his mouth where words should be, facing someone fading into smoke.

I glance at Jax. He’s quiet...eyes wide, moving from one piece to the next like he’s afraid to blink and lose something. It’s the same look everyone gets when they step in here for the first time, that soft, reverent awe that makes the room hold its breath. My mum still has her hand looped through his arm, guiding him toward the center of the space where a circle of standing easels hold the pieces.

They all look finished to me, but I know better. She’ll never think they are. She’s a perfectionist stitched together with defiance.

“Mum, these are all really great,” I tell her.

She exhales...half sigh, half scoff. “I wasn’t aiming for great, sweetheart. I wanted real.”

Her voice drips with that quiet certainty she was born with. “Something that doesn’t just ask to be seen but can’t be unseen.”

Then she tilts her chin up at Jax, eyes glinting with mischief and sincerity all at once.

“What do you think?”

He hesitates, still taking it all in. “I, uh.... don’t really know anything about art,” he admits. “But they all seem pretty real to me.”

She laughs softly, delighted. “Good answer.”

He shifts slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Did anything inspire you to paint them? Or did they just.... come to you?”

Her smile deepens, and she gestures around like she’s painting the air again. “They’re all part of a series. I call it ‘The Garden of Almosts.”

Her tone warms, grows dreamlike. “It’s about all the things we nearly did....the kisses that never happened, the apologies that came too late, the dreams we almost chased but didn’t. The world is tragically overgrown with almosts, don’t you think?”

She looks straight at him, waiting. He nods slowly, the sound in his throat low and thoughtful.

“I think so too,” she murmurs. “Every time I paint one, I remember something unfinished. A letter. A conversation. A version of myself I didn’t stay long enough to become.”

She glances at the paintings again, softer now. “I wanted to make something beautiful out of hesitation.”

There’s silence for a moment. Jax is still watching her like he’s under some kind of spell, which is fair....she always has that effect on people. She talks like the air bends for her words.

Jax clears his throat, gaze darting between her and the paintings. “I can see where Xander gets it from,” he says, a little uncertain, voice quiet but earnest. Then, after a beat, “Though I think you’ve got the edge on him.”

It’s hesitant, the kind of thing that sounds like it took effort to push out. He’s not good at this....small talk, compliments, fitting into someone else’s rhythm, but he’s doing it anyway. And for some reason, watching him try makes something in my chest tighten.

My mum laughs, a full-bodied sound that seems to shimmer through the room. She reaches up and taps his cheek gently. “You’re quite the charmer, aren’t you?”

Her eyes are warm and curious as they linger on his face. “Tell me, love.... when was the last time you almost did something, but didn’t?”

Jax swallows, his throat working around something heavy. It’s almost imperceptible, the shift in his expression, but I know him well enough by now to catch it. There’s a shadow crossing behind his eyes.

I clear my throat, eager to cut through the quiet that’s grown too weighted for his comfort. “So,” I start, pointing toward one of the canvases... a violent splash of crimson and midnight blue tangled in sharp brushstrokes... “what’s that supposed to be, Mum? Looks like—”

She doesn’t even glance my way. Just lifts a hand, palm out, silencing me like a teacher mid-lesson.

“Shh, Xander,” she murmurs, eyes never leaving Jax. “We’re talking.”

My brows shoot up. I came all the way here to surprise her, and now I’m furniture. Background noise.

Jax’s gaze flickers from her to the paintings, then back again, his jaw shifting before he shrugs. “I’m not sure,” he admits quietly. “Can’t really remember.”

She shifts to stand in front of him, I can see her studying him like she’s trying to read a confession straight off his skin.

“It must have been a heartbreaking kind of almost then,” she says finally, voice soft but cutting through the air. “If you’re so hesitant to think about it. Those are the worst ones. They stay with you. They settle somewhere in you and just live there.”

Her words hang, and for a second, no one breathes. Then she exhales, the tension melting from her shoulders. Her gaze drifts around the room and she sighs.

“Maybe I should stop overthinking it,” her tone's lighter now, teasing. “Maybe I should just paint that time I almost became a minimalist, then cried over throwing out an old scarf.”

Jax laughs softly, the kind of sound that slips out before he can stop it, like she’s disarmed him without even trying. The door slides open and Dad walks in, balancing a tray like some retired butler....four glasses, a bottle of wine, and a small spread of snacks.

Mum claps her hands together, all bright cheer, as if the heaviness from before never happened. “Enough about me,” she declares, sweeping past her easel to where Dad’s setting down the tray. “Let’s talk about you two.”

Her gaze lands squarely on Jax, eyes glittering with curiosity, and she gestures toward the small sitting nook, the one with mismatched chairs and unique colourful throw pillows. “Come, sit. Xander’s terribly selfish with details,” she throws me a look over her shoulder. “You’ll have to fill me in. How did you two meet?”

Jax looks at me, then back at her. She sits, pulling him down next to her, waiting like this is the most exciting part of her day.

“At the tattoo shop,” he answers finally. “Where he works.”

She hums thoughtfully, eyes dropping to his arms, all ink and veins and muscle. Then, without hesitation, she reaches out and takes his hand. “Did Xander do this one?” she asks, lifting his arm gently, turning it under the studio light.

Jax shakes his head and says no.

Her eyes narrow slightly as her fingers trace along the edge of his forearm....the lines of black and gray wrapping over his skin like stories she’s trying to read. Jax’s gaze dips to her face, watching the furrow of concentration in her brow. Then she tilts her head, studying the ink, her expression caught somewhere between admiration and intrigue.

She eventually murmurs, “It’s beautiful work, quite eery though.” Her eyes lift to his.