Losing Control : His Madness, His Cure Chapter 246

I’m losing my damn mind.

It’s been almost two days since Jax walked out, and every hour has stretched itself into something cruel and endless. The nurses keep telling me my vitals look better, my parents keep telling me to rest, but none of it means anything. It shouldn’t feel like a lifetime, but it does.

I’m flat on my back in this too-bright room, everything aching, everything wrong, and I swear I can feel my sanity slipping grain by grain through my fingers. My mum's sitting on the edge of the bed beside me, her hand on my arm, warm and steady in that effortless way she’s always had. I can vaguely hear my dad talking to the doctor just outside the door.

Mum leans over me, brushing my hair back from my forehead like I’m a kid again.

“Sweetie,” she murmurs, soft but certain, “...people break when they’re scared. But they also come back when they remember they’re loved. Give him time. He’ll find his way back to you.”

I wish I could believe her, I really do.

I try to breathe but it barely works. I’d already tried getting out of bed, tried dragging myself up even though I didn’t have the strength, even though it felt like my ribs were made of fire and knives. I managed to get one foot on the floor before I nearly collapsed. Two nurses rushed to me, telling me I needed to stop, that I’d rip something open, that I wasn’t stable enough to even sit up for long. I didn’t listen.

They ended up calling a doctor. And he threatened to fucking sedate me. So I forced myself back into the bed, breathing like someone was pressing a brick on my chest. Didn’t help, didn’t stop the panic. But it got them off me.

Now I’m lying here, my body throbbing in this dull, awful rhythm. My chest hurts. My head hurts..... My heart fucking hurts.

I’m exhausted down to the bone, but I pull my phone from the bedside table anyway and try calling Jax again. Still straight to voicemail. He’s not just ignoring me, he’s unreachable.

I swallow, throat raw, and open my messages even though I know he hasn’t replied to a single one. My texts stare back at me, desperate and crooked on the screen...

*Where are you?*

*Jax, please. Can you just text me back? Anything.*

*I'm freaking out. Just tell me you're okay.*

*Please come back. Please...*.

*Jax, I need you . Just answer me*

My mum squeezes my arm like she can feel me spiraling. But she doesn’t understand, none of them do. Jax doesn’t breathe alone when he’s scared, and definitely not when he’s hurting.

And whatever was in his eyes before he left wasn’t someone taking a moment. That was someone drowning. I stare at the last message I sent, the blinking cursor like a pulse, and I feel something hollow open in my chest.

He always comes back, but this time.....

The knock is so soft I almost think I imagined it. But then the door cracks open, and Adam’s face appears in the gap....apologetic, like he already knows he’s about to hurt me.

My whole body lurches with stupid hope, and I try to sit up...just pure instinct, pure desperation....but white-hot pain rips straight through my chest. I hiss, collapsing back, and my mum presses her hand to my shoulder, murmuring something soothing I don’t hear.

Adam steps in. The door closes behind him with a quiet click that feels like the world sealing shut. He promised he’d check my place. Check Jax’s. And the moment I see his face, that tiny exhausted pull at the corner of his mouth, the way he won’t quite meet my eyes....

I know he didn't find anything. Still, I can’t stop looking at him like maybe he’ll say the words I need anyway, maybe this is just his “sorry to scare you first before giving good news” face. But Adam only gives a small, slow shake of his head.

My chest hollows out completely.

I called Janice, they hadn’t seen him. Not once since the accident. They didn’t even know there was an accident. I can still hear her voice on the phone, the way it cracked when I told her what happened. She said she understood, that it made sense he hadn’t come back.

Adam shifts, hands sinking into the pockets of those stupid immaculate suit pants. “Xander, the accident rattled him. It must’ve....he just needs time. I’m sure he’s—”

“Don’t.” My voice hits the room like something fractured. “Just, don’t tell me he’s fine. Please.” My breath stutters. “He’s not fucking fine.”

The words are raw, my mum flinches. Adam’s mouth tightens, not annoyed, more like hurt for me, I think....but he stays silent.

I turn my head away, staring at nothing, throat burning. I shut my eyes because I don’t want them to see what’s swimming in them. It doesn’t help, everything inside me is already spilling over anyway.

Because I know the truth.

It’s sitting in me like a stone sinking through water....slow, heavy and impossible to stop. He went back to the one place he runs to when the world caves in. The one place I’ve been terrified of losing him to again.

And I don’t know how to reach him from a fucking hospital bed. I don’t know how to save him this time. Adam lets out a slow breath and looks at me with those careful, measured eyes.

“I’ll go back tonight,” he promises finally, voice certain. “I’ll check again. He’s bound to go home eventually. I’ll find him if he does.”

I nod and manage a soft, almost meaningless, “Thanks.”

The thought flares in my chest...give him The Pit’s address, make him try to reach Jax, force him to stop hurting himself, but I swallow it down. I know how that would go. Jax wouldn’t listen to Adam. Not to anyone.....maybe only to me.

And even that scares me. Even that leaves me feeling hollow and haunted, because what if this time I’m not enough?

They told me it’s gonna be at least another week before they even consider discharging me, and the words haven’t stopped echoing in my skull since. A whole week stuck in this bed, in this room, with nothing but the silence and the stupid beeping to remind me that Jax still hasn’t walked through that door.

It won’t work. There’s absolutely no way I’m surviving that long without seeing him, without hearing him breathe, without knowing he’s still mine in the ways that matter. I just can’t do it, I can’t even pretend I can. I need him....God, I need him, and the bastard knows that!

He knows and still.... he’s out there doing whatever he’s doing, falling apart, shutting me out, disappearing like I don’t feel every second of it. I know he’s going through hell but still....

He’s hurting, but he’s also hurting me in the process and I don’t know how to make any of it stop.