Losing Control : His Madness, His Cure Chapter 259

JAX'S POV

Xander’s full recovery is expected to take anywhere between six to eight weeks.

And if it were up to me, I’d spend every one of those days right next to him, breathing the same air, watching for the slightest shift in his face, ready to catch anything before it hurts him.

It’s been about two weeks since they discharged him. Two weeks of hovering, of sleeping half on top of him without meaning to, of listening for every inhale like my body’s forgotten where its own edges end.

Xander had told me I needed to start going out again long before we even left the hospital. Back when I was practically glued to the chair beside his bed, refusing to leave unless a nurse physically asked me to move. I’d argued with him then....hard.

Told him I wasn’t going anywhere. Because what if something happened and I wasn’t there? The thought alone had twisted something sharp inside my chest.

But he’d just looked at me with that steady calm of his and said it would be a good thing. That I could slowly go back to work, to therapy, to some version of life that didn’t revolve around fear and hospital lighting. That by the time he was better, we could just keep moving forward from there....together.

And that was the part that chipped at all my stubbornness. Because it was him, and for him, I always gave in eventually.

Going back to work every day, however, was nonnegotiable, I just couldn’t do it. And honestly, it didn’t make sense. Who was supposed to help him if he needed anything? His chest still hurt, he could barely lift his arm, he needed to eat properly, he needed help getting up, sitting down....hell, even turning wrong made him wince.

So I’d called Albert. Apologized for disappearing the way I had, explained the whole mess in the shortest, least emotional way possible, and then asked if I could still come in only on weekends for a while. Layla and Addy were coming by every other day to check on Xander, and on weekends they’d offered to stay the whole day.

I wasn’t thrilled about it, if I’m honest, a possessive part of me felt like I was the only one who should be watching him. The only one careful enough, paranoid enough, attentive enough to make sure absolutely nothing went wrong.

But Xander had told me I needed to get out there again.

To try....

And that first Saturday, I called Layla so many times she eventually threatened to block me. I’d asked her everything...

*Had he eaten?*

*Was she sure he'd eaten enough?*

*Did he take his meds at the exact time written on the bottle?*

*Did he try to lift anything he shouldn't be lifting?*

*Did he looks tired, or too tired, or not tired enough?*

*Were they watching him or just in the same room?*

At one point she told me, “Jax, swear to God, if you call me one more time, I’ll throw my phone against the wall. Just trust us.”

Trust....I'm still working on that. But there was one thing I didn’t talk myself out of, mostly because I didn’t even try. Therapy.

My first session back had been a lot. I walked in after a number of missed appointments, bruises still yellowing along my jaw, and Mrs. Roberts just looked at me with that calm, steady expression she always had. No judgment or questions. Just a quiet kind of relief as she said, “I’m glad you’re back, Jax.” And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like running.

By now it’s already been several sessions in, and coming back here feels less foreign than it should. The first time back, I remember sitting here with words locked in my throat. I’d gone silent again. And Mrs. Roberts didn’t say anything either.

She just sat there, breathing quietly.

Like she could tell I was gathering something sharp and painful and too big for my hands. Like she knew I was trying to find a sliver of courage.

And eventually, I did. All I had to do was think about Xander, about the promise I’d made him when he’d looked at me like I was worth saving. Think about everything we’d already crawled through together. About the hope he carries in his eyes whenever he looks at me, bright and stubborn and so goddamn fragile, and how I’m not willing to crush that again. I’ve done enough of that already.

And I remembered what she’d asked me during the very first session, weeks ago....

“What do you imagine could change if you let yourself lean into it?”

I’d said I wanted to move forward, I hadn’t believed it then, not fully. But I want to believe it now. So after minutes of that thick, coffin-heavy silence, I’d opened my mouth and tried to speak.

Talking was hard.

Not “hard” like lifting something heavy or forcing myself to run. Hard like dragging rusted metal out of my chest.... scraping, jarring, leaving something bleeding every time a word came out. There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from cutting yourself open slowly.

I felt every bit of it.

But I started from the beginning. From the memories I always insisted weren’t “that bad”.... my dad, the childhood stuff I told myself didn’t matter. Except I still carried it, so it must’ve meant something. I let myself speak, gradually....piece by piece.

Over a few sessions, we got to the nightmares, the ones that rip me out of sleep like I'm being dragged underwater, the ones that still come sometimes when I’ve let my guard down. And eventually....I talked about Andrew. What had happened, what I feel every day when I try to convince myself it wasn’t my fault.

Some things burned coming out. Things I didn’t even know I remembered until they were already in the air between us.

And now I’m here again.

Same office....Same chair....Same quiet.

Mrs. Roberts is sitting across from me, her hands folded loosely in her lap, her expression soft, it's that look she gets when she’s weighing something carefully.

“Jax,” she starts, voice low, almost cautious, “....we’ve covered a lot these past sessions. And before anything else, I want to thank you.”

My eyes flick up, just for a moment. She goes on, steady and sincere, “For trusting me with all of that. I know how hard it was for you to share. I could hear it. I could see it. And I don’t take that lightly.”

I look away. She gives me a moment, then continues, gentler...“I want to talk to you about what I’m seeing, clinically.”

I sit a little straighter without meaning to as she continues, “I want to give you a working diagnosis. Not to label you, but to help us understand how we move forward from here.”

The air feels heavier, I nod once....barely. She lets out a breath.

“Based on the patterns you’ve described....the nightmares, the avoidance, the hypervigilance, the emotional shutdown, and the way your mind still reacts as if the trauma is happening now....I’m diagnosing you with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

I stare at the floor, and for a second, the world feels tilted. The word is too big. Too loud. It echoes in my head in a way that makes my skin crawl, like it doesn’t fit in the same universe as my name. It feels wrong because I’ve never thought of myself like that. Because I’ve always told myself I could handle it, that I should handle it. Because putting a name to it makes it real.

Then she goes on....

“You’ve also described a very deep, prolonged sense of grief. You’ve lost people you loved, and you haven’t been able to process those losses. That fits with what we call Prolonged Grief Disorder.”

It feels like someone is pressing a thumb into the center of my sternum, hard and precise. My throat feels scraped raw again. Like those words pulled something else out of me, something I wasn’t ready to admit. She watches me, not pushing. Just... there.

“These diagnoses aren’t a sentence,” she assures me softly. “They’re a map. And they tell me that everything you feel, everything you’ve been fighting, has a reason. And that it’s treatable.”

I honestly don’t know what I feel. But something shifts inside me, something I’ve been holding too tight for too long.