Chapter 31 #2
And my traitorous, stupid, panicked body hears it as one thing only…control.
I take a sharp step back. “Stop telling me what to do.”
His entire body goes still. I can see the exact second he realizes this isn’t just stress anymore. This is trauma. This is my body taking his hands, his voice, his protectiveness, and filtering all of it through the ugliest version of survival.
That realization should help me stop.
It doesn’t.
Because now I’m crying too. Not hard. Not dramatically. Just enough that I know I’ve officially lost control of this conversation and still can’t seem to get myself back.
Joker’s expression changes. Not softer. More careful. Which somehow makes it worse. “I’m not him,” he says quietly.
And there it is.
The thing I wasn’t going to say. The thing I would never say if I were thinking straight. The thing my nervous system has been screaming all week without my permission. And because fear is cruel and trauma is uglier and I am already bleeding all over the wrong person, I say it anyway.
“I know that,” I whisper, voice shaking.
Then, because apparently I haven’t done enough damage yet I add. “But sometimes this feels too close.”
The second the words leave my mouth, the whole room changes. It happens instantly. Not loudly. Not dramatically.
Just one brutal, silent shift.
Like I’ve thrown a knife and watched it land before I can take it back.
Joker doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. Because I can see it. I can actually see it hit him.
For one suspended second, he just stares at me. Not angry. That would almost be easier. Not furious. Not explosive.
Just…hurt.
Deep enough that it strips something clean off his face and leaves behind a version of him I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.
Open. Wounded. Still as stone.
And Christ, I didn’t think he was capable of looking like that.
That’s the part that nearly drops me to my knees.
Not that he’s mad. That I hurt him enough to make him look human in the worst possible way.
His jaw works once. Then again. When he finally speaks, his voice is so controlled it almost sounds calm. “Too close,” he repeats.
I open my mouth immediately. “I didn’t mean—”
“Didn’t you?” That one slices clean.
Not because he raises his voice. Because he doesn’t. Because he says it like he actually wants to know. Like he needs to know whether what I just said came from panic or from some part of me that has quietly been putting him in the same box as the man who ruined my life.
And that thought is so horrible, so unfair, so deeply wrong that I feel physically sick.
“No,” I say instantly. “No, Travis, that’s not what I—”
He flinches. Not visibly enough for anybody else to catch it. Enough for me. Enough to make my stomach drop straight through the floor.
Because I used his real name.
Here. Outside his room. In the middle of hurting him. And somehow that makes it even worse.
He notices too. Something dark and tired flickers behind his eyes before he looks away.And I think, in some awful instinctive part of myself, that I would rather he yelled.
I would rather he punched a wall. Stormed out. Snapped.
Anything but this. Anything but the quiet. Anything but the way he’s standing there trying not to bleed in front of me.
“I know I’m not him,” he says after a second. His voice is still low. Still steady. But there’s a crack in it now that wasn’t there before. Small. Almost invisible. Big enough to wreck me. “I’m not doing what he did to you.”
He finally looks back at me then. And there’s nothing soft in his face. Not because he’s cruel. Because he’s hurt enough to strip all the gentleness out for a second. “But if that’s what this feels like to you,” he says, “then maybe I need to back the fuck up.”
“No.” The word leaves me instantly.
Too fast. Too panicked. Because no.
No, that is not what I want.
That is not what I meant. That is not what this is.
He gives one short, bitter shake of his head. “I’m not gonna stand here and fight you for the right to protect you if every move I make is landing like another set of chains.”
That one nearly takes me apart.
Because it’s true. Because that’s exactly what I’ve done. Not intentionally. Not maliciously. But done it anyway.
I take a step toward him.
He takes one back.
And that hurts worse than everything else.
Because Joker doesn’t back away from anything. Not fear. Not violence. Not pain. And he’s stepping back from me. Because I made him.
“Please,” I whisper. My voice sounds wrecked.
He looks wrecked too, just in a quieter, more dangerous way. Not violent-dangerous.
Emotionally.
Like if I push one inch harder, I’ll hit something I won’t know how to fix.
“I know you’re trying to keep me safe,” I say, words tumbling now because I have to get them out before this gets any worse. “I know that. I do. I just—”
I press a hand to my chest like maybe I can physically hold still whatever is clawing around inside me. “My body doesn’t always know the difference yet.”
There.
There’s the truth. The ugly, painful, humiliating truth of it.
Joker goes still again. Not closed off this time. Listening.
I force myself to keep going even though my throat feels like it’s closing.
“When everyone’s watching me all the time, when I can’t go anywhere alone, when every move I make gets tracked and redirected and checked…
” I swallow hard. “I know why you’re doing it.
I know it’s not the same. But sometimes my body doesn’t.
Sometimes it just…” My voice breaks. “Remembers.”
That lands differently.
I can see it. Not because it fixes what I said. It doesn’t. But because now he can at least see the shape of the wound I threw at him with.
And maybe that matters.
Maybe not enough. Still something. For a second, neither of us says anything.
The room feels wrecked. Like the fight itself is still hanging in the air, sharp and ugly and unfinished.
Then Joker drags a hand down his face and looks at the floor. When he finally speaks, his voice is rough enough to sound scraped raw. “I don’t know how to keep you alive without making you feel trapped.”
That one breaks me clean in half. Because there it is. The impossible thing underneath all of this. The reason we’re even standing here bleeding into each other in the first place.
He is trying to keep me alive.
And I am trying not to drown in what that safety costs my nervous system.
Neither of us is wrong. And somehow we still hurt each other anyway.
I wipe angrily at my face and take another step toward him, slower this time, careful like I’m approaching something injured. Maybe I am. Maybe we both are.
“You are not him,” I say, voice shaking but sure. “You have never been him.”
His jaw tightens.
I keep going. “I know that. Even when I’m scared. Even when my body’s freaking out. Even when I say stupid, unfair shit because I feel like I can’t breathe.” My throat tightens hard enough it hurts. “I know the difference.”
He finally looks at me again. And God, the hurt is still there. Not as sharp. Still there.
That might be the worst part of all.
Because I can’t fix it with one sentence. Can’t erase it just because I wish I could. Can’t undo the exact moment I put him anywhere near the same category as the man who terrorized me.
The damage is done.
I did that. And now I have to live with the fact that I just cut the one person who has never once tried to own me. The one person who has only ever tried to stand between me and the worst things in the world.
Joker lets out a slow breath. Then another. And finally says, “I need a minute.”
The words are quiet. Measured. But they still hit like a punch. Because he’s not shutting me out forever. Not walking away for good. Just stepping back because I hurt him enough that he needs space to keep from saying something worse.
And somehow that restraint hurts more than anger would’ve.
I nod immediately.
Because what else can I do? Because I owe him that much, at least. Because if I reach for him right now and he doesn’t know what to do with my hands, I think it might actually kill me.
So I just stand there.
Crying silently in the middle of the kitchen while the man I’m in love with and absolutely don’t deserve in this moment gives me one last look I won’t forget anytime soon.
Not cold. Not cruel. Just deeply, visibly wounded.
Then he turns and walks out.
And I stay exactly where I am, one hand pressed hard over my mouth and the other braced on the counter like it’s the only thing keeping me upright, while the full weight of what I just did crashes down on me all at once.
Not because I had a trauma response. Not because I got overwhelmed. Not because I panicked. But because in the middle of all of that, I aimed my fear at the one person who has only ever tried to carry it with me.
And standing there in the wreckage of our first real fight, with the silence of the clubhouse suddenly too loud around me and his absence already feeling like a missing piece of my own skin, I realize something that hurts worse than the argument itself.
I didn’t just lash out.
I cut the one man who has never once tried to cage me.
And if I’m not careful…
I might ruin the safest thing I’ve ever had.