Page 172 of Joker

When I pull back, I keep my forehead against hers and murmur the truest thing I’ve said all day. “Not one fucking inch, angel.”

Her eyes close. And this time when she nods, I know she understands exactly what I mean.

Not one inch closer to her. Not one inch closer to Lexi. Not one inch further into our life.

Not if I can help it.

And God help the poor bastard if I have to.

By the third day, I start feeling like I can’t breathe.

Not because anyone has touched me. Not because anyone has raised a hand or a voice or looked at me in a way that makes my skin crawl.

No.

That would almost be easier to understand. This is worse in a quieter way, because everything around me is technically done out of love.

Protection. Care. Safety. And my body is still reacting to it like it’s a cage.

That’s the kind of thing no one warns you about when you survive someone like Cal.

They tell you about fear. About panic. About nightmares. About the obvious stuff.

They don’t tell you what happens when safety starts wearing the shape of old danger. They don’t tell you what it feels like when the people trying to protect you accidentally brush up against the same bruised places as the man who taught your body that being watched is never neutral.

That someone always wants something. That eyes mean control. That questions mean suspicion. That someone knowing where you are can turn into someone deciding you don’t get to leave.

And the cruelest part of all of it is that I know, logically, that this is not the same.

I know Joker is not Cal. I know the club isn’t a prison. I know no one here is trying to own me or strip me down into something smaller and easier to keep.

But logic and trauma are not the same language. And right now my nervous system is apparently fluent only in panic.

It starts small. Everything does.

A brother offering to walk me from the clubhouse to the parking lot when all I’m doing is grabbing something from the truck.

Shadow appearing out of nowhere when I step onto the back porch with my coffee and then pretending he was “just passing through” even though there is absolutely no reason for him to be hovering near the porch at seven-thirty in the morning.

Blaze casually asking where I’m headed when I grab my shoes like he isn’t trying to calculate whether I need backup just to walk to the playground area with Lexi.

Dom muttering something about “route visibility” when I mention maybe taking Lexi out for ice cream later in the week, like he’s already mentally calculating whether the local shop is too exposed now.

Cain checking the front gate twice in an hour.

Mac quietly asking if I need anything from town because “one of the guys is already headed that way.”

Emma trying to make it sound casual when she asks me to text her if I move from the women’s room to the common room with Lexi during the afternoon chaos.

None of it is cruel. None of it is unkind. That’s what makes it so hard to explain why every tiny little thing is starting to scrape me raw.

Because they are trying.

They are trying so hard to keep me safe, and every time one of them checks where I am or asks where I’m going or subtly redirects me away from doing something alone, my body responds like I’m back in that house.

Back under cameras. Back under rules. Back under someone else’s watchful eye.

It’s not rational.