CHAPTER FIVE - COLLISION COURSE
1459 Words
The shop was quiet, the low hum of the machines the only sound left in the space. It had been a long day, and Dani was exhausted. Her body ached from hours of tattooing, the late-night exhaustion creeping in as she wiped down her station. The shop was empty except for the lingering smell of fresh ink and cleaning products. The closing time light above the door flickered.
And then she heard it—the sound of boots scraping against the floor, a shift in the air, like the tension before a storm. She didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. She could feel him.
Jax.
He had been quiet for the past few hours, sitting in one of the chairs, watching her in the way he always did, making her skin prickle in ways she didn’t want to acknowledge. She kept her back to him, pretending like it didn’t affect her, but his presence loomed over her like an invisible weight.
Dani’s hand froze for a moment as she cleaned the counter. She was exhausted, but the last thing she wanted was to deal with him right now.
“I’m still here, in case you were wondering,” Jax said from behind her, his voice smooth, dripping with that familiar cocky tone.
The words, the way he said it, were too much. The memories of everything—everything he had done and everything she hadn’t been able to do—came rushing back to her like an uncontrollable wave. She set the rag down with force, the sound of the fabric hitting the counter loud in the otherwise quiet space.
“Yeah, I noticed,” Dani snapped, turning to face him. She wasn’t going to hold it in anymore. Not today. Not tonight. Her jaw clenched, and before she could stop herself, the words spilled out, like a dam finally breaking. “You think you can just stroll back into my life after disappearing for months like you didn’t rip everything apart?”
Jax was unfazed. His eyes, dark and unreadable, didn’t move off her, but there was something in his gaze—an edge of something, like he already knew where this was going. Like he knew she wasn’t just angry at him.
“Dani, come on, I—” he started, but she cut him off before he could finish.
“Don’t!” Her voice cracked, louder than she meant, but she didn’t care. “Don’t come in here with your excuses. You left me—us—without a word, without an explanation. No one heard from you. You didn’t care what I was going through, what I was dealing with. You just disappeared.”
The frustration, the hurt, the things she had kept bottled up for so long all came tumbling out.
Jax raised his hands, a slight defensive gesture. “It wasn’t like that, Dani. I didn’t—”
“Then what was it like, Jax?” Her voice grew more frantic now, that hot flash of anger and confusion clouding her thoughts. She took a step toward him, getting in his space. “You didn’t even think about me. You didn’t care that I was falling apart. You didn’t even give me a damn reason for why you walked out!”
Jax’s gaze hardened. “That’s not true,” he muttered, but there was no conviction behind it. He didn’t look away from her, and for a brief moment, his expression softened. “You don’t think it hurt me too? You think it was easy for me to just leave?”
“Don’t!” Dani snapped, taking another step forward. “Don’t you dare try to turn this on me. You don’t get to come back and tell me you were hurting too. You walked away from everything, Jax! And I’m still here, dealing with all the s**t you left behind.”
The words were sharp, pointed, each one like a dagger aimed at the heart of everything they had been.
She saw the flicker in his eyes. He was opening his mouth to speak, but she wasn’t done. She couldn’t stop now.
“You think I don’t know what you did?” she continued, her voice trembling with emotion. “You thought you could just walk away, leave me to pick up the pieces of my life, like everything you and I built didn’t matter? You think I wasn’t left holding the broken parts?”
Jax’s jaw tightened. He took a step closer to her, his face inches from hers now. His presence loomed over her like a storm cloud.
“I didn’t leave you because I didn’t care,” he said, his voice low, intense. “I left because I thought you were better off without me. I thought... I thought you’d be safer without all of this. Without me.”
Dani’s breath caught in her throat. The words hung in the air between them, but they didn’t land where they needed to. The anger still had a grip on her. But there was more—there was a deep ache inside her she couldn’t push away, no matter how hard she tried.
“You’re full of s**t,” she spat, shaking her head. “Don’t tell me what’s better for me. You don’t get to decide that. You don’t get to leave me with all the f*****g mess you made and think I’m just supposed to understand.”
Her chest was rising and falling faster now, her breath shallow. She wanted to scream, but the words were getting harder to find, harder to control. Everything was unraveling, all at once.
Jax stared at her, a silence falling between them, thick with unspoken things. “Dani… what happened to you? What the hell happened while I was gone?”
That was it. That was the question that made everything freeze.
Dani stiffened. Her breath caught again, and she fought to keep her composure. The anger burned away for a moment, replaced by something far deeper, more painful. The secret that had been buried deep inside her for so long. The secret she couldn’t let him see.
“Don’t do this, Jax,” she said, her voice quieter now. It was almost a warning, but it came out broken. She turned away from him, unwilling to let him see the raw emotion in her eyes. “You don’t get to ask me what happened. Not after everything.”
Jax’s hand reached out, and before she could step away, his fingers brushed the back of her shoulder. A touch that felt too familiar. Too intimate. Dani flinched, but not because she didn’t want him to touch her. She wasn’t sure why. All she knew was that it hurt more than it should.
“I never wanted to hurt you, Dani,” Jax said, his voice a whisper now, softer than she was used to. “I never meant to leave you like that.”
She closed her eyes, her head swimming. The memories of what had really happened—the things she had tried to push out, the things that still ate at her, were too much. The way he had disappeared, and the silence that had followed. She swallowed hard, willing herself not to break.
“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” she said quietly, her voice barely audible, barely holding on.
Jax didn’t respond immediately. He just stood there, staring at her, his hand still resting near her shoulder, but he didn’t push it. There was no space between them now. No escaping the gravity of everything left unsaid.
“You’re right,” he finally said, his voice low and full of regret. “But I’m here now. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Dani’s breath hitched in her throat, and she finally allowed herself to look at him again. Her anger was fading, but the pain—the ache—was still there, raw and open.
“I’m not ready for this,” she whispered, as if she were speaking to herself more than him.
Jax didn’t try to convince her. Instead, he gave her a small nod, his eyes softening, even if his body was still tense.
“I know,” he said quietly. “But I’m not going anywhere. Whenever you’re ready… I’ll be here.”
With that, he turned and walked toward the door, but not before glancing over his shoulder, his eyes meeting hers one last time. The door swung open and then shut, leaving Dani standing in the now-empty shop, her emotions tangled and raw.
She didn’t know how much longer she could keep pretending she was fine. But for now, that was all she could do.
- Writer
