The Wall

Jax pulled her hands back as if Sam’s skin had suddenly turned to hot iron. She scrambled backward on the rug, putting an extra two feet of distance between them.

The fortress walls were slamming back up, brick by frantic brick.

Jax pulled her knees to her chest, hiding the lingering tremors in her hands by wrapping her arms tightly around her legs. Her jaw clenched, the muscles ticking in her cheek. She couldn't look Sam in the eye anymore. The tough, untouchable ex-firefighter had just been reduced to a weeping, hyperventilating mess on the floor, and her lovely, put-together neighbor had witnessed every pathetic second of it.

"You should go," Jax said. Her voice was harsh, a forced, gravelly growl designed to intimidate. "I'm fine now. I don't need a babysitter."

Sam didn't move immediately. She rested her hands on her own knees, studying Jax's defensive posture. "I didn't think I was babysitting. I thought I was helping my neighbor."

"I don't need help," Jax snapped, pushing herself up from the floor. She paced over to the window, keeping her back to Sam. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "Look, I appreciate what you did out there. But you don't want to get involved with this. I'm... I'm too messed up. I'm broken gear, Sam. You need to leave before I drag you down with me."

She waited for the sound of retreating footsteps. She waited for the inevitable realization to wash over Sam—that Jax was too much work, too volatile, too damaged to be worth the effort. It was the pattern. It was why Jax lived alone, why she kept everyone at arm's length. It was easier to push them away than to watch them eventually choose to run.

Behind her, she heard the soft rustle of Sam getting up from the floor. Jax braced herself for the click of the front door.

But the door didn't open.

"Turn around, Jax," Sam said. Her voice wasn't soft anymore; it was firm, laced with a stubborn steel that caught Jax entirely off guard.

Slowly, Jax uncrossed her arms and turned around. Sam was standing halfway between the couch and the door, her chin tilted up defiantly.

"You think you're the only person in the world who carries scars?" Sam asked, closing the distance between them by two deliberate steps. "You think because you survived something horrific, that makes you unlovable? Because that is a lie."

Jax swallowed hard, her throat painfully tight. "You don't understand. I'm supposed to be the one who saves people. I'm the protector. I can't even walk down my own hallway without falling apart."

"Surviving isn't shameful, Jax," Sam said, her voice dropping back into a register of profound, aching gentleness. She stepped right up to Jax, looking up into her guarded eyes. "You spent your whole career running into burning buildings to take care of people. But taking care of people doesn't mean you can never, ever let someone take care of you."

The words struck Jax with the force of a physical blow. They shattered the last, lingering pane of glass protecting her heart.