It was official. Jax was a taken man. Brooke had been after him to go to therapy for his episodes of missing time. After several weeks of pleading, Jax had agreed to go.

Walking into the therapists’ office, Jax immediately felt uncomfortable. He wasn’t crazy. Only crazy people went to therapy. He swallowed hard standing outside the therapist’s office.

Suddenly, the door swung open and there stood a tall woman with short brown hair. She was young and attractive.

“Hi, you must be Jax. I’m Katie.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Why don’t you come in and sit down?” She gestured to a leather loveseat in the corner of the room. It was nicely decorative and felt surprisingly comfortable.

“Your fiancé, Brooke told me you were experiencing some blackouts? Why don’t you tell me about that?” She sat across from him crossing her legs.

“It’s like I’m doing something at home one minute and then the next I find myself across town driving my car or out to dinner. Hours have passed, but I don’t know happened. It’s like I’m missing---“

“---time? Yes, that’s a common phenomenon for people who have experienced things like you have.” The therapist nodded making notes.

“Like me?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I meant patients with PTSD. The trauma of getting wounded while in service, of your parents’ death when you were younger, of a woman---“

“---stalking me? Trying to kill me? Yes.” Jax spat bitterly.

“You’ve been through a lot. It’s to be expected that your mind is trying to cope the best way it can.”

“So what do I do? What if I, you know, do something while I’m missing time?”

She narrowed her eyes and looked at him curiously.

“What do you mean, do something?”

He waved his hand.

“Nothing. So how do I get rid of this missing time? How do I wake myself up?”

The therapist pursed her lips. She reminded Jax of a duck.

“There’s not much you can do, Jax. I have a prescription that I can have the doctor write that will help you feel less anxious.”

“Less anxious? How will that make this stop?”

She leaned forward.

“It’s the anxiety that’s causing you to miss time. When you get anxious, your mind tries to block out what’s going on making you feel as though you have no memory of what’s happening.”

“But I don’t have any memory of it.”

“But others say you are conscious and functional, so it’s a mental trick your mind plays to keep you sane so to speak.”

Jax’s mind whirled with confusion. He didn’t want to take any fucking psych meds, but still he wanted the blackouts to stop.

“All right.”

The therapist handed him the recommendation to give to the doctor.

“Good luck, Jax. I’ll see you next week.” Katie smiled at him as she closed the door.

* * *

“So what did she say?” Brooke asked him as they were sitting down to dinner.

“She put me on some fucking anti-anxiety pills and an antidepressant. She said it was normal for PTSD patients to have ‘missing time’ as she called it.” Jax dug his fork into the plate of pasta primavera.

Brooke nodded as she sipped her wine.

“You certainly have had a lot of traumatic experiences, Jax. I’m sure you’re also suffering from depression too.” She shook her head sympathetically.

He shrugged as he speared the tiny tomatoes in his salad.

“I don’t think I’m depressed. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I need any fucking meds at all, but I want this shit to stop. Who knows if I’ll even remember having this conversation with you?” He asked bitterly.

Brooke swallowed a bite of the delicious pasta. She glanced out the window at the falling leaves dancing in the breeze. The nights were getting colder and winter was almost upon them. She hadn’t told Jax, but his blackouts were frightening to her. No, they scared the shit out of her to be precise. The fact that Jax could be here with her and talking like normal yet not recall any of it terrified her. Who knew what might happen? It was like he had no control over himself. He could hurt her while he was in one of these states.

Or worse.

She shuddered remembering her ex-boyfriend, Craig who had been an abusive asshole. The nights of beatings, violent outbursts, and emotional manipulation was something she never wanted to return to.

But Jax wouldn’t really do something like that, would he?

She pushed her concerns aside as she finished her dinner. Jax finished eating before taking his first pills.

“Here goes nothing.” He tossed two of them back and chased it with a shot of whiskey.

“Should you drink with that?” Brooke studied the label on the bottle.

He shrugged slamming the shot glass down on the granite counter.

“Probably not, but what doesn’t kill me….” He drifted off as he collected his laptop to go up to his office to finish his book.

Hours later, he was still staring at a blank screen.

His panic at not being able to write was overwhelming. He had to get a new book out there. Every day that passed he was losing his fans, the trust of his agents, and publisher. But the pressure was getting to be too much. He was beginning to resent being treated like a trained monkey expected to perform on command. Writing a novel was serious business, a good one was anyway, and he couldn’t be expected to churn one out so quickly.

But he had to.

The creak of the door opening alerted Jax to her presence. Brooke stood in the doorway shaking her head.

“Baby, are you still having a hard time getting started on that new book?”

Jax threw his hands up in the air.

“I don’t know where to start. I feel like I’m letting everyone down. I’ve got to get something out there I just don’t know what to write. The fans expect a terrifying thriller type novel based on the success of Disturbed, but I want to write something lighter and more romantic.”

“You have to write what you want to write, Jax. Find your passion. Don’t be a fucking sellout. I think that’s why you’re having problems. Quit trying to appease the masses. Write with your soul and you’ll find that elusive hole in the paper as you like to say.”

He sat back gazing at her as he let her words sink in. It was true. He was becoming everything he hated. Glancing at the mirror over the buffet, he caught sight of himself. He was letting his soul be governed by his agent, his editing team, by everyone else. Ever since he penned Disturbed, they’d all been clamoring for more, more, and more. There never seemed to be enough money for them. He had started writing because he loved it and now they were perverting his dreams into cold hard cash for themselves. Maybe that was the American way, but since Disturbed he felt like he was losing his soul.

Find your passion.

Jax grabbed his laptop and started pounding away on the keyboard.

Brooke smiled as she shut the door.

The old Jax was back.