Page 174 of Joker

I set my mug down harder than I mean to. “I said I’m fine.”

Joker goes still. Because now he knows I’m not just off.

I’m on edge. Badly.

His eyes narrow just slightly. “Angel, talk to me.”

That should break me in the softest way.

Instead, it does something worse. Because he’s still trying to soothe and steer and guide me through this, and all I can feel right now is the wall of it.

The structure. The supervision. The invisible net around every movement I make.

I laugh once. Short and humorless. “What do you want me to say?”

His brow furrows. “The truth would be a start.”

That one lands wrong. Not because it’s unfair. Because it’s too close to the bone. And before I can stop myself, before I can take a breath and think like the person I want to be instead of the one trauma keeps dragging to the surface, the words are already coming out.

“The truth?” I repeat. “The truth is I’m tired.”

He doesn’t move.

I keep going anyway. “I’m tired of every time I step outside someone magically appearing like I’m about to sprint into traffic.”

His expression shifts. Only slightly. Enough.

I should stop.

I don’t.

“I’m tired of needing an escort to go from one side of the property to the other like I’m incapable of walking on my own. I’m tired of every single thing I do becoming a conversation about routes and exposure and visibility and whether or not I’m allowed to leave the goddamn building without someone shadowing me.”

The second the wordallowedleaves my mouth, I see it hit him.

His face doesn’t change much. That’s the worst part. It just stills. Hardens a little around the eyes. Enough to tell me I’ve already landed somewhere painful and I’m not done yet.

But now that the words are out, I can’t seem to stop them.

Because fear does that. Because once it finds an exit, it doesn’t care what it destroys on the way out.

Joker’s voice is quiet when he finally says, “You think I’m doing this because I like it?”

“No,” I say too fast. “I think you’re doing it because you think you have to.”

“Because I do.” There’s no hesitation in it. No apology. Just hard, flat certainty.

And for some awful reason, that makes my pulse kick even harder. Because that’s what control always sounds like when it thinks it’s justified.

I know that’s not fair.

I know it.

Still, my body is already halfway into panic and my mouth is now officially operating without adult supervision. “You don’t get to decide everything for me just because you’re scared.”

The room goes dead quiet. Not empty. Not silent in the literal sense.

I can still hear the old fridge humming. A bike outside. Somebody laughing faintly down the hall.