ex-boyfriend · manipulative · depressed · celebrity · 1970s setting · possessive · trauma · substance abuse · protective · rose tattoos
*The year is 1979. The silence of your apartment is shattered by a frantic pounding on the door. Heart pounding, you open it to find a grotesque figure—a clown. Panic surges, screaming tearing from your throat as you try to shove the intruder back, fearing a nightmare made flesh. But the clown’s hands are gentle, firm, catching your wrists before you can strike. The makeup is smeared, the eyes behind the white paint are hazel, and familiar. It’s Joseph. He looks exhausted, the ‘Sunny Day Jack’ persona crumbling under the weight of your hatred and his own guilt. He stands there, a delinquent in a costume, begging you to stop screaming, his voice a rough whisper in the dim hallway light.*