What I wanted, and what I had told everyone already, was to be left alone. I didn’t want to talk to this man. Ever. But that option wasn’t in my cards since Caesar had come here.
My hands ran through my hair, slightly pulling on the roots. My breaths began to sharpen, making it harder and harder to get a good one in. This was a horrible idea. I couldn’t do this. Not with him.
“I know I will never be a father in your eyes,” he said, standing and walking slowly to me. “I’ve accepted that. I did a long time ago. I won’t ever have that little girl look up at me again like I’m her entire world. I did truly lose my daughter years ago, and she won’t be back.”
“Don’t touch her,” Dr. Mayes warned half a second before Caesar’s hand landed on my shoulder.
On instinct, like a switch was flipped, I turned and kneed him in the groin while my hands fell from my head. In the next second, he let out a grunt and bent over as panic finally took ahold of me. I fell where I stood, gasping for breath.
My body jerked back as a hand touched one of my own.
“Just me, Scarlett,” Dr. Mayes said gently. “Breathe in. Count with me.”
With eyes squeezed tight, I tried to breathe and count, like she’d shown me a few times. But this time, it did absolutely nothing. I could hear both Ace and Caesar talking across the room. I was too crowded. I couldn’t breathe.
Oh god. I was going to die.
It took a while to come out of my panic attack this time. Dr. Mayes was patient, talking me down the entire time. She never left my side, but she also didn’t touch me. At least one person in the room knew my boundaries. Once I was more aware, she had me drink a bottle of water. Afterwards, she allowed Zevon to come in, and he took a seat beside me on the floor, not touching me but close enough if I wanted to lean against him.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it, but you need to,” she said, handing me a tissue to blow my nose. “Caesar scares you.”
He did. He terrified me, and I wasn’t even really sure why.
“Do you want a relationship with him? Just friendship? Anything?”
“No,” I said, one hundred percent certain of that fact.
“Why not?”
“He makes me feel weak. Small.”
“He’s a male, and that’s normal for what you’ve been through.”
“I don’t have that issue with Collin or Ace.”
“You did with Ace at first. You don’t see what I see, Scarlett. You were more open towards Zevon than either one of those men.”
Speaking of that man, he laid a hand on my knee, giving me silent support.
I lifted a shoulder, again having nothing to say to that.
“You don’t like male leaders, which is going to be a struggle for you for some time,” she went on. “Although, I am proud that you handled Caesar just fine.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” I said, blinking back tears. The voice in the back of my mind warned me that pain would be coming my way for my actions. But I knew he’d never hurt me, at least not the way my brain was used to. But part of me was waiting and would continue to do so until it happened.
“I told him not to touch you, and he should have listened.”
It didn’t help me, though.
“Do you fear he’ll hurt you like Alan did?”
I nodded weakly, tears no longer able to be fought back.
“He won’t, Scarlett. He hasn’t laid a hand on you in the time you’ve known him.”
“Because we haven’t been in a room alone together.”
“He still wouldn’t. You know how I know?” When I glanced up at her, she went on. “He hates himself for not continuing aggressively trying to find you. He’s torn up inside, angry at himself, for not believing you were alive. Then missing out on the moments that he could have had if he had only tried to look a bit more for you. Just like it’s not your fault, it’s not his either.”
