Page 25 of Into Pitch

His tone is ever-calm. “When you were abandoned, what did you learn about yourself?”

I blink. And if I didn’t think I was pissed off before, I am now.

“What did I learn?” I repeat, incredulous.

“Yes. Not what you learned about her, but yourself.”

I glare at him but force the answer forward, even if it feels like dragging hooks through my skin to do it. “That I wasn’t worth staying for, or enough.”

He doesn’t validate it or reassure me, and he sure as fuck doesn’t say that it’s not true like people do when they want to fix a feeling instead of understand it. Though, a part of me wishes he would.

He just asks, “And how does that belief show up now?”

Heat creeps up my neck.

“It doesn’t,” I lie automatically.

He of course can spy my reaction and no doubt sees right through my bullshit.

I exhale hard, frustrated. “Fine. It shows up in everything.”

“In what ways?”

“I don’t let people get close. Not really. I keep things shallow, and if someone wants more than I can give, I leave first. I stop it before they can.”

“So you abandon them,” he says gently.

The words make something in my chest jerk, defensive. “I don’t—”

“You do,” he chops, still calm. “Not because you’re cruel. Because it gives you control and lets you choose the ending before they do.”

I hate how accurate that is. I fidget and shift my weight on my feet before deciding to sit back down across from him again, his eyes tracking each movement.

“You said you want to feel,” he says, and the phrasing is so close to something else in my memory that my spine tightens. His tone doesn’t change, but my brain snags on it anyway. “You said you didn’t want to rot. Talk to me about what ‘feeling’ means for you?”

I blink, caught off guard. Had I said that? Shit, I can’t remember.

“Is this about my mom?”

“It’s connected. As most things are,” He retorts smoothly.

I study him, and for a moment I can’t shake the sense that he’s already mapped this path of the conversation. That he knows exactly what he’s pulling toward the surface. I’m just unsure what he wants to do with it.

“Dangerous,” I finally answer.

He waits.

“Because if I feel too much, then I want things. I want people and… connection.” I twitch when I add that on the end truthfully.

“And wanting a connection is dangerous because?”

“Because you can’t control it. You can’t guarantee they’ll stay. Because you can’t—” I stop my snipe, swallowing around the ache. “Because you can’t make someone choose you.”

He studies me. “So you don’t give them a chance.”

I don’t answer, but I don’t have to. He knows the answer, he’s said it himself. These circles he’s dragging me in feel more like a spiral that digs deeper with each go around. The same question, just rephrased and meant to chip more away with each hard swirl.

“Good,” he finally states.