Chapter 30 Loving Me #8
For a moment, none of us moved. Ellis glanced briefly toward Bramwell, then back to me, his expression unreadable. I broke eye contact first.
The man beside Ellis followed the exchange with an easy, curious look before stepping forward with a practiced smile.
"Thorne," he said warmly, shaking his hand. "I was starting to think you avoided these things."
"I do, Simmens" Bramwell replied without hesitation.
The man laughed, then turned slightly, still relaxed, still unaware of the current under everything. Ellis stayed quiet beside him. The man’s attention landed on me and brightened at once.
"And you finally brought your girlfriend."
Heat rose instantly in my face. I went still, waiting for correction.
Bramwell simply shook his hand again. "This is April."
The man accepted it easily, then looked back at me with open friendliness. "Well, it is very nice to meet you. You are absolutely gorgeous."
My lips parted slightly before closing again. Compliments still felt unfamiliar, like being handed something delicate when I had no idea how to carry it properly. I managed a small smile that probably looked more uncertain than polite.
Beside him, Ellis finally spoke.
"Bramwell."
Bramwell turned slightly, expression unchanged. "Ellis."
A brief pause passed between them, sharp enough to be noticeable but too restrained to be anything anyone could question.
Ellis gave a small nod, then turned to me and smiled. "Good evening, April."
I managed a small smile in return, without fully meeting his eyes. Bramwell stepped in at once, his voice smooth and deliberate.
"I heard your foundation finally secured the northern basin contract."
Mr Simmens immediately launched into an enthusiastic explanation, and something tight in my chest eased.
Bramwell didn’t look at me while he shifted the conversation, didn’t draw attention to the fact that he was doing it.
But I felt the way he made space for me anyway, quietly pulling the moment away from where it had started to press too hard.
A few minutes later another man approached the group, older and broad-shouldered, his face lighting immediately with recognition the second he saw Bramwell.
"Thorne," he said. "I heard you were consulting out west now." Bramwell's posture shifted subtly into something more professional.
"Professor Delaney."
"You disappear for five years and suddenly everyone in geology is quoting your papers."
"I'd prefer they stop."
The older man laughed loudly. "Come talk to me before some investor traps me for the rest of the evening."
Bramwell glanced toward me immediately instead of following him.
"Go," I said quietly.
His eyes came back to me immediately. "I will stay."
I shook my head once. "It’s fine."
A pause. He studied me, making sure.
"I’m okay," I added.
Only then did he give a small nod and finally turn away, "Just few minutes then, April."
"Okay, Bramwell," I responded.
The words left naturally enough that I barely thought about them. But Ellis did. I saw the exact moment he heard me. His expression changed instantly, something close to shock flickering across his face before he masked it again.
Bramwell hesitated another second before finally allowing himself to be dragged into conversation across the room. The moment he disappeared into the crowd, the pressure in my chest returned full force.
Too many people. Too much noise. Too many eyes. And Ellis still staring.
I lasted another minute before slipping away from the ballroom toward the hallway leading to the restrooms. The noise softened gradually the farther I walked, until the music and overlapping conversations became muted behind the walls instead of something physically pressing against my skin.
The corridor was dimmer than the ballroom, lined with gold light fixtures and dark marble that reflected blurred shadows across the floor, and the quiet alone made my breathing loosen slightly.
I stopped near the restroom entrance, pretending to study one of the framed photographs mounted beside the door while I tried to steady myself. My hands still felt tense from holding myself together inside that room, and I could still feel Ellis's gaze lingering on me even from across the ballroom.
A few seconds later, footsteps approached behind me. I didn't need to turn around to know it was him.
"You're talking again." He said.
I looked down briefly at the marble floor beneath us.
"Just not to me," he added after a moment.
When I finally looked back at him, he was already watching me with an expression I couldn't fully untangle.
"You look different," he said quietly. I looked at him, confused. A faint smile touched his mouth, tired and fleeting.
"You were always beautiful, April. That's not what I mean." His eyes moved over my face carefully. "You look lighter now. Less... exhausted."
Ellis glanced away for a second before speaking again, this time slower. "I've been seeing a therapist." A humorless laugh escaped him softly. "Apparently I have more issues than I originally thought."
I didn't know how to respond to that, so I stayed quiet. His gaze drifted past my shoulder toward the ballroom behind us before returning to me again.
"She told me about selective mutism," he continued more quietly. "What panic does to speech. What it feels like when your body decides silence is safer than trying to force words out." He swallowed once before looking at me again. "So when I heard you talking to him tonight, even a little..."
He stopped there, jaw tightening briefly as frustration flickered across his face, though this time it seemed directed entirely at himself. Ellis exhaled slowly before asking, more carefully this time, "Are you with him?"
The silence seemed to affect him more than any response could have. Something sharp flickered briefly across his expression before he looked away, jaw flexing.
"So that's it?" he asked quietly. "You were able to let go of everything we had that easily?"
The bitterness in his voice startled me enough that my eyes lifted fully to his face, and he seemed to realize instantly how harsh he sounded because he dragged a hand over his face with a low breath.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, shaking his head.
"God, I'm sorry, April. I know I told you that you deserved someone who helped you heal.
I meant that. I still mean it." His voice weakened slightly at the edges as he looked back at me.
"But seeing you with him tonight..." He let out another quiet breath, almost unsteady. "My God, it hurts."
He sounded sincere, but late. Painfully late.
Before I could think of what to do, movement at the end of the hallway pulled both our attention toward the ballroom entrance.
Bramwell had stepped out of the crowd, clearly searching for me.
The moment he spotted us standing near the restroom corridor together, he slowed slightly. His expression was calm and controlled.
His gaze moved briefly over my face first, assessing without making it obvious, before shifting toward Ellis.
Something in my body relaxed automatically the second I saw him.
I watched the realization settle across Ellis's face in real time as he saw the tension ease from my shoulders, saw me breathe normally again without forcing it.
Bramwell's attention returned to me then, lingering just a second longer.
"You okay?"
Everything still hurt, but somehow answering him came easily anyway.
"Yeah."
His hand closed gently around mine. He looked at Ellis only briefly before turning back toward me.
"I think you've had enough of this place," he said quietly.
I nodded once. He led me away from Ellis without another word, through a side hallway and out toward a smaller terrace behind the building where the music became distant and muffled by walls and night air.
I could breathe again. We sat together on a bench tucked near the gardens, hidden mostly from the event inside. Neither of us spoke for a while.
"Would it be alright if I asked you something?"
I looked over at him cautiously.
"Would you want to dance?"
The question alone made my whole body tense. Physical closeness had always felt dangerous before it felt comforting. Bramwell saw the panic immediately.
"We don't have to," he said at once. "I just thought... if you wanted to try, we could stay out here where nobody is looking."
The music drifted faintly through the walls behind us, soft and far away. I looked down at our hands still resting beside each other on the bench. Then, after a long silence, I moved mine slightly closer to his.
Chapter 26: Cinnamon and Amber
The therapy sessions had shifted over the last few months.
At first we had spoken mostly about panic, silence, and the strange disconnect between my mind and my body whenever fear overwhelmed me.
But lately the conversations had become harder, moving carefully into physical closeness and intimacy, into the instinctive recoil that still lived somewhere deep inside my nervous system no matter how safe someone actually was.
My therapist then referred me to a somatic specialist to help me work through my block around physical touch. After the Ellis incident, even the idea of closeness felt like something my body rejected before my mind could form a clear thought.
The therapist explained to me that what I experience during any form of physical touch is not random or purely psychological, but a learned response involving hyper self-consciousness and a deeply conditioned nervous system reaction.
She described it as my body entering a state of anticipatory alertness, where contact is immediately analyzed for meaning, intention, and potential threat before I am even fully aware of it.
According to her, this is why even neutral touch can feel overwhelming or invasive, because my system is not processing it as neutral input.