16. Chapter 16
Caroline
Colt arrived for his Thursday session looking like he had something to say.
He sat down in the chair across from Dr. Williamson's desk—he'd started requesting sessions with her instead of having them in the main office, which meant I wasn't present.
But he'd texted me earlier asking if we could talk after, which was an unnecessary request given that our therapeutic relationship had officially ended.
I'd agreed anyway because I was weak when it came to Colt.
This Thursday, though, something was different. He didn't leave the office when the session ended. Instead, he asked me to walk with him.
We ended up in the parking lot, and the conversation started innocuously enough. How work was going. How the investigation into Xtinction was progressing. Standard small talk that masked the tension underneath.
Then he stopped walking and he turned to face me.
"You're distracted," he said. "You've been distracted for weeks. Something's wrong, and you're not talking about it."
"I'm fine."
"You're not. I can see it. The way you watch situations. The way you seem to be calculating escape routes. That's hypervigilance, and I recognize it because I do the same thing."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to maintain the fiction that I had my life together, that I was the stable one, the therapist, the person who'd survived her trauma and moved on. But Colt had learned to see through facades because he'd built so many of them.
"It's not your job to worry about me," I said.
"Maybe not. But I'm going to anyway."
We sat on the curb of the parking lot like teenagers, and Colt asked me a question that nobody had asked in years: "What happened to you?"
For a moment, I couldn't answer. Couldn't imagine breaking the rule I'd maintained since before I became a therapist—never let anyone see your damage. Always maintain the facade. Always be the person who's healed enough to help others heal.
But Colt was looking at me with something that wasn't pity. It was recognition. Understanding. The look of someone who knew what it felt like to carry things you couldn't put down.
So I told him.
I told him about Marcus. About the way my father had introduced me to one of his associates when I was twenty-three. About how Marcus had seemed charming at first. Powerful. The kind of man who could protect me from the chaos my father created.
I told him about how charming men who work for the mafia are charming right up until they aren't.
"He was controlling," I said quietly. "Every aspect of my life. Who I could see. Where I could go. What I wore. He said it was because he loved me. Said he needed to keep me safe because the people in his world were dangerous."
"How long?" Colt asked.
"Three years. Three years of walking on eggshells. Three years of never knowing which version of him I'd get. The one who was kind or the one who was violent."
Colt didn't speak. Just listened.
"He hit me once. During an argument about something stupid. I don't even remember what. He hit me and I saw my childhood reflected back at me—all the ways my father's violence had poisoned everything it touched. And I realized that I was choosing to stay in the same situation."
"What did you do?"
"I left. Took a job across the country. Changed my name professionally so he couldn't find me easily.
Spent years in therapy understanding that I'd been attracted to him because his world felt familiar.
My father's violence normalized his violence.
My mother's learned helplessness taught me that staying was an option. "
I looked at Colt. "That's why I became a therapist. Because I needed to understand how people survive trauma. And because I wanted to help other people not make the choices I made."
"That's not weakness," Colt said. "Surviving abuse takes strength."
"It's why I avoid relationships," I continued. "Why I built walls and control systems and a life where nothing and nobody can hurt me. Because being close to someone means vulnerability, and vulnerability means danger."
"Not always."
"In my experience, yes. My father was dangerous. Marcus was dangerous. The men I was trained to fear were right."
Colt reached over and he took my hand. Just held it. Didn't try to comfort me or convince me that everything would be fine. Just acknowledged that the damage was real and present.
"I understand building walls," he said. "I've been doing it my entire life. Strength, control, dominance—those were the only things that kept me alive in certain situations. But somewhere along the way, the walls became a prison."
"How do you take them down?"
"Carefully. With people you trust. With people who understand that your trauma isn't weakness—it's just what you survived."
We sat there in the parking lot as the sun set over McAllen, and for the first time in years, I allowed someone to see my scars.
Allowed someone to know that the together, competent, professional Caroline was built on a foundation of survival and fear and the determination never to be helpless again.
"Thank you," I said finally.
"For what?"
"For not trying to fix me. For not offering clinical explanations or therapeutic frameworks. For just listening."
"You did that for me," he said. "When I was in crisis, you listened without judgment. You didn't make me feel broken for being broken."
After he left, I sat alone in my office and I acknowledged something terrifying. I wasn't just treating Colt anymore. Wasn't maintaining professional distance from him. We'd become dependent on one another in ways that went far beyond therapist and patient.
We were becoming each other's emergency contact. Each other's safe person. Each other's reason to try.
That was dangerous territory. That was the kind of codependence that therapists were trained to recognize and prevent.
And I was actively walking into it with my eyes open.