17. Chapter 17
Colt
I left the office with a new understanding of Caroline. That should have felt like progress.
Instead, it felt like someone had reached into my chest, wrapped a fist around something vital, and squeezed.
I sat in my truck with the engine off and both hands gripping the steering wheel, staring through the windshield at absolutely nothing.
People came and went around me. A woman crossed the lot with a kid balanced on one hip.
An older man stopped to check his phone before getting into his sedan. Somewhere nearby, a horn blared.
Normal life. Normal people doing normal things.
And all I could think about was Caroline sitting across from me, telling me pieces of a past she kept hidden behind calm eyes and careful questions.
She wasn't the unaffected, composed therapist I'd initially thought. She wasn't some perfectly adjusted woman who went home at night, shut off the office lights, and left everyone else's damage neatly filed away until morning.
She was a woman who'd been hurt deeply. A woman who had rebuilt herself through sheer force of will and then dedicated her life to helping other people do the same.
She was just as broken as I was. Just better at hiding it.
I hated the thought as soon as it came. Not because it wasn't true, but because I knew exactly what Caroline would say if she could hear me. She'd tell me broken wasn't a permanent state. That surviving something didn't mean it owned you. That damage wasn't identity.
She'd probably use better words. Clinical ones. Careful ones. Words designed not to make a man like me feel cornered.
But none of that changed what I felt sitting there. Someone had hurt her. Someone had taught Caroline that love came with fear attached to it, and she'd clawed her way out of that lesson alone.
My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. The anger came fast. Hot. Familiar. Easier than everything underneath it.
I wanted a name. A face.
I wanted to know who had put that look in her eyes when she'd told me enough to make me understand and not enough to satisfy the violent part of me that immediately wanted to find the bastard responsible.
Then I remembered what she'd said to me. About violence. About control. About the difference between protecting someone and making their choices for them.
"Fuck."
I let go of the wheel and dragged both hands over my face. This was exactly why I needed to talk to Ditch.
Because somewhere between the first session and now, Caroline had stopped being the woman assigned to help me manage my shit. She'd become—
I couldn't even finish the thought.
I pulled out my phone.
We need to talk about what's happening with Caroline.
Ditch responded less than a minute later.
Club. Twenty minutes.
I started the truck.
Ditch was already in his office when I got there. He had paperwork spread across the desk, a mug of coffee going cold near his elbow, and the expression of a man who'd known me long enough to recognize trouble before I opened my mouth.
He leaned back in his chair.
"Close the door."
I did.
"Sit."
"I'd rather stand."
"That bad?"
I looked at him.
Ditch sighed. "Sit down, Colt."
I sat.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke. That was the problem with people who knew you too well. Silence wasn't empty with them. It was pressure.
Ditch folded his hands over his stomach. "You said this was about Caroline."
"Yeah."
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
His eyebrows lifted.
"Nothing physical," I clarified.
"That's a very specific distinction."
"Would you shut the fuck up and let me explain?"
"I'm listening."
I leaned forward, elbows braced on my knees. The words didn't come easily. They hadn't when Caroline asked me to talk about myself, either. Apparently, emotional honesty remained emotional honesty no matter who was sitting across from me, and I still fucking hated it.
"Things have changed."
"Between you and Caroline."
"Yeah."
"How?"
I stared at the floor.
"Colt."
"She told me about her past."
Ditch went still. Not dramatically. Most people wouldn't have noticed.
I did.
"What about it?"
"I'm not telling you details."
"I didn't ask you to."
"Good."
His jaw tightened. "Keep going."
I blew out a breath. "She opened up. More than she should have, probably. She told me things that weren't just normal therapist shit. Not some vague story meant to make a point. Real things."
"And how did that make you feel?"
My head snapped up. "Don't."
"What?"
"Don't fucking therapist me."
A corner of his mouth twitched, but the humor disappeared quickly. "Fine. What did you do with that information?"
That was somehow worse.
I stood and paced toward the wall.
"I wanted to protect her."
"From something happening now?"
"No."
"Then from what?"
"The past. The asshole who hurt her. The fact that she thinks surviving it means—" I stopped myself.
Ditch waited.
I turned around. "I don't know. I just wanted her to understand that I see her differently now."
"Different how?"
"Jesus Christ."
"You're the one who called this meeting."
"I know."
"Then say it."
I looked at him and felt something in my chest go tight.
"She's not just my therapist anymore."
Ditch's expression hardened.
"To you," he said.
"What?"
"She's not just your therapist anymore to you. Professionally, legally, ethically, she is still very much your therapist."
"I fucking know that."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"Because you're sitting in my office telling me she's disclosed personal trauma, you're emotionally invested in protecting her, and based on your face right now, I'm guessing this isn't a harmless crush."
"It's not."
The admission landed between us.
Ditch rubbed a hand over his jaw.
"How long?"
"I don't know."
"Bullshit."
"I said I don't know."
"When did you first realize you wanted her?"
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
Because that was a different question.
Wanting Caroline had been easy to dismiss in the beginning. She was beautiful. I had eyes. My body worked. None of that meant anything.
This wasn't that.
"I don't know when it changed," I said finally. "But it did."
"And Caroline?"
I hesitated.
Ditch saw it.
"Fuck, Colt."
"Nothing happened."
"That's not what I asked."
"I think she cares about me."
"She's supposed to care about you."
"Not like this."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
The answer came too quickly. Too confidently.
Ditch stood and walked around the desk.
"The six-month boundary wasn't arbitrary."
"I know."
"It was there for a reason."
"I know that too."
"Then why do I feel like you're about to tell me why the rules shouldn't apply to you?"
"I'm not."
"Good."
"But I'm also not going to pretend this is nothing."
Ditch studied me. I forced myself not to look away.
"She needed someone to see her the way I see her," I said. "She needed someone to tell her that surviving abuse doesn't make her weak. And I needed someone to understand that I'm not just the violent guy everyone's afraid of."
Ditch's expression shifted. Barely. Enough.
"She sees that in you?"
"Yeah."
"And you see what in her?"
The answer rose before I could stop it.
"Everything."
Silence.
I laughed once, but there wasn't anything funny in it. "Fucked, right?"
"Complicated."
"Same thing."
"No." Ditch shook his head. "Fucked means there's no way through. Complicated means every choice has consequences."
"That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"No."
At least he was honest.
He moved back behind the desk but didn't sit.
"So what are you going to do?"
"Wait."
Ditch watched me carefully.
"That's it?"
"Respect the boundary. Finish what we started. Do this the right way."
"And after six months?"
My throat tightened.
"Then, if she still feels the same way, I make sure she knows I do too."
"You've thought about this."
"Every fucking day."
"And if she's not ready?"
The question hurt more than I expected. I looked toward the closed office door.
"Then I'll respect that too."
"Will you?"
My gaze snapped back to his.
"Yeah."
"Even if she decides this was transference? Even if she decides the healthiest thing for both of you is never seeing each other again?"
My jaw locked. Ditch didn't let me off the hook.
"That's the reality you're dealing with."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
The word came out rough. I stood there with it.
With the image of Caroline telling me goodbye. With the possibility that everything I thought existed between us was something she could pack into a clinical explanation and leave behind.
It made my chest ache. But love—or whatever the hell this was becoming—couldn't be another word for possession.
I'd learned that much.
"If she doesn't want me when this is over, I leave her alone," I said. "But I'm going to make damn sure she knows she deserves to be loved by someone who understands what she's survived."
Ditch was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded.
"All right."
"That's it?"
"No. That's me deciding not to kick your ass today."
"Appreciate the restraint."
"Don't make me regret it."
I almost smiled. Almost.
***
The PTSD trigger hit at the grocery store.
One second, I was standing in produce trying to remember whether I needed onions. The next, I heard a man's voice behind me.
Low. Clipped. Controlled.
"Move."
My entire body locked.
The onion in my hand slipped from my fingers and hit the floor.
I turned.
He wasn't looking at me. He wasn't anyone I knew.
Just some guy built a certain way—thick through the shoulders, close-cropped hair, posture too straight—with a voice that struck some buried part of my brain like a match.
My rational mind knew that. My body didn't give a fuck.
The fluorescent lights became too bright. A cart squeaked somewhere to my left. A child started crying two aisles over. The overhead speaker crackled.
Every sound came at me separately and all at once. My lungs stopped working right.
The man moved again.
For half a second, I wasn't in a grocery store.
I was trapped. Watched. Interrogated.
Every exit felt too far away. Every person became an obstacle. My pulse slammed against my throat.
I knew what was happening. That was the fucked-up part.
I knew.