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Get your eyes checked.
As he sat me down, I choked on a sob, my fingers clutched to my chest. Nails digging into my skin, pain striking like lightning, I tried to force my mind into the present. This isn’t the place for that.
"Aster." A demanding voice in my ear, but a gentle grip on my arm. "Aster." Fingers went to my throat, not squeezing, but grounding me. “Take in a deep breath, baby.” Pain sparked on my thigh, wrenching me to the present. I sucked in a choking breath, and though it felt like sandpaper over my ribs and lungs, I could suddenly breathe.
I blinked and the panicked blackness at the edges of my vision slowly subsided, revealing dim grey and red light shrouding the room.
Deep golden eyes stared into mine.
Grounding me.
“Coulter." My voice choked and I blinked several times, only now registering the concern in his eyes. Gone was the cold, the stoniness of his gaze. In its place, was a man, kneeling between my legs, worry in his gaze.
“Aster, what's wrong?”
I looked away, staring into the dark grey of the club and didn't answer.
I wanted to believe that he actually cared but fear made me press my lips into a firm line, closing up. I never spoke to anyone about my anxiety attacks. "Nothing Coulter. Is she here?"
Suddenly, his fingers clasped my cheeks, turning my face roughly towards him. His molten gaze was back.
"What,” he ground the word out, “happened?" The intensity of his concern softened something inside me but the experience of my past played like a broken record in my mind.
Men only cared when you were fun.
Carefree and happy.
Playing the character that they saw and liked in you, like a wide-eyed, cheerful Barbie, with no sadness or pain.
Anxiety attacks or panicking wasn’t convenient to their schedules.
They had no emotional space for dealing with something like that.
And a man like Coulter, who could switch his emotions on and off like a light switch...I couldn’t open up to a man like that.
We were also in the middle of the club, and he was expecting me to get answers from the doctor.
I swallowed down the words I wanted to say, the burden I’d carried for too long, and lied. “I told you. Nothing."
“Are you sure?” His fingers looped through mine and he pressed the knuckles to his lips, kissing them softly. “You can talk to me.”
I wavered, touched, tears sparking my eyes as relief flooded through me. I wanted to open up to him, to show him all the dark and ugly parts inside me.
But I couldn’t.
I was still too guarded and afraid.
I replaced the openness on my face with the mask I often wore, closing off my emotions and quickly wiping away my tears. “I’m okay, Coulter. Really.” He gave me a skeptical look, so I rushed to find an explanation. “That guy just freaked me out.” I smiled, touching his face. “Thank you, but I’m okay now. Is the doctor here?”
His eyebrows furrowed as his eyes traced over my face. His lips pursed but, after a moment, his fingers relaxed and he looked away, releasing me from his hold. He straightened, sitting on a chair next to me. Wrapping one arm around my waist, he pointed back in the direction of a hallway. “She’s in that room.”
I turned and narrowed my gaze, trying to see what he wanted me to see. "Where?"
“See that row of private rooms?” I nodded, and he continued. “There’s only one with someone standing guard.”
“Okay,” I nodded, part relieved that he hadn’t persisted, the other part of me disappointed. Insistence meant that someone actually cared enough to press me into telling them my truth.
I stood up, stumbling a little on my spiked black heels. With firm hands on my hips, Coulter caught me, balancing me, and I leaned into his steadying touch, taking a deep breath to refocus myself. I dug my nails into my palms, letting the warmth of his hands on my hips soothe my inner demons until I felt a calming center.
