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.
"Your body is not reacting to the present moment. It is reacting to what it learned touch used to mean."
She linked this directly to my developmental history. She suggested that my reactions might not come from the present alone, but from earlier experiences where touch had not always been steady or safe.
"There was never a repeated experience of safe contact for your body to store as normal. So your system built safety through distance instead."
She explained that over time I learned to brace myself before touch occurs, because in most of my lived experience, physical contact was either absent or associated with violence, emotional risk, or loss of control. That bracing response has now become automatic. It is no longer a decision but a reflex, which is why my body tightens or withdraws even when I intellectually understand that I am safe.
"Try not to correct it yet," she guided. "Just notice the moment your body prepares."
We also spoke about how limited my experiences of safe, positive touch have been. She did not focus on details, but she acknowledged the pattern carefully. Apart from brief relationships or isolated moments of closeness, I have rarely experienced sustained physical affection that felt both safe and consistent.
"What does your body assume touch will lead to?"
After a pause, I managed, "Bad."
She nodded, "Exactly," she said. "So our work is not to argue with that assumption, but to slowly give your body different evidence."
She emphasized that this response is not a flaw in character or willingness, but a survival strategy that became overgeneralized. My nervous system learned early that closeness could lead to harm, so it continues to apply that rule automatically even when the present situation is safe.
"Your system is trying to protect you," she said. "It is simply using outdated information."
The goal of therapy, she explained, is not to force tolerance of touch, but to build gradual, repeated experiences where touch can be chosen, paused, or stopped, and where nothing negative follows that choice. Over time, she said, this is what allows the body to stop bracing in advance and begin distinguishing between remembered danger and present safety.
