Page 12 of Leland

He’s too good for me.

Tugging my hand was useless, his own fingers were wrapped around mine too tightly.

“Leland, let me go.”

“Am I hurting you?” he asked, turning to me once we’d reached his Tundra.

“Let me go.” Anger rolled around in my tummy. My skin felt tight and itchy. His planwas a bad idea. We couldn’t do what he wanted—I couldn’t do what he wanted. Not when I was already angry.

“Am I hurting you?” he repeated.

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t like what, baby?” I hated how calm he was, how patient he was.

“I don’t like to hold hands.”

“I haven’t met many people who don’t like physical touch. I think maybe you’re just not used to it, so it’s making you panic.”

“I’m not panicking, I’m angry.” Couldn’t he tell by my gritted teeth and flushed face?

Chuckling, he pulled me to him and wrapped his arms around me.

“Leland, no.” I tried pushing at his chest.

Too much.

“Feel with me,” he said. “What’s your heart doing?”

Realizing complying or safewording was the only way he was letting me go, I stopped struggling against him. “It’s beating really fast.”

“Yeah? How about your breathing? Is it fast or slow?”

“Fast.”

“How about your body? Are your legs shaking or are you standing firmly?”

Thinking about it, I realized that my legswereshaking and so were my hands.

“Shaky.”

“Because you’re scared; your anger is just masking it. Rouge, you had to go through so much and your body’s response to that is anger. For a long while, I bet that’s all you felt because you needed it to survive. Now, whenever you’re faced with an emotion, you feel anger as a trauma response.”

“I-I’m sorry.” I didn’t mean to do it. Damn, how much more fucked-up could I be?

“You don’t have to be sorry at all, Little one. We just need to teach your body there are other ways to feel and give you opportunities to experience those emotions. Once it learns new emotions don’t mean danger, things will be a lot easier for you.”

He really had thought this through.

He rubbed his big hands over my back for a few minutes before letting me go.

“Are you ready to annihilate some donuts?”

When he rubbed his belly, I smiled. I’d heard rumors about how many donuts he could eat in one sitting.

“My record is eighteen and I'm going to try to break it with at least twenty-one today.”

“Twenty-one donuts?” I asked, amazed.

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