I grabbed the currycomb to give Whiskey a quick once-over on his dusty coat. “Things okay with you and Connor?”

“Better than with you and Adam,” he replied.

“That’s not saying much.”

“Can I go talk to him, at least?”

My hand froze. Heath was one of precious few people who knew all that Adam and I had endured. Maybe it would help him to have a sympathetic ear…If, indeed, Heath’s ear was sympathetic.

“He’ll think I sent you to talk to him.”

“You just said yourself that he’s my friend, too. And who else is he going to talk to about the—about everything.”

I swallowed, focusing on the dust I was stirring up on the surface of Whiskey’s coat. “You can say it, you know. You don’t have to spare my feelings.”

Heath sighed. “This is, woefully, reminding me of that shit that happened to you in high school, and that thought is making me physically ill.”

My brush froze in midstroke but I didn’t look at Heath.

I knew exactly what he was referring to—that night that Zack, my high school boyfriend, had gotten drunk and assaulted me.

“You blamed yourself for that shit, too, or have you forgotten?”

I flung the brush into the tote and both horses jerked their heads up, startled. I quieted them by reassuring them and stroking their necks.

Heath came up to stand beside me, took the arm that I was using to stroke Whiskey’s neck. “Don’t be pissed at me, Mia. But I’m calling you on this bullshit. What happened to you—getting cancer, getting pregnant, losing the baby—was no more your fault than that bullshit in high school was. It happened to you. Don’t punish yourself for it.”

Tears started to sting my throat and I blinked, gently pulling out of his hold. I cleared my throat furiously, blinked again and looked away.

“Does he blame you? Is that what all this is about?”

I waved him off. “Put the boxing gloves away, Sugar Ray. He doesn’t blame me. He says he can’t deal with how much I’m blaming myself.”

Heath folded his brawny arms across his chest. “Well, that makes two of us. I can’t deal with it, either. I see it in your eyes all the time. I saw what that innocent comment from Alex did to you…”

I curled in on myself, putting my forehead in my hands. Tears were threatening again. I turned and tilted away from him but he grabbed me up and hugged me. “Shh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

His arms were comforting but they weren’t the arms I wanted around me.

***

“So…to repeat your words back to you…you believe that if you let him see your scars, that will cause him to stop loving you?” Dr. Marbrow said, leaning forward.

I shifted against the sleek couch in her office, the leather squeaking underneath my fidgeting. “It sounds ridiculous coming out of your mouth but makes perfect sense in here,” I said, pointing to my head.

She tilted her head, a smile hinting at her lips. “That voice in there may be the most illogical thing you’ll ever hear but it will always sound right to you. It’s human nature. We give that voice a lot of power. Thus, sometimes the solution is to change that voice, change what it is saying to us.”

I shook inside. “I don’t want to. I mean…that voice is making me miserable inside but I don’t want to let it go.”

“Of course not,” she leaned back and crossed her legs. “How else would you torment yourself if that voice was gone?”

Suddenly it was hard to breathe. I fiddled with my hands in my lap, staring at them. The backs of my legs were sweating and, since I was wearing shorts, sticking to the leather couch. I had no reply to that. I had been tormenting myself. Because everything in me believed that I deserved it. Dr. Marbrow noted something on the legal pad in front of her and then watched me before determining that I wasn’t going to answer her.

She tucked a long strand of blonde hair behind her ear and began in a quiet voice. “Will the scars on your chest truly cause him to leave?”

I shook my head slowly.

“But you do fear you’ll lose him.”

If I hadn’t already. I closed my eyes and nodded.

“What will make him leave, do you think?”

I inhaled sharply through my nose and exhaled shakily.

“It’s what the scars represent…” My voice faded and I cleared my throat, placing a hand over my heart. “The scars in here. The ones that make me feel so ugly on the inside.”