Page 169 of Should Our Stars Collide

“I’m an only child,” he continues. “And my parents, my mum especially, they just didn’t know how to handle me.” He chuckles without humor. “Ididn’t know how to handlemyself.”

“That’s not your fault, though. You realize that, right? Kieran, look at me,” he orders, gently but firmly, needing to make sure to get the point across. He waits until Kieran turns his pretty, fear-filled eyes towards him. “That wasn’t your fault. You were just a kid. No one can expect a child to learn how to regulate their emotions without proper help.”

Kieran drops his gaze quickly. Then whispers, “I’m pretty much the same now as an adult.”

“Getting older won’t magically equip you with skills you didn’t have access to as a kid, nor will it give you a cookie-cutter personality that fits today’s society.” He almost adds that Kieran’s unhinged, intriguing personality is one of the main things that made Ash so attracted to him in the first place, but thankfully manages to keep that piece of information to himself.

He's slipping deeper into work mode now, but there’s still a small part of him that reacts to Kieran’s story with the ferocity of someone who’s planning on being actively involved in his life. Unprofessional, yes, but he can’t help it. That’s why he didn’t want to do this. The bias is off the freaking charts. It wasn’t half this bad with Dawson.

Then again, he never wanted to tear Dawson’s clothes off and worship him like a god.

“What is it?” he asks when he notices the way Kieran’s looking at him, eyes soft and lips curved in a faint smile. It… Jesus, it makes him want to squirm.

“You don’t look the type, but you’re a softie, aren’t you?”

Ash quirks an eyebrow. “Were you expecting tough love? I can do that if you want. I just don’t think it’s a good approach to take with you.”

“What, you think I need to be coddled?” Kieran taunts, not really offended.

“Yes,” Ash says easily, enjoying how Kieran’s cheeks start to turn rosy pink. “I think you need to be treated gently, and with a healthy dose of positive reinforcement.”

Now it’s Kieran’s turn to squirm, drop his gaze and clear his throat. “It’s annoying how spot-on you are, even now,” he grumbles, then switches gears. “Well, long story short, I was dragged to a bunch of psychologists who thought I was just attention-seeking and ‘my behavior needed correcting’. Surprise, that didn’t work all that much, so I eventually wound up in a psychiatrist’s office, got slapped with an ADHD label, and ended up on prescription meds.” He shrugs. “Cue months and months of being a fucking zombie. My parents were stoked. Me, not so much.”

“The way you formulated that sentence suggests you don’t agree with the diagnosis,” Ash points out. It doesn’t matter to him either way if the diagnosis is correct or not, even though he can see how that would fit. He’s more interested in how Kieran feels about it, or did as a kid.

Kieran shrugs. “I don’t care much for labels. Some people find them comfy—good for them—but I always felt like a freak. I wastreatedlike a freak because of it, that’s what I despise. People just putting you in a fucking box with no way out.” Before Ash can respond, Kieran adds another nail to the coffin. “I refused to take the meds, so…” He looks away, taking a minute to gather himself. “My mum found a way to slip them into my food, or even drinks.”

Ash’s pulse kicks up. He can feel the therapist-patient boundaries dissolving with alarming speed. Still, by some miracle, he manages to string together a semi-professional response, nevermind the murderous inclinations that suddenly awakened inside him.

“That must have been horrifying, having your trust broken like that by the very people who should’ve been protecting you.”

Kieran sniffles, but there are no tears. “I think the worst part was they actually believed they were helping me. And themselves, of course. But there was no reasoning with them, because they were convinced it was all for my own good.”

“That doesn’t justify their actions,” Ash tells him, just in case Kieran still has doubts or is trying to find excuses.

“No, it doesn’t,” he agrees. “I…um… I guess I developed what was probably an eating disorder? But it got better when I got older and, you know, could take care of myself. Make my own choices. I’m good now.”

He doesn’t say it with the desperation of someone trying to convince not only others, but also himself, so Ash takes it at face value.

“That’s pretty amazing. That you overcame all that.”

Kieran blushes again, but instead of finding it cute, it only makes Ash angry. Why has no one ever told this man how fucking wonderful he is?

“I still have some hang-ups,” Kieran admits. “I don’t have a problem eating out or going to a bar, since the people who serve me don’t know me. But I panic whenever someone I know offers me something. Dawson is the only exception. Or he was.” His eyes fix on Ash. “Until recently.”

Ash fucking forgets to breathe, Kieran’s confession like an arrow hitting the bullseye. Except in this case, the bullseye is his heart, and the arrow is the very thing he’s ached for his whole life. Does Kieran know? Does he realize what he’s giving him just by saying that—by trustinghim, of all people, even though Ash has hardly done anything to earn that trust?

With a story like Kieran’s, trust isn’t something casual. It’s something that’s been locked behind years of silence and self-preservation, and now it’s being handed to Ash with bare, trembling honesty. It’s the biggest gift someone like him could ever ask for, and it threatens to shatter everything into pieces. To make him reach across the space between them, take Kieran’s hand, and promise he’ll never betray that trust, that he’ll guard it with his whole damn life.

He doesn’t do any of it, because the truth is he can keep none of those promises. Out of all the people in the world, he’s the last person Kieran should hand his trust to. Not when Ash is the one person who has the potential to break his heart—or already has.

So he just sits there, ass glued to the chair, gripping the armrests and praying his resolve will last until Kieran’s finished with his story.

“Understandable. You can never be too cautious. It’s healthy to be a little distrustful.” What a fucking robotic answer. Jesus, he wants to punch himself.

“More than a little, in my case.”

“That’s okay too. You need to protect yourself first.”