P E R C E P T I O N

S E V E N T E E N

Scarlett Vanderburg's POV

"I'm not sure how to do this." I tell Calix, fiddling with my fingers. It's a rare occasion my body language is displaying how nervous I actually am. "Where do we start?"

"Um how about the man at the restaurant, that's the last incident and we work backwards?" I internally breathe a sigh of relief. Even though Ryan isn't a pretty piece of my past it's something that doesn't affect me in any way now and I'm totally over it all.

"Ryan's my ex. I met him when I was fourteen and it was obvious he liked me. I didn't really reciprocate it but when I was sixteen I think Selene and Hayley thought it would be good for me. Now that I think about it, Selene was very insecure about Quinn's and I's relationship. She never had anything to worry about, he's my brother but we did share a room and if it was someone else then maybe something could have happened. Anyway I did agree and we dated for two years, but not really, we hardly hung out outside of a group setting, and when we did he was very wrapped up with his phone, he was also always constantly accusing me of cheating. I guess he was projecting there though."

"He cheated on you?" Calix asked, his eyes darkening.

I shrug, exhausted. "I was studying all the time and interning for hours at a time so I hardly had any time or energy for anything. I also never agreed to anything physical as he said, ''I don't know, it just never felt right."

"You know it wasn't your fault right?" Calix lifted my chin so I met his eyes and kept his hand cupping my face. "Just because you're busy or don't want to do something doesn't give him a free pass to do any of that to you. If he truly cared he at the very least could have broken up with you first."

"They also knew about the cheating." Having one person you cared about stings but four kills you, especially when it isn't the first time you've been betrayed by people you care about. "All except Quinn, they all knew he had cheated on me multiple times during our relationship, and none of the people I considered friends were considerate enough to tell me. I had to find out the classic way by walking in on him with a girl while the four of them had been covering for him, slighting me into thinking I was being paranoid."

"You were friends with them, seriously." I knew what he meant, I was so wary. During the first few months of our friendship he saw how my walls were sky-high with both him and Silas. And I was a lawyer, I read people for a living, and I couldn't read when four people were lying consistently to my face.

"I think I knew there was something off with the friendship, but I was friends with Quinn and I wasn't leaving him no matter how uncomfortable I was with the group. Shame poor Quinn, he adored Selene more than anything and even though he's said he's over the whole Everett spectacle this is the first time he's seen her since our graduation where she ghosted him."

Calix wraps his arm around me and pulls me into his body, so I was pretty much laying on his chest. "You're allowed to hurt too, Scarlett."

"When you get hurt so much it just gets numb, I don't know what to feel at this moment." I turn my head so I can see his face. "I won't mind if you leave, I've literally just trauma dumped on you and that isn't even the worst part of my life. You haven't even heard the part about how I almost went to juvie, and probably would have if it wasn't for Meredith."

"Again, Angel. You don't have to tell me anything." He brushes a piece of hair that had fallen in front of my face out of the way. "But I happen to be here to stay, there's nothing you could say about your past that would make me leave."

I felt like I was getting my hopes up but I still believed him. Maybe I was getting my hopes up but I couldn't help it.

"This isn't a pretty story." I warn but I start. "Well I was never really close to my siblings growing up. I don't know if I was the youngest and they were all very close in age. When I was born they were all in school already and when I started school they had moved onto the next school level. Because of that I was extremely close to my parents, I was very shy and I only had two friends and that was because they lived next door."

Chloe and Jacob. They were siblings and my best friends from before I could walk. I hadn't talked to them since I had left for Atkins. I knew they had heard the rumours and I was embarrassed. They were my siblings when mine weren't there for me.

"My life was good though, I used to read all day, and not just files." I joke and Calix laughs lightly, knowing I don't have the time for anything other than work. "Life was good, my siblings were hardly home in their teen years, most of the time they were out partying. But then my life came crumbling down. One weekend when my parents were out of town they had to look after me which none of them were happy with. They were all over eighteen and didn't want a fourteen year old to slow them down."

I paused for a second to see if Calix was actually listening, all his attention was on me. Instead of feeling self conscious it made me feel loved and cared for. He really wanted to know everything about me and that gave me the confidence to carry on.

"They wanted to vandalise a building, I don't think it was their first time doing it but it was the first time they brought me along. I didn't want to be there, and I don't know why they didn't leave me at home. But I left them to do what they wanted and I sat at the back of the alleyway reading a book. They were enjoying themselves, painting and smoking. Until everything went to shit. The cops came and they started running, one of them dropping their cigarette on a floor that I'm guessing had gasoline or something."

Calix held me tighter even though I could feel him stiffen. He knew this story wasn't going anywhere good.

"The alleyway went up in flames, damaging the building. All four of them got out unharmed and disappeared into the crowd that was now building before they got caught."

"And you?"

"Me, well I got caught on the other side of the flames and even though I was unharmed I was the one that was caught. Everysingle one of my four older siblings watched me get shoved into the back of a cop car and not one of them did anything. Yet I still did everything for them, I took the blame so they could keep going to their colleges, so they wouldn't be the ones in trouble with both the law and our parents. They didn't do anything for me and yet I still did everything for them

I was crying, when did I start crying? But I couldn't stop. I was sobbing into Calix's chest and it hit me that I had never cried for them, never ever. I had just accepted it, and went on with my life like nothing had happened. Sure, I was upset but I hadn't allowed myself to forget the life that I lost and how much I had actually put my own life on the line. I could have thrown away a future I had worked so hard for and it didn't seem to mean anything to three quarters of them.

"And the worst part is." I get out between sobs. "I don't regret it, and not even because I saved them from losing everything but because I gained so much more. I gained a new family, and even though I've had a couple more ups and downs through the years I wouldn't change it for anything. I wouldn't have met Quinn and I wouldn't have met you."

"Oh Scarlett." I was straddling Calix, we had never been this close to one another. Our faces were pretty much eye level in this position and it wouldn't take much movement for our lips to touch. "Not yet."

I want to whine and ask why but I know the reason.

"And not only because of the case, Angel. Because when I finally kiss you you're going to be mine and you're going to know it. Mine to have forever, nothing less."

"Forever and ever?" I joke but he replies completely seriously.

"Forever and ever, Scarlett." I move off his lap and move to the bathroom down the hall and clean my face, emerging later with a bare and puffy face but Calix looks at me like I'm the most beautiful person in the world.

"Sooo..." I trail off, the weight of our previous conversation still laying on us. "Do you want a turn to the trauma dump or are we calling it a night?"