the scent and the sapphire || book three

‎♡‧₊˚twenty - seven ♡‧₊

"How's Adonis?"

A tired resignation fills Lev's handsome face as he settles in his chair. "He still won't talk to me, but at least he has his mother. Iva says it'll take him some time to open up."

"She's right. He's a traumatized child. Have you considered therapy for him? Maybe consider taking him to a child therapist?"

"Did yours do a good job?"

I sigh softly as I stroke the petals of one of the many beautiful Dahlias that have blossomed in the garden as if they're pets. "I've never had luck with therapists as a child or adult. You know that."

"That's why I have no plan to send my child to therapy. He'll get better with time. There's no way I'm trusting him in the care of those charlatans as you call them."

This side of him, the protective paternal spirit, makes me smile. He doesn't have the exact details of what I went through during my time at rehab, but he does know it wasn't a pleasant experience. I never told him and he never asked. It has always been a matter of mutual understanding between us. He just knows and understands.

Watching him make efforts to protect his son from the world, makes me think about my papá. I've spent decades holding a sense of animosity towards his treatment of me and while that's not wrong from my perspective, it would be wrong to say that he hasn't tried to protect me in his own ways. He might not have been right by my side at my toughest moments or any other moments, but so hasn't my emotionally unavailable mother. However, both of them have worked together in the ways they know best to make me safe, solve my problems, and look out for me. They might not be ideal parents, but they have done everything they can in the ways they've known the best. I do not remember my father ever being present for any of my important milestones or achievements, but the morning I woke up in the hospital following my escape from rehab, he was there. He was also there when I woke up in the hospital again following my suicide attempt.

Now that I think of it, he'd excused his home renovations to come live at the Rothschild mansion for a couple of days following that. He has several estates of his own in New York City alone, hotels he owns, or even yachts where he sometimes spends weekends. However, he came to live at Mama's place. I was too completely checked out to be bothered about the reason or even care back then or after. But now when I think of it, I feel it was for me. When I resumed Yale, he used to run into me once every month or so. He used to tell me he was there to check on a research building he had donated a huge amount to be constructed. Knowing him and when I realize it now, he couldn't be bothered about such menial investments. Time is money to him. The man who is responsible for important mega constructions worth billions around the world wouldn't concern himself with a building development at Yale. He was in all those places for me.

While I'd have not considered any of these reasons to excuse his behavior towards me, reuniting with Areston and falling deeper in love with him every day is making me grow as a person. I am seeing things from a perspective I never did before. It's like just by existing in my life, he's unshackling the part of me that was once used to find light in everything no matter how dark, but I shackled it following what happened at the rehab. He bulldozed my life with his darkness and put a first crack on those high walls I'd enacted, slowly helping me bring back the good aspects of my old self I'd started hating.