Scales: Of Justice (Broken But ... Mending Book 3) (22 page)

Somehow, knowing she had Weaver at her side again, she knew she’d make it.

A text came in as she was walking back to the front door. Sean.

She smiled and read the simple question asking how she was doing.

He was a special brother. She responded, telling him she was much better and now looking forward to getting through the rest of the workshop.

His instant response took some of the joy out of the communication.

Did you talk to Delaney?

It was her first reaction not to answer, but she knew he would not leave it alone. She gave him a short answer.
No.
Then in a separate text she added,
I can’t.

Though he might be disappointed, he wouldn’t judge her. She hated disappointing him though. As far as she’d come in life, he’d been there rooting for her the whole time. Knowing more than anyone what she had been through, he wanted her to see this guy. Deal with it and move on. Just the thought was setting the bile in her gut seething. Talk about a big issue.

Her footsteps slowed as she walked through the restaurant. After all she had learned this week, she wanted to be big enough to handle this. She needed to be. Maybe she could set a date down the road, like in six months’ time. Time to prepare for the meeting. Time to adjust.

Time to panic and find ways of getting out of it.

She sighed. Confused and depressed suddenly by her own lack of resolve, she opened the front door and walked into the sunshine. Outside, she joined the group and found Weaver waiting for her.

He searched her face. “Tired?”

She nodded and turned to fall into step behind the other attendees heading back to the hotel. “A little.”

“Looks more like life is hitting you a little sideways.”

“True enough.” But she wasn’t ready to share her problem and the gut-wrenching decision she needed to make. So much in her life had been hard. How hard could this one be? Or maybe a better question was if she were to look back on her life in a year, would she be happy? She’d been strong enough to make this step and ashamed she’d been so weak. Once again incapable of doing what she needed to do. A failure.

Just that word made her cringe.

Instead of sharing, she said, “What’s it going to take to have you move past needing Justice for your father?”

He stared at her, as if he hadn’t been expecting the change in topic. There was silence for a long time. She winced. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“You’re entitled. We’re doing a lot of pushing boundaries just because we’re here but also because we’re involved,” he said calmly. “But you made me realize something I hadn’t considered before.” Their eyes locked and their hands clasped together. “It’s not that I’m not willing to share, I’m just not sure where all this revelation leaves me in this situation.”

“Oh, well maybe that’s a good thing then.” She smiled. “It would be nice to see you grow through this workshop too.”

“I’m growing more than I thought possible,” he admitted with a smile. “Maybe that’s why I’m stuck for an answer. It seems to me my instinctive response has changed and I need to think about it.”

“Good enough,” she said lightly. “When you figure it out, will you let me know?”

*

He squeezed her
hand. “Sure. It’s an important issue for you, isn’t it?”

She gave him a serious nod. “It is.”

Interesting. Curious, but also a little confused, he stayed quiet trying to work through it. He knew Justice was a big one for her. It was for him too. But maybe not as big as it had been in the past.

And why was that?

He’d held that up as a flag in front of him for a long time. It had been very important. As if he could solve that and that would give him peace over the issue. Make peace with his past. Make peace with his childhood. Have someone to blame. The killer. If he’d not taken his father away, then Weaver’s childhood wouldn’t have been so horrible. So if he had someone to blame, then he wouldn’t have to take on any of the responsibility himself. Then why should he? He’d been a child and he’d done what he could to survive.

And he’d done that part quite well. Sure, there’d been a lot of hiccups. But in many ways, it had been smooth sailing forward. So why was he hanging on to that issue as if to say it still made a difference? Yes, he’d like to see his father’s killer caught and pay the price. Was it likely to happen? Maybe and maybe not. Did he want to hang onto all that emotion and energy that was pulling him down?

But it wasn’t pulling him down. He didn’t feel like there was any weight there. No emotional tug as he considered the missing man in his life. Not anymore.

Why?

As he walked, it became clear that he’d already let it go. Somewhere in the last few years, he’d come to realize that his father had died young and it was a horrible shame for all involved. Including his mother. She’d been unable to move on, and he’d taken her methodology as his own and held up his father’s death as a major roadblock in his life. Except, in the intervening years, he’d formed his own methods of dealing with his life. Ones that suited him.

Not hers that kept her locked up in a crumpled-up space of time and emotion.

But ones that freed him from those bonds.

A child learned from his or her parents. That was the way of the world. He knew that. He’d been taught that, he’d seen it over and over again and knew it well. But at one point in time, a child also had to determine when and how he wanted to relate to the world around him as an individual. Either he further developed the tools his parents gave him or he learned his own coping skills.

If the latter, at one point the original coping skills became redundant and fell away from disuse.

Just like his had.

After a while, he’d learned to look at life differently. All the patients he’d seen and interacted with through grad school and had been blessed to have been a part of their process had taught him something even if it had taken him until now to understand. Maybe nothing major in the sense of an aha moment, but they’d slowly built up to show him what he wanted for himself and what he didn’t want for himself.

His own wife had done the same thing. But he hadn’t seen it. It had been her intense purpose to get married as she’d needed that security. That foundation. She hadn’t been able to go forward with their relationship until that happened. Being ambivalent about the legal side of marriage, he’d agreed.

When after six months, she’d turned and said, “Thank you, I can move past this stage now,” he’d been literally stunned.

And angry. Very angry. He’d been happy married to her. Thought she’d been happy. And she had, until she realized that it wasn’t marriage she was looking for as much as having
been
married. So she had caught up to where everyone else in her world was at for her age level. She’d been so afraid that marriage would slip past her, be an old maid so to speak, and she’d been sure that being married would make her happy.

Only to realize she not only didn’t want to be married but didn’t really want to be with him at all.

After he’d gotten over the hurt and anger, he realized she’d also been a good lesson for him. She’d done what she needed to do and moved on. Regardless of whom she hurt.

For him, he had not moved on because he hadn’t wanted to hurt or be hurt. His wife had tramped around in his life for a good year and by the time it was over, he could see she was doing much better having understood where her own issues had been at.

As she had explained to him, “You’re part of my past now. And I’m ready to leave all that garbage behind.”

Not nice.

To find he’d been part of the ‘garbage’ hurt. But it wasn’t the same thing as to find his love unrequited. Because he hadn’t really loved her in the first place. There was an attraction for sure and he’d cared for her a lot. More, he’d been content. Hadn’t cared to get married as he’d seen no need. That meant a further commitment that wasn’t required – wasn’t wanted, he realized now.

His fault. He hadn’t looked at his motives. Or hers. They hadn’t discussed why the marriage. They hadn’t really done anything but take the step she felt she needed to “feel secure.” That she didn’t miss out on something she thought was important until she was married.

Now he understood it. Even though it had been painful, he learned to look at relationships differently. He’d been avoiding anyone in therapy so to avoid a second scenario like his wife.

And he hadn’t come to the workshop to do anything other than take notes for his paper.

And while he hadn’t been looking, Paris had shown up.

And blown him away.

Therapy might not be done for her and she might need help again in the future, but her self-awareness was amazing. It was clear to her why she should do something and why she couldn’t do something.

He couldn’t argue with that.

She was doing the best she could.

T
he afternoon was
traumatic. Paris watched one woman break down completely and require help to leave the room. She felt close to tears many times as they dealt with the term
dreams
. Dreams they held and dreams they felt they could never have.

And how to modify those dreams to be something they could have.

By the time Jenna called the end of the day, there was a film of sweat over Paris’s skin and her eyes burned with unshed tears. The emotional workout had been harder than anything she’d expected to have. Just the thought of packing up her stuff and making her way to her room made her want to just roll over and die.

Weaver stepped in front of her.

Gazing up at him, she was not ready or willing to stand up. And realized he looked about the same. She held out a hand and he clasped it, helping her up. “I think the rooms are too far away,” she murmured.

He nodded. “Today they are.”

But his voice was gritty, strained.

“Hard afternoon for you too, huh?”

Wide-eyed and serious, his head drooped, and damn if there wasn’t a brightness to his eyes she’d not seen before. She squeezed his hand in commiseration and grabbed her purse. “I’m ready.”

After leading her out into the lobby, he stopped and said, “Which way?”

“Outside,” she said suddenly. “Fresh air and flowers. Sunshine and new growth.”

Gaze brightening, he nodded. Together they walked out into the sunshine, the hustle and bustle of the busy city streets. The sheer normality of their surroundings.

Not talking, they walked, automatically heading to the water and the boats they’d seen earlier. It was a ten-minute walk, but its curative effects were wonderful. She could feel the constriction around her chest easing and the bands knotting her stomach breaking up. By the time they found a bench to sit on and watch the world on the water, she could breathe normally.

“How does she do that?” she asked in a low voice. “This is the last full day and there were so many things happening, so many people breaking down. Stuff coming up for everyone. I’ve never been through anything so intense.”

“And that’s still going to continue. Tonight, overnight, and all day tomorrow. I don’t know if they are all like this but with this level of intensity, it’s no wonder her workshops get such wonderful results.”

“It’s not what I expected when I started a few days ago,” she murmured. She wasn’t even sure what had happened today. Lots of father stuff. Stuff about value. Having value. Deserving to be valued. Lots of emotional letting go of the bonds she’d carried for so long. “The stuff we do and did, the stuff we believed, a lot of it is so stupid.”

“Only now that you can look back and see what it’s like as an adult,” Weaver said. “As a child, a teen, it’s impossible. We absorb the environment around us. We learn from those abusing us. We grow based on everything – one direction or another.”

Quietly contemplative, Paris sat for a moment then said, “Do you know my father told me I was the reason my mother left? And I believed him? Didn’t think I was worthy of love. Didn’t think I could be a mother because my mother had walked out on us, so what if I did the same? Figured that if I had been a ‘good girl,’ my father would forgive me for forcing her to leave and he’d love me too.”