Scales: Of Justice (Broken But ... Mending Book 3) (5 page)

He was filled
with regrets.
What are you going to do about it, idiot? Apologize? Tell Jenna you won’t do the report as you’ve messed this up already. And just what is she likely to say?
Weaver pondered the issue as he paid the bill and wandered out to the lobby. She’d smile and tell him to fix it.

How the hell could he do that?

Really, all he wanted was to get this report published. In a way, he needed the credits. They could be damn hard to get. He wanted to move forward into his field and help people. He understood he might not be ready, but no one said he had to go full bore into this. A little at a time – at a rate he could handle. That worked.

So what if he lost a little skin scraping close to his issues or gained another scar or two? More scars would just add to the many he already had. But then, Paris had scars of her own, he’d seen some of them. And even he could feel the open wound he’d caused.

“So apologize,” he said out loud. “That’s the place to start.”

Glancing down at his watch, he realized he had a little time before the afternoon lecture started. Good. He could get a start and write down his impressions. The things he’d picked up already. And there were a lot.

The seminar room was empty when he arrived. He took his seat and opened his laptop to take a look at the report he’d set up but hadn’t done much with yet. Now he let his mind go and let his fingers fly on the keyboard as he wrote down a description of Paris. It was her that interested him.

Confused, valiant, emotional. Damaged. Obviously hurt, but tired of hurting. There is strength in her, but she has never been strong enough to deal with the core hurt. She’s alive, but a part of her is dead.

He stopped and read what he’d written. Wow. So much for analytical. This was literally emotional, the impressions from his gut. Though there was no way to verify if he was right or wrong, his mind and heart said he was on track. Paris was an eager beaver desperate to get over something and get on with the next stage of her life, and that concept both terrified and excited her. Failure was not an option, yet he suspected it was quite likely the outcome. Not that he’d wished that for her, but she was a mass of confusion even for herself.

Then there was the damn project. How did that work if there were no outlines to follow? No theme to grab onto. No guidelines. He highly suspected it was Jenna’s way of making them think. But that didn’t mean Paris would get the outcome she hoped for. The outcome she needed from it.

So what could he do to help it become reality?

He owed her after all. And he wanted her to be okay with this report.

So he’d need her to be okay with him.

Only he’d done a damn shitty job so far.

The next step would be to figure out what project to do and let her do it. So now what would transform her from being an unwilling participant to a willing one?

A slow smile crossed his face as he picked up the paper he’d been using for doodles and folded it once then twice. His smile widened. He finally understood one thing – the theme of the project. This was all about transformation.

Tuesday

T
he next morning,
Paris took her seat beside Weaver, giving him the briefest of glances. He was waiting for her. Before she could say anything, he said in an apologetic tone, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Then he placed a small folded bird on her desk. She was charmed at the delicate wings and precise features of the tiny bird. In order to create something so beautiful and fragile, there had to be something soft under that hard exterior of his. The gift wasn’t enough to forgive him, but it helped to break the awkwardness of their first meeting since the fight.

“It’s okay. I’m still not happy about it, but I understand.”

“You do?” he asked, startled.

Nodding, she explained. “I do. I don’t want to be in any report, but I understand that you need to write one.”

He kept his head down as if in deep thought, as if her answer was what he wanted to hear but maybe just not quite the right way. Well, too damn bad. She understood his machinations more than he did apparently. He’d been studying other people so much, Weaver had forgotten to look closer to home.

Paris, on the other hand, had started with herself and had gone on from there. Already she had learned a lot, but there was more. She felt it. Who knew what she’d learn as she moved into studying other people? She’d come willing to learn but damn, this project business had shaken her.

And that upset her too.

Still, the desperation to get what healing she could kept her here. Even if that meant working with someone who wasn’t ready to heal.

“What about our project?” she muttered. “I’d feel better if I knew what direction we were supposed to take.”

“I was thinking about a report on transformation.”

As he spoke, he pointed to the origami bird. “We both need to learn to grow. To change. Theoretically, to transform. From the old to the new. Whether by understanding how our stance on any issue, justice included, can be muted to something else or by looking past another person’s point of view or something else entirely unrelated.”

“True,” she said slowly. “But that is a word. Transformation. What would we do the report about?”

“About how we have transformed ourselves so far and where we want to go. Maybe put it into stages. One, being where we’ve been. Two, being where we are. And three, being where we have to go.”

Warming to his concept, she listened as he fleshed it out further. “Use Justice as the vehicle.”

“Sounds good, but honestly that’s just self-analysis. Hardly the scope of what Jenna wants out of us.” Paris knew that a project like this could be difficult, but she’d expected something different. Something more public. In public. Dealing with people. At least Sean and Robin’s had been. She’d heard about Kane and Tania’s project from Robin, but not the details. They’d only had to go into the public for Tania to take pictures. So maybe that was internal too. She didn’t know.

“Maybe that would be okay.” She shrugged. “Let’s ask Jenna about it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to do anything wrong or waste time going off in one direction that we’re just going to have to redo it.”

“And I don’t want to ask because if we do, we’re opening ourselves up to it being wrong,” he countered. “Whereas if we leave it and do the project the best we can, it won’t be wrong. It will be our interpretation of the project.”

“You don’t like being wrong,” she said with a wry smile. “So you ignore the process and decide you’re right from your perspective.”

“And you’re scared of being wrong so you go and ask over every little stage to make sure you aren’t.”

That was dead on. She sat back, surprised. “Wow, this could be tough working with you.”

“And you,” he came back with immediately.

Both leaned back, smiles breaking to the surface.

At least it gave them a place to start. If needed, she could go ask Jenna on her own, and if they could improve on this project, then she’d have to convince Weaver to make those changes and if not, she’d have to make a decision. He was right in that she didn’t like making mistakes. She’d grown up crippled, her doubts exaggerated by severe punishments when she’d done something wrong. Now she asked a lot of questions early on so she understood what was required of her. Whereas, Weaver refused to be wrong – as if that mental leap was too much for him to handle.

Maybe the same end result. Just different methodologies. As long as they both managed to avoid triggering the memories of what happened to them when they were wrong, then it all worked.

But it also said that he had a lot more stuff going on in his history than he was willing to look at. Could she help him? Should she help him? Would he let her help him?

And how did that do anything for her? She was greedy. She wanted the progress for herself. Not necessarily for him unless she also progressed. She didn’t want to slow anyone down, but neither did she want to be left behind. Her eagerness for this course had been all-encompassing and now here she was feeling flat and let down.

Once again it was like she’d asked for too much, hoped for too much, and reality, the bitch, had already let her down. Then again, what did she expect? There weren’t any miracles in her life, remember? Miracles were only for people who deserved them.

Sean had found his miracle. Her brother Sean found Robin. Not that he’d say they were a hit right off. He’d seen how damaged Robin had been at the time and had moved forward
with
her.

Now it was Paris’s turn, and she wanted a similar result. If not a partner, at least major growth. Could Jenna pull off magic a third time?

Dispirited, she looked around at the seminar room turned classroom and realized she didn’t want to be here. She’d come with such high expectations, foolish ones, and foolish of her, but she’d been so wanting to be here and now that there was no sign of stardust in the air, she wanted to go home. Another one of her patterns. If she didn’t like something, didn’t look like it was going to lead her in the right direction, then she wanted to quit.

Why waste her time? She didn’t have the laid back personality of her brother. She was driven to succeed. Driven to go after what she wanted in life. Whatever that was. Right now it was healing.

Was she just being impatient? After all, the workshop had just started, but it didn’t feel like impatience. It felt like she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere, but she didn’t know where.

Why wasn’t it coming together for her?

*

Paris was wired.
Not the way he was wired internally, but wired as in needy and determined to get those needs filled. Because of that, sitting slumped with her eyes closed, he figured she was getting depressed.

Interesting mix again. The lack of direction in the report bugged her. He could understand that. No one wanted to waste time, but he doubted they were as anal about it as she appeared to be. Still, she was right. They didn’t have time to redo the report if they were off on the wrong tangent.

How to make this work. He stared down at the notes he’d been so happy with earlier that now looked like shit. He hated that. “Okay, let’s ask Jenna for more help.”

Her gaze widened and she spun around to stare at him. “Really? Okay, let’s catch her as she comes in.”

“Uh…” But she was gone.

Holy crap. Not wanting to be excluded from anything, he forced himself up, smiled apologetically at the others, and walked over to where Paris waited. “This is hardly the time,” he muttered.

“There is no time. The seminar is already in progress. We’ve been here one night already. We need to get on the ball.”

The eagerness in her voice surprised him. Driven was one thing, but this was a workshop. Sit back and relax, do a few assignments and carry on.

Not for her. And if he was going to get in her way, she’d run him over. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

She frowned at him. “You just don’t get it, do you? We’re all here for a reason. Each of us. Unlike you.”

“Hey,” he protested, “I’m here for a reason.”

“Not one that is about healing or moving forward in your life.” She snorted. “You’re trying to climb the academic ladder rather than work on your life. That would be too hard. Much easier to hold your report up as an excuse instead of admitting that you have as much to work on as the rest of us.”

Just then, she caught sight of Jenna and ran toward her, leaving Weaver in shock staring behind her. “How did she know that,” he muttered to the empty hallway.

Only it wasn’t empty. One of the women working at the hotel smiled at him as she walked past, her arms full of paper. “One of the things we’ve always seen here on Jenna’s workshops,” she said, “is transformation. People come here from one mindset and go home with another.”

As her heels clicked down the sparkling hallway, he stared after her, his thoughts full of his earlier contemplations on the report. Transformation again.

The more he thought about it, he realized it didn’t fit Paris. Because she wasn’t waiting for transformation to happen, she was going to
make
it happen, and that didn’t work in his mind. Transformation to him was something that happened inside. When you weren’t looking. As if it were something that went on at very deep levels of consciousness and then when you turned around one day, you were at a completely different state of awareness.