Page 40 of Attraction & Repulsion

Anger boiled inside Carson. She bit her tongue in an attempt to keep still and let him continue.

Pushing himself off the counter, Jax came to stand next to her, staring at the melamine cupboards in front of them.

“It was humiliating, living the life of the credulous husband. The divorce was awful. She fought over every little thing. I finally gave up and let her have it all. I walked away with nothing. She walked away with everything. And I didn’t handle it very well.” The tone of his voice shifted to something darker. “I drank. I dranka lot. So much that I almost lost my job. I hid itfrom my ma and brothers for as long as I could. You know, since my dad had been an alcoholic. How was I supposed to tell my ma that I was becoming an alcoholic just like him?” Jax’s breath caught on the last word. “I spent my whole life trying not to be like my father, and I ended up embodying his worst quality. I didn’t speak with my family for months, which ended up breaking my ma’s heart anyway.”

Finally, Jax looked at her. His face was desperate. Desperate for help, for relief, for his own nightmares to end. Carson knew the feeling.

“When I say I don’t think I have the strength to go through it all again,” Jax said, “what I mean is I don’t want to fall back into bad habits. It was ugly, Carson. I was ugly. I was a complete dick to everyone, and I don’t want you to ever see that part of me. If I go through with the trial and lose, I’m afraid it’ll happen again.”

Carson wondered, the night of the auction, if this was the reason Raegan had asked Jax if he was sure he wanted to go to court again.

She placed her fingers on his forearm. The muscle was tight with helplessness, and Carson felt helpless as well, not knowing what to do. If only she could protect him.

At her touch, she could feel Jax’s body soften. He pivoted until he was standing right in front of Carson, and she took him into her arms. He buried his face into her neck and his arms were tight around her chest. She didn’t mind that his embrace caused one of her fresh cuts to smart.

Only, Jax’s honesty fermented her guilt. It sliced Carson open and bled her shame all over them. Why couldn’t she be honest with him? Why couldn’t she stop her own bad habits? Why couldn’t she put her life back together just as he had and move forward?

Her contrition was more constrictive than his arms, because she was keeping secrets from him. Every day, every smile, every touch was layeredin falsehood. It was as though every second spent together was a lie.

Lies

upon

lines

upon

lies.

Carson was a liar. She was no better than Kristen.

Chapter thirteen

The next week, Carson did something she never thought she could ever do: make an appointment with a therapist.

For a place meant to help people with their mental health, the building was depressing. Square with sharp corners and stucco the color of rice paper was smeared all over the exterior. It reminded her of a box, beige and boring. A single glass door with vinyl lettering read Granite Dells Center. Carson rolled her eyes at the brown awning that hung over the door, disproportionate to the building. Whoever the plodding architect was obviously hadn’t cared or had an eye for style.

It wasn’t the stodgy architecture that stopped her from entering, though. Apprehension. That was the reason why she had been standing in the parking lot staring at the building for the past thirty minutes.

The night Jax confided in her about his toxic relationship with alcohol, Carson knew her world with Jax and her world with bleeding skin could never mesh. Before, she could cut, then live her life perfectly normal. Her self-harm had become so natural that for two years, since she had started self-harming, she had balanced the two lifestyles perfectly: odious, then composed.

Now Carson dreaded any opportunity to self-harm because she was starting to understand the consequences. The once small, gray cloud thathad hung over her, easily ignored, now thundered like the great monsoons of the western desert. Clapping bolts of lightning struck around her while torrents of falling, hurricane-like rain threatened to drown her. The almighty storm loomed above Carson, threatening to expose her hideousness to Jax. To Raegan and Hunter. To the world.

Even more exhausting was the cycle of trying to stop but miserably failing. Why couldn’t Carson just quit? What she thought was a simple demand of herself seemed to be against the laws of nature itself. Hot tears would roll down her cheeks whenever she implored herself to stop.

To. Just. Stop.

Those attempts always ended with new additions to her body.

If only Carson could slice all the way through her skin, through the muscle and bone, and cut her hands off completely, she could finally find relief.

The guilt of her self-harm continued to fester, eating away at her from the inside out. She felt as despicable on the inside as she looked on the outside. Before, it hadn’t mattered as much that she was self-destructing. Now, the thought of losing Jax because she cut herself was excruciatingly unbearable.

She had to do something.

A middle-aged woman stepped out of the office. Carson went taut for a second, thinking it was the therapist, looking for her, wondering why she was late to her appointment. The lady strolled into the parking lot and slipped into a silver Subaru. FadedSave the DellsandI love my dog!stickers sat crooked on the back bumper.

Carson stood there for another minute. Then five. Then ten. Some people went in. More people went out. The door was locked. The parking lot lamps flickered on. The sun grew tired of waiting for her and fell behindGranite Mountain.

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