Page 7 of Attraction & Repulsion

“You didn’t answer my calls or texts last night. You didn’t call me to let me know you were home safe.” There was a small break in Raegan’s voice. “I’ve been worried sick about you. Hunter finally had to call Jax just so I wouldn’t drive to your house to make sure you didn’t die in your sleep!”

Carson let her friend scold her. She deserved it. After Jax had dropped her off at home, Carson had immediately plonked into bed without changing her clothes, or messaging Raegan that she was home, or even plugging her phone in to charge. She peeked at the battery symbol. It was dangerously low. Quickly, she jammed the charger into the port and leaned back into her pile of down pillows, wiggling until she was comfortable again. But the pain in her skull made the pillows virtually useless.

“I’m sorry. There was so much going on, I completely spaced texting you,” she tried to explain.

Raegan sighed. “I’m just happy you’re okay. How’s your head? Jax said you had to get stitches?”

“Five.”

“I can’t believe it was Jax who hit you with the door.”

“I was going to ask about him. Does he work with Hunter or something?”

“Not anymore,” Raegan explained. “They were at Station 74 for a while before Jax transferred to Station 71. I’m surprised you haven’t met him already. He and Hunter are really good friends.”

“Maybe I have and just don’t remember him,” Carson said, thinking about her brief conversation with Jax while waiting for the urgent care physician. Raegan and Hunter regularly hosted parties at their house with hordes of people. Surely Jax was amongst them. But with so many people, it was impossible to remember everyone.

“Jax is, like, the nicest person you’ll ever meet,” Raegan said.

Images of Jax cradling Carson in his arms flooded her mind—the concern on his face, the way he’d stroked her clammy fingers and held her hand to keep her from dropping over the edge of panic. “Yeah, he seems very kind.”

“Heiskind.” Then Raegan changed the subject. “Oh! Have you talked to your boss about junior partner?”

Carson sat up and pushed her covers off, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. “I did. He said he’ll talk to me sometime today.”

“Let me know what he says. I can’t think of why he wouldn’t promote you. You’re an amazing lawyer, and he has to be smart enough to see your potential.”

Pride filled Carson’s chest. She had dedicated a lot of her time to her career, but she didn’t want to be an associate attorney forever. Eventually she dreamed of opening her own firm, but she didn’t have experience running one. Becoming a junior partner would provide her opportunity to learn the ropes and, hopefully, open her own business one day.

“I’ll let you know what he says. Speaking of work, if I don’t start getting ready now, I’ll be late.”

“Okay. Bye!”

Hanging up, Carson slipped out of bed, went into the bathroom, and flicked on the light to inspect her injury in the mirror. She was met by a gruesome sight. The skin around the stitching had swelled up, and dried blood clung to her matted hair. Was this what she had looked like last night? How embarrassing. Would it leave a scar?

Just another in the collection.

Twisting the knob three-quarters of the way to the left, she started the shower so it could rise to her preferred heat level. It wasn’t as scalding hot as Luke had liked it, though. Whenever he went to bathe, she would joke, “Have fun in the inferno flames of hell.”

The pain continued to pound in her skull, so Carson rifled through her medicine cabinet, looking for the bottle of anti-inflammatories. But as she eyed the little red tablets in her palm, a memory fought to expose itself. Before the image could fully develop, she quashed it back into the recesses of her mind and dumped the entire bottle in the toilet.

As she stepped into the shower, she caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door. It was almost ritualistic of her to examine her butchered body before she showered. So many lines. But, for the first time, she took concern at her gaunt form, identifying her bones prominently sticking out, especially her rib cage and hips. Had she alwaysbeen this skinny?

Her mother had always thought she was pudgy. She would call Carson her “little chunky monkey.”

Carson continued to stare, her body reminding her of a sunken skeleton. She looked ghastly. She looked dead.

She huffed. If only that were true. With a shrug of resignation, Carson stepped into the steaming water.

As Carson waited for her office computer to wake, she flipped through the stack of papers in her wire-tray inbox. How had it grown in size over the weekend? Lips pressed into a thin line, she tossed the sheets back into the tray and diverted her attention to her monitor. The login screen had a different image every time the computer powered on. Today it displayed a disheveled tabby cat clawing at a thick rope, its back paws swinging in the air. At the bottom it read, “Hang in there!”

“Ha,” Carson scoffed.

“What’s so funny?” Garrett Hoover, the senior attorney and her boss, was standing in the doorway. A grin was already glowing on his face, his white teeth a stark difference against his deep-brown skin.

“Oh, nothing.” Carson quickly typed in her password and hit Enter.

Stepping into her office, Garrett relaxed in one of the cushioned seats in front of her desk. His tall, lean frame made it look like a children’s chair.

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