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

by Dale Mayer

  “Partly why Jenna didn’t give them to us.” He shrugged. “She also knows I’m in grad school, and we often have to come up with a thesis statement and write a report about it.”

  Paris sat in quiet contemplation for a moment. “And what are you envisioning with this report then?” And how the hell was it going to help her? She dropped her gaze to the table, her finger aimlessly tracing the diagonal pattern in the tabletop.

  “If you tell me why you’re so stuck on the one side of justice or how it has helped or hindered your transformation, then I’ll tell you mine. Our journey from here could be the report.”

  Paris sat back against the vinyl bench seat and stared. “And what if that journey is beyond us to make?”

  “The journey is the issue, not the end result. As long as we make the attempt, then that is the report.”

  Holding back a sneer, she replied, “You don’t seem to feel you have any traveling to do on that pathway.”

  He studied her, a surprised look in his gaze. “What makes you say that?”

  “Your complete detachment at the concept. It doesn’t make you afraid or worried in any way at the thought of doing something like this.”

  Instead of answering, he shifted his cutlery around in front of him.

  And she watched, understanding she’d hit a nerve. “We all have something to learn,” she said gently. “Even when we don’t think we do.”

  Lifting his head, his eyes shone. “I’m not saying I don’t have anything to learn. I’m just not sure I have anything to learn in this area…”

  “Ah. Interesting.”

  The waitress arrived, cutting off further speech. Paris watched as he attacked his plate of food with more enthusiasm than necessary. It said much about his state of mind. She smiled and lifted a fry. “See, you do have much to learn in this area.”

  He froze, his burger mid air, his gaze dark, defensive. “What I might have to learn doesn’t mean I’m ready or able or indeed willing to do so here.”

  “Ditto.”

  There was a moment of silence as he chewed and swallowed his food. “So tell me what you think about Justice. And then tell me what you’d like your stance to be.”

  How about the fact that she hated the topic? That she hated the concept of there being two sides to the issue. Since when was anything so clear-cut, so black and white. Figures that Jenna would pick up on it. Anything that made Paris feel so strongly was something to explore when it came to therapy. She stared out the window, wondering what to answer.

  “I am not sure I have a stance on it, actually. I think the circumstances often determine my view.”

  “Explain.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not pro-abortion, but if the mother was raped, I could easily understand her not wanting the child.”

  “Except it’s not the child’s fault, and it has the right to life.”

  “Exactly what I mean.” Now they were getting somewhere. “There are a lot of debates and understanding required for either side. Gray areas.”

  He frowned and continued to eat. “Or do you have a specific stance, but on a specific issue.”

  Stopping suddenly, she could feel the flags of heat burn through her cheeks. “Maybe. And maybe not,” she snapped. “What about you? What are you so decided on that Jenna thinks you need to learn something different?”

  He laughed. “Jenna doesn’t know anything about me.” Then he shut up.

  “Did you attend her lectures? Her evening classes?” At his nod, she asked, “Have a special meeting with her about this seminar?”

  He nodded again.

  A smile spread across her face and she sat back. “Then regardless of what you think she might or might not know about you, I can tell you she understands more than you think.”

  Did he see that? She looked for a glimmer of understanding, but when there was only a hooded glance her way, she wasn’t sure she’d gotten through to him. And that damn tiny knowing smile that played at the corner of his lips. What was with that?

  “You think I’m wrong, don’t you?”

  “Not at all.” He shook his head. “But my situation is different from yours, so my discussion with Jenna would have been slightly different than yours would have been.”

  Paris held back her smile. She understood. He thought he was different. Thought he didn’t have the same problems the other participants had. Well, she didn’t have that problem, but her brother sure had. At least until he’d been through one of these seminars.

  Weaver, she suspected, would be the same.

  “What are you doing at the university?”

  He dropped his gaze to the table then hesitated, as if undecided as to what to say. Fair enough, she thought as she absentmindedly took another fry and bit off half of it.

  “I’m completing my masters in psychology.”

  Oh shit. That couldn’t be good. Then he really did it.

  “Jenna was one of my Profs last year,” he said calmly. “I’m going to write a report on her workshop. She says if it’s any good, she’ll help me get it published.”

  Paris dropped the rest of her french fry on her plate. Shocked, she said, “You mean this workshop is a school assignment? I’m supposed to be part of some damn study so you can get a professional checkmark?” Now that was too much. Blinking back the sudden moisture in the corner of her eyes, she got up from her chair and walked unsteadily out of the restaurant. Out of the hotel. Too bad she couldn’t walk out of the damn workshop.

  *

  He shouldn’t have told her. He’d made a monumental mistake. Why? He knew better. But she’d gotten too close. He’d gotten defensive. Not wanting to believe her. He gazed out the window, deep in thought. The one time he needed to keep his big mouth shut. He cursed under his breath. Of course he knew better. This was a report. A study. One never told the subjects when they were involved, if they needed to give natural responses. Once they had the information of belonging to a study group, they acted differently from a different set of parameters.

  Still, she might not be in his report. He hadn’t figured out how to target the report yet. And he’d never use names.

  Given the little bit he’d seen of Paris, he didn’t think she knew what a parameter was. She appeared to be a ball of insecurity masquerading as something with poise and confidence and failing entirely. Like a five-year-old girl using mommy’s makeup and parading through the house trying to look grown up. Instead, she looked exactly like a little girl who was trying too hard.

  Paris was definitely trying too hard.

  Still, he’d done something horribly wrong. As he stared out the window, oblivious to the scene on the outside of the glass, he realized there was no help for it. The next step was to go to Jenna and confess.

  Crap.

  He hated being in the wrong. Hated apologizing. It always made him feel lousy. Something he never quite got over.

  He learned from a young age that being wrong meant a good beating. Even now, he had to talk to the adult side of his nature and explain that getting your ass kicked for being wrong was a long time ago. This is what life is all about now. Deal with it.

  Chapter 5

  “I want a new partner,” Paris said baldly from the open doorway. If she hadn’t been staring at Jenna so closely, she might have missed seeing the slight headshake before it firmed up.

  Jenna lifted her head and gave Paris the sweetest smile.

  “No.” Paris entered the room and plunked down on a chair beside her. “No excuses or platitudes about why this pairing is a good idea or anything else. I am no one’s assignment,” she cried out, her voice rising. Then anger bloomed. “And no way am I going into a damn report about my experiences this week.”

  A cloud briefly dimmed the joy in Jenna’s face. “I’m not surprised you feel that way,” she said gently. “I would too.”

  That made Paris pause. “Then why me?” she asked, her hands curling into fists. “Why would you pair him up with me?”

  “Becaus
e he needs you,” Jenna said, compassion and understanding in her voice. “And you need him.”

  “No way.” Paris shook her head, her long black hair flying everywhere. “I need understanding and tolerance. Patience. Someone to show me the way. To help me take the steps I need to take.” She glared at Jenna. “I don’t need someone who considers himself my superior in all ways. Who thinks he can analyze what makes me tick. Who thinks he knows what’s best for me.”

  As Jenna opened her mouth to answer, Paris rolled right over her. “The only person who can know that, the only one who understands my life to that depth to make those types of answers, is me.”

  She stood. “I won’t have it. I won’t be in his damn report.”

  And she hurried to the door.

  “What if I told you,” Jenna called after her, “that writing that report was his lesson?”

  Paris hit the brakes at the doorway. “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone is here to learn. Everyone here has some major roadblock in their life that they need to move past. How they move past is just as important as making sure that they do get past it. Weaver needs to write this all down. He needs to put it into orderly form. It’s all about control. Detaching from his own world, that he might understand how other people are learning to help themselves.”

  “And what will that give him? Except boost his satisfaction of being better than everyone?” Paris asked in a hard voice. “It makes it very hard to like him, you know.”

  Jenna smiled a breathtaking smile, as if she’d come to some major realization.

  “Of course it does. So why do you think he does it?”

  “So no one will like him,” Paris joked. Then as Jenna nodded slowly, she walked across the floor to stand in front of her. “He doesn’t think he’s likable, right?”

  That smile rose brighter.

  “He figures no one will love him anyway, doesn’t he?” And Paris understood. “So he’s going to push them away before he gets pushed away.”

  She collapsed on her chair. “Damn.”

  *

  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.

  Chapter 6

  Tuesday

  The 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. The
y’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.