Page 111 of Guitars and Cages

“Yes, sir,” I said, a bit afraid of what he’d do if I did cut. The image of a padded room scared me; I didn’t wanna get locked away. If I cut, I’d have to cut deep, to make sure they wouldn’t be able to save me and lock me away.

“The third rule is that you speak to people when you are upset. This means speaking to your brothers, or Morgan, or Conner, or your boss, or whoever it is in your life that you are having an issue with at the time. It isn’t healthy to continue to bottle things up and try to hide them. If, for some reason, the person you are trying to speak to either refuses to listen, or you find it too difficult to talk, then again, I want you to contact me, all right?”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“I can’t make them listen to you, Asher, butIcan listen to you and be your sounding board if needed.”

“Oh...okay.”

“Rule number four is very important. They are all important, but this one particularly so. If you are in the mindset or mood where you are feeling like you were when you made that cut down your arm and considering killing yourself, I want you to go to Cole or Morgan or Conner or Alexia and tell them that you need help and what you are thinking about doing, and then stay with them until we can help you get past feeling that way. Do you think you can do that?”

“It’s not like I have much of a choice.”

“There are always choices, Asher, and with choices come consequences. You can choose to sign this and walk out of my office and follow the terms of the contract, or you can refuse to sign it and I can contact the necessary authorities and have you picked up for treatment. You can sign the contract and miss a call or break one of the rules, in which case, again, I will contact the authorities. I hope, however, that you will choose to sign it, and make your call in to me each day. In addition, I’d like to start seeing you twice a week from here on out.”

I groaned, ’cause now I was gonna miss lunch twice in a week, and long days with no meals sucked. But if Morgan wanted me to be here bad enough to shell out however much it cost, I figured I could suck it up and go. “Fine.”

“I can help you, Asher, but you have to be willing to help me do that. The self-hate, the loathing in your voice when you talk about yourself—these are your biggest detriments to making peace with your past and moving on. If you truly want to change, then that is where you are going to have to start.”

“I know I can’t fix the things I did, and I know that Gage forgave me for them, but I can’t forgive myself.”

“Then we’ll work on teaching you how.”

There was no way for me to respond to that, so I hid behind the curtain of my hair until he’d finished writing up the contract, and then I signed it and sat while he made copies. He put one in the file cabinet, and handed me two.

“I can’t make you give one of those to someone you trust, but I’m hoping you will, so they’ll know what’s happening with you and help you if you go to them.”

I stared at the contract in my hand, unsure of what I was gonna do. Once it would have been easy; I’d have given it to Morgan. I thought about giving it to Alexia, but to do that I’d have to go to the bar where I wasn’t wanted, which meant she was out, too. Cole’s answer to everything on that list would be to kick my ass, either for cutting or for thinking about killing myself. He didn’t do talk well. Conner and I barely had a friendship; it seemed like every step forward was followed by two steps back. I tucked the copies in my pocket and took back the journal before heading for the door.

“I’ll expect your first call tomorrow, Asher. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

I left his office and took the stairs down to the lobby, eager to get away from the questions and the corner I’d gotten backed into. I tucked the journal back in the saddlebags of my bike, and the contracts, too. I didn’t want to risk them falling out at work and people finding out about me. As I drove back to work I thought about what he’d said. Sometimes I did want to change, want to be different, wished that I could be better than who I was, but I didn’t know how. As I wound my way out of the city, I asked myself if it would really be so bad to let him help me, to find out if maybe I was capable of something more. By the time I got back to work I’d decided to let him. Like this job, it might well be the very last chance I would get.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Those next few days I was glad for the long hours of the new job. I rode to work before the sun came up, the cold morning air better than coffee for waking up the senses. Between feeding, grooming, exercising, giving riding lessons, and spending every free moment observing the training methods, I had a full day. On top of it all, I’d discovered that I wasn’t so bad at working with the kids who came in to learn to ride. It seemed like the time spent with Rory had taught me a thing or two about patience and dealing with little kids’ fears.

Now if only I could manage to deal with the parents without wanting to go crawl in a stall and hide, it’d be all good. Talking to them sort of made me feel like being sent to the principal’s office, but since it was part of the job, there was no way to avoid it. I made sure to call Dr. Hozman every day during my break, finding a secluded tree to sit under while I had my fruit, sandwich, and coke, answering his questions and assuring him that I hadn’t done a thing to harm myself nor had I been considering it. That was the truth; I hadn’t been, I’d been too tired to do anything but sleep by the time I made it home each day.

All that work left me little time to think about the ruin that was my life. I hadn’t spoken to Morgan since the night I’d found Rory, and I hadn’t spoken to Conner since I’d dropped him off at his apartment after the night we’d hung out. I rarely talked to Cole, who was busy working on plans and preparations for his gym, and whenever I talked to Alexia, she seemed quieter than normal and not very enthused about much of anything. That concerned me, so I decided to risk Morgan’s wrath by going by the bar to see how she was. I went in through the kitchen entrance at the side, figuring she’d be there, given that it was almost seven.

The first thing I noticed was that she’d lost weight. Her skinny jeans were loose, and the tank top that had been form-fitting when she arrived now bunched in places. I hugged her and she held on to me longer than normal, and I let her, even though it made me uncomfortable for anyone to hold me that long.

“Are you all right?” I asked her when she’d finally let me go.

“Would you care if I said no?” she asked.

I scowled and caught her hand. “Of course I’d care. I asked, didn’t I?”

“I never know with you anymore, Asher. You say one thing and you do another. You tell me you don’t have a problem with my operation, but then you take off with Cole and never come around.”

I groaned, while a tiny voice whispered that this was exactly what Conner had been trying to warn me about. “That has nothing to do with you. I haven’t come around because Morgan hates me and doesn’t want me here.”

“He doesn’t hate you, Asher.”

“Bullshit. He told me not to come back. I’m hoping he doesn’t catch me here, but I wanted to come see you, even if he does yell at me.”

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