Page 56 of Guitars and Cages

I ran my good hand through my hair and glanced back out the window. Even to my own ears I sounded like a bastard; I could only imagine what he had to be thinking of me by this point.

“She was this quiet chick, lived out on a farm not far from the ranch. I remember that she’d never really fit in too much at school, like me. She was an only child, didn’t have no one but her old man, so I figured, what the hell, show her some interest and she’d be all over me and I could take her around town and let everyone see her with me, and people would stop paying attention to how much time Gage and me spent together. He was pissed when he found out about Eve, but I told him the truth about her and why I was doing it, and he let it go. Didn’t mean things always went smooth, and we’d have fights over time and changed plans and things like that, but it was working.”

I chuckled, a harsh, bitter sound.

“Until my old man caught me with Gage in the hayloft. My old man, he hadn’t even been home a week from coming off the road with the rodeo, and I guess I’d gotten so used to never having to worry about hearing his truck that I didn’t notice when he pulled in. I lied to him that day, about me and Gage, said Gage had taken me by surprise and kissed me and that I’d had nothing to do with it. Well, my old man flew off the handle and beat the hell out of Gage and even had me help him, and then he drove Gage home and told his old man about what he’d seen. I still got my ass kicked by him later when we got home, but not near as bad as if he’d known the truth. If that wasn’t bad enough, less than a week later Eve comes to me and says she’s pregnant. Man, I got the hell outta Nebraska, and I ain’t been back.”

I shrugged and glanced at him. He was still patiently watching and listening.

“I lied to Eve all those times I told her I loved her. I used her, and now she’s raising a kid I’ve never seen. I didn’t lie to Gage when I told him I loved him, but I was too much of a coward to admit to it when it counted, and after what happened, he hates the hell outta me. I lie to people to keep them from getting too close, and I lie to other people because it’s easier than telling the truth. I try to lie to myself, but that usually backfires. So you wanna know why I’ve been cutting myself for the better part of the last year? It’s ’cause the lies have all gotten to be too much, and it’s getting harder and harder to tell them and to live with them.”

I shook my head, looking him in the eyes for the first time since shaking his hand.

“Once, I even thought about cutting out my tongue, so it wouldn’t be so easy to tell so many lies. But then I figured I’d just start lying on paper, so what the hell was the point?”

He looked at me thoughtfully, for so long and so hard that I almost had to look away. It took all my willpower not to. “It sounds to me like you lie as a means of controlling the world around you and the people in it.”

He let me sit there in silence, thinking about that for a bit.

“You’re carrying around a great deal of guilt over the lies you’ve told, and when I listen to you talk about them and the people you’ve hurt, I get the sense that you genuinely do feel some remorse for the things that you’ve done. By the same token, it seems as if lying has become second nature to you, which isn’t going to make it easy to stop.”

“Well, no shit!”

He smiled at that. I didn’t particularly find it amusing, but okay.

“If you’re willing to face some hard truths about the things you’ve revealed to me today, I’ll be able to help you get a handle on this cycle of lying and guilt you’ve gotten yourself locked into.”

“Oh, you ain’t heard the half of it yet.”

“I’m sure I haven’t, and the next time you come in to see me, I hope to hear a bit more. For now, though, what I want you to do is get yourself a journal, and keep track of all the lies you tell, big and small, as well as why you told them. I want you to be brutally honest in your justifications of them: why you felt they were necessary, and what you were thinking about when you decided to lie. I want you to bring the journal in when you come see me next week.”

“What if I wasn’t thinking anything, if I just said the first thing that came to mind?”

“Then write that down, too, and maybe we can figure out why it popped into your head to lie in the first place.”

“All right, I guess. I’m gonna have to find a damn good hiding place so no one finds it.”

He chuckled at that. “In time, Asher, the idea is to reveal the lies, and maybe even try to make amends for them. Of course that is all up to you; I’m here to listen and try to help you find less-destructive ways of dealing with life and the people around you.”

I bit back the sarcastic comment that immediately came to mind.Yeah, good luck with that.I bit back a “Thank you” as well, and stood and headed toward the door. He followed, pen and a small white card in his hand.

“Does the same time next week work for you?” he asked.

“Yeah. I guess,” I muttered.

He filled in the card and passed it to me and I slipped it into my pocket.

“Thanks,” I said as I left, glad to see that Mark was in the waiting room. I wasn’t ready to be alone with my thoughts.

Chapter Twenty-One

Walking back into the bar was like stumbling upon a brawl in the park. There was yelling, there was cussing, and there were things being said that were so far out of line I hoped Rory couldn’t hear them in his room upstairs. I’d known this was gonna happen, and now here they were: Cole on one side of a table, Alex on the other, and a bottle of whiskey in Cole’s left hand that looked to be about half-full from where I stood. Damn, but I hoped he hadn’t drunk all that since I was gone.

“Just tell me what you were thinking when you did it!” Cole bellowed.

I gotta give Alex credit; he stood his ground, gripping the back of the chair in front of him. His knuckles were turning white, he was holding on so tight. His face was red with anger, but in his eyes I could see a shimmer of tears and wondered how long Cole had been screaming at him.

“I was thinking that I fuckin’ wanted breasts, so I got ’em!” Alex yelled.

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