“No, I’m okay. Just- Could you put that away?” He blindly pointed toward her, waving his finger toward where he thought her lap was. He focused all of his attention on watching the baby’s chest rising and falling with her peaceful breaths. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He could see Paxton’s shadow moving next to him, but he didn’t look up for another couple of long and slow breaths. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know if you have the time or the degree to talk about it,” Wright said dryly. He let Paxton take over the baby rocking and he brought his knees up to his chest once again. “I’m sorry, that was rude.” He dropped his head to the back of the metal chair. “I just- Rope is apparently a trigger for me. My therapist explained it to me, but I don’t know. It happened Monday too, when I walked into the tack room with Xander. I just froze.”
“I can see how the tack room can be overwhelming,” Paxton said. She mirrored Wright’s posture and rested the side of her face on her knees to look at him. “I’m not going to pry into your past, but if you need someone to talk to, I’m here. We all are, but I know sometimes talking to Mom or Dad can seem a bit intimidating. And I doubt you want to talk to my little brother because he’s very annoying and one time, I swear he intentionally puked in my shoes because he was jealous that I was going to a party and he couldn’t go. In. My. Shoes. Wright. Mom made him use his allowance money to buy me a new pair.”
Wright laughed and cringed at the same time. “I don’t know if that makes me feel like I was lucky or missed out on having siblings.” A small voice in the back of his brain told him that maybe if he had siblings, he wouldn’t have been abused. But then, maybe his younger siblings would have been hit too and he didn’t want to think about that hypothetical situation.
“It’s a mix,” Paxton continued. “There are times when he’s actually nice to me. There was one time in middle school when I was really sick. He was still in elementary school and he asked his teacher if the whole class could sign a get well soon card for me. I’m pretty sure his teacher thought I was dying or something, but it was sweet all the same. Mom still has it tucked away somewhere.”
Paxton continued to share stories of her and her family. He recognized a few as something Xander had already told him, but from her perspective. He laughed at the differences in the stories. Paxton tended to exaggerate, where Xander left out some of the smaller details that made the story better.
“See, Xander told me that one,” Wright said after she finished talking about a time when he caught her sneaking out. She’d been staying in the city overnight with him. “He told me that you tried to convince him that you were sleepwalking. Sleep-arguing, I think he said, because you kept responding to him, but didn’t move from the spot he caught you by the front door.”
“I wasn’t always smart,” Paxton said. Wright laughed. A genuine one. He winced when the baby shifted in the car seat, but she didn’t wake up. The sun was getting higher in the sky now and he figured they’d been sitting there talking for over an hour. His stomach rumbling reminded him he hadn’t had breakfast yet. Paxton must have heard it because she stood and stretched. “We should go raid the kitchen and see what’s available. We don’t usually make any food on cookout days. It’s a fend-for-yourself type of thing.”
“My specialty,” Wright said. He didn’t really mean anything by it, but he saw Paxton pause at the words. He turned around and looked at her apologetically. “I’m sorry. That just kind of slipped out. Xander says I have a twisted sense of humor.”
“That’s the best kind of humor, but can I say one thing while we’re still alone?” She waited until Wright nodded hesitantly. He trusted the Lawson family and after their talk, he knew that Paxton wasn’t going to be rude or mean with whatever she said. “I say this as someone that had a therapist for three years during high school. I wasn’t always the best person and going through figuring out who I was affected me a lot. I say all of that because I understand triggers and that they can come on suddenly. Itsucks feeling like you’re controlled by them. But you trust my uncle, right?”
Wright nodded, not sure where she was going with this. He was a little surprised that she’d seen a therapist for years. Her family seemed perfect. They were standing by the door, the car seat swinging gently in her hand.
“I would also talk to your therapist about it, but maybe something like exposure therapy would help you. But with someone you trust and know well. I had to face a lot of things head on to get over them. Most of mine were emotional and not a physical thing, but it might help.”
Wright thought about it. His therapist had him going from the beginning with things, working slowly through his mom leaving and when the abuse started. He’d done a bit of his own research on things to help him, exposure therapy coming up a few times, but he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else. He didn’t know if he was ready to face any of that.
“I’ll think about it,” Wright said. “I don’t know how Xander could help with that, but I know having him next to me is comforting.”
Chapter Fifteen
~ Xander ~
Can you come to the bedroom when you’re done working?
And bring a piece of rope?
A small one.
Please?
Sorry for all the texts.
Xander wasn’t sure what he was about to walk into, but the multiple texts and the apology at the end worried him. It was Friday afternoon and he knew that Wright had therapy. He was hoping to convince Wright to go out for a real date soon. Casual dinner and a movie, or something similar, but still a date. In public. With him. His friends had been hounding him to visit too. A few of them had come to visit for the July Fourth cookout, where they met Wright.
Outside of the family that showed up earlier in the day, they kept their relationship to themselves. He’d known his friends for a long time and knew they would try too hard to include Wright with jokes. Xander wasn’t sure if Wright was up for that yet. He kind of wished Wright would make some friends too. Maybe he could convince William, Clark, and Paxton to take him out for a night with people his age. As much as he wanted to keep himhome and safe, he was barely twenty and needed a chance to act like it for once. He didn’t want him to have any regrets.
“Wright?” Xander kicked off his shoes and locked the door behind him. He kept the small rope in his hand. It was a dark blue color and soft. They used it for the horses a lot of times to walk them around. It was the complete opposite of anything rough, like the one Wright had bad experiences with. He shoved it in his pocket, wanting to keep it out of sight until he knew what was going on.
“In the bedroom,” he called out. Xander opened the door to see Wright sitting cross-legged on the bed with his back to the headboard. The laptop was sitting on the bed in front of him. Xander could hear a woman’s voice talking but the smile on Wright’s face took all of his attention. He patted the bed next to him. “Do you have a minute to sit down and talk? I’m with my therapist, but she wanted to talk to both of us about something.”
“Of course,” Xander said quickly. “Can I change really quick? I don’t want to get the bed dirty.”
Wright opened his mouth, probably to say something dirty, but closed it quickly when he remembered they had an audience. “Yeah, that’s fine. We’re just getting started anyway. I’m going to put my ear buds in so just come back when you’re ready. Did you bring the thing?”
“I did,” Xander said. He grabbed a fresh shirt and pair of black sweats from the dresser and walked to the bathroom. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to shower too.”
“Sounds good,” Wright said with another smile. Xander was happy to see it. So far, in all his appointments, he’d ended them with red rimmed eyes. This seemed like a step in the right direction. “Okay, sorry. I’m back.”
