Chapter 8
Harry
Idon’t know how people handled those kinds of emotions without crying.
I could do boardroom meetings and family drama. I could handle arguments with Molly and high energy emergencies, but I couldn’t deal with Dom.
Sitting at my desk, I stared at my laptop screen, hoping that the empty document would somehow give me the answer. To what, I didn’t know. I just wanted an easy way out that meant I didn’t have to fight anymore.
I was only thirty-one, but I felt like I had spent my life battling, both inside and outside myself. As soon as I was born, the fight began, and I was still failing to win a fight I hadn’t even started myself.
There was a box of pastries in my bottom drawer again.
Usually I settled for four, and snacked during the day, but when I walked through the door this morning, the patisserie saw my face and told me to wait.
Five minutes later, she returned with a full box and told me I could pay her back by hiring her for our next conference.
She definitely understood.
Two slices of lemon cheesecake, one almond croissant and three profiteroles later, I felt sick. But the physical sensation was a relief, and let me focus on something other than the cloying guilt, disgust, and deep sadness that had been eating away at me since I left Dom five days ago.
I was stuck in a cycle of comparing what Molly said to me before she left, and how urgently Dom was trying to contact me.
I had at least fifty unread texts and seven voicemails, but I didn’t have the strength to look. I had meetings lined up for the entire week, Mum persistently circling me, the weight of Molly returning even though she hadn’t contacted me despite begging her to call.
It felt like it was so easy for her to dismiss me, ignore me, and reject the relationship we had built over three years in a few simple sentences before she ran out the door. I never thought I'd say someone only wanted me for my body, but it felt like I was just a tool for her to get off on.
I didn’t know what I was going to say to her when she came back. I couldn’t tell her what had happened with Dom, but my need to end things was pressing down on me, and I couldn’t do it over the phone. I wanted to sit down and really talk to her and give her the chance she never gave me.
But it was more weight to add to my already heavy load.
I wanted to shut it all down. Just close it like a book and leave the story there. End it on a cliffhanger and pretend it was done instead of having to face everything coming my way. I could only keep telling myself I was strong for so long before everything broke beneath me.
I could feel I was close to crashing again.
Every time it happened, I was stuck for days, drifting in and out of consciousness as my body caught up on all the sleep I’d denied it.
Maybe I just needed Molly to come home and we could end things, and it would get better.
Or I needed to get on top of my work. Or I needed to see Dom and drag him to me again, to taste him and stroke him, and really feel how much he wanted me.
I was bent over, reaching for another pastry when there was a knock on the door. No one but Anita or Cat ever knocked, so it was safe to leave the strawberry cream eclair out on my desk.
I said safe, but it didn’t stop Anita from glaring at it as she walked in, her nostrils flaring. She didn’t need to say anything, I knew what she was thinking.
“Mrs Fischer is here. I told her you were busy,” she said as I took my first mouthful.
“It’s fine, send her in. I’m in the mood to be tortured.”
Anita pursed her thin lips as I hid the eclair back in my desk, tugging a tissue from the box on the left and wiping my hands. Listening to Mum for half an hour would distract me at least.
Until then, my sixth pastry would have to wait.
***
The car dropped me off at home just as my phone rang. I slung my bag over my shoulder as I exited. I couldn't even say I was tired any more. There was nothing there inside me. My only focus was to hold myself up.
Just ten days. That's what I kept telling myself, and it still applied. I just had to keep going until Molly came home, and I could resolve everything with both of them.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket as I walked to the front door of our house. The sun was already setting, though the air was still warm.
Molly’s dad’s number flashed up on the screen and I paused, my eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
I really wasn’t expecting it. I had been asking her to contact me for two weeks and she hadn't sent me a single reply. But maybe something had happened to her. An accident or a change of plans, or anything that meant I could finally find out what was happening in their tiny corner of the world.
I swiped right just as I unlocked the door, dumping my bag and making a beeline for Mr Snuggles, who was voicing his complaint about being abandoned from the kitchen counter.
“Hello?”
“Harry! Hi!” Molly’s voice filled my ear, and I shuddered to a stop, my breath catching in the back of my throat. Tension rose in me, all my muscles tightening as my stomach dropped.
It had only been a month, but so much had changed between us that it could have been a year. “How are you?” I smiled as I reached for Mr Snuggles, who purred the instant my hand ran across his back.
Even if the conversations to come would be difficult, it was still good to hear from her.
Out of all the ways she could have contacted me, it felt like one of the most bizarre. But considering she hadn't texted me since I’d called my best friend’s name out on the phone to her, it was a relief.
“Oh, yeah, I’m amazing. The wedding was so fantastic, really beautiful. It’s so wonderful to be with my family again, and just to be out here in the fresh air.”
“Oh, that’s good. That’s great.” I thought the weight that had been dragging me down would lift when I finally spoke to her again.
Instead, it sank deeper into my stomach, disappointment flooding through me at her for not contacting me like earlier.
And at myself, for letting myself spiral so deeply into my imagination.
The silence stretched on, my chest growing tight.
It had been too long since our last conversation, and I didn't know what to say anymore.
The memory of her slamming the door on me still burned, and I couldn't launch into how much it hurt, especially considering everything that had come afterwards.
My excitement over our desire for connection was gone now that she had ghosted me.
“Look, I’ve had a lot of time to think…” She softened, losing the fake peppy edge that she used at work, or when she was covering something up.
“Me too. I don’t think I’ve done anything else but think,” I replied, biting my lip. I was sure I could hide what I was really feeling over the phone, at least.
“Well, I just… I really missed you, Harry, but I just needed some space. And I’d really like to try this.
I want to go for it, to get married.” She shuffled at the other end of the line.
“When I saw how happy my sister was, how good she and her husband are together, I thought, ‘we can do that’, you know? We can be happy like they are.” She drew a nervous breath. “So, what do you think?”
I wasn’t sure why she was nervous. Apart from my slip on the phone, I hadn’t given her any reason to doubt that I wanted to be with her.
“I…” I cleared my throat. “I think we need to talk.”
“So, you feel the same?”
I paused my hand on Mr Snuggles’ neck, trying to work out how she reached that conclusion.
I wanted safety and comfort. I said that to Dom when I first told him about the engagement, but it had stopped being true weeks ago because Molly and I had entered new territory. I hadn’t been able to separate myself from Dom, no matter how much I tried.
“I just think we need to talk.” I could say no to absolutely anyone, but it was too hard to do with her. Not after everything that we’d been through together since she left.
“Oh.” She let out a heavy breath. “That’s so great.
I thought you’d still be angry with me. I’m sorry for the radio silence since we argued.
Like I said in my email, I just wanted some space.
And your reply made it sound like you did too.
” There was a light pause between us as she laughed.
“And my sister went totally bridezilla. She didn’t want any pictures shared of the wedding, or socials, or whatever.
It was a bit crazy, to be honest. She demanded we turn off the internet.
” She snorted before sighing happily. “But no, seriously, having all that room to think has made me see how I wasn’t understanding you. ”
Her voice drifted away. I attempted to listen, but a dull white noise became louder in my ears as she went on.
“I just wasn’t considering how much work you really have to do.
I felt like an idiot. I was just thinking about myself and I feel so guilty that I kept adding to your stress.
I mean, we both worked so hard at the hospital, but I just didn't get it. I was being unreasonable about it all, like with your parties and your family and everything like that. It makes me want to try more, you know?”
“Yeah, that’s good,” I said, numbness seeping across my body, swamping my chest, oozing down my arms, until tingles bit into the hand clutching my phone.
“Molly…” I barely got the words out. “What do you mean you haven’t been in contact?” My heart pounded in my ears. I released Mr Snuggles, pushing my free hand against the countertop to keep myself up.
“Well, I lost my phone, didn’t I?” she replied cheerily.
I sucked in a harsh breath, staring into nothingness in front of me.
The white noise exploded. Suddenly, everything around me disappeared, and I was left with nothing. Bile rose in my throat, words and images of everything that had happened in the past month flitted through my mind. A shuddering breath took away any words I could have said.