58. Harper
FIFTY-EIGHT
HARPER
Seven years ago, I stood right here and watched my life flash before my eyes.
Seven years ago, everything changed for me.
Seven long fucking years ago, the life I knew was forcibly exchanged for a life I didn’t.
Filled with uncertainties, rife with hurdles I’d never had to face before, and roadblocks I’d never imagined suffering through. Stifling, challenging, and disappointing. Sometimes heartbreaking.
I wouldn’t change that life for the world. The experiences and lessons I learned along the way were invaluable.
But somewhere along the way, I realized it wasn’t me. That life wasn’t mine. It was a loaner, a mask I wore, a costume to keep myself hidden from the world. If I’d opened up, if I’d been myself, someone might’ve found me, and I could have died.
That was no way to live.
I changed everything about myself to survive, but was I living, or was I just going through the motions?
Question upon question I asked myself as my feet dangled over the edge of the old bridge, tiny flecks of old paint and concrete chipping off as I watched in awe plummeting to their drowning death in the cold waters below.
I remembered those waters well.
Even the time I’d spent as someone else couldn’t erase the feel of the frigid depths trying to swallow me whole. The weight of my heavy clothes dragging me down, threatening to drown me before I could break the surface and scream for help.
The sluggishness of my mind as I fought back against the drugs flowing through my veins.
The emotions that refused to be silent, switching in my mind like a roulette wheel. Anger, pain, sadness, betrayal, jealousy, regret, love, defeat. Over, and over, and over, and over, until I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t latch onto one long enough to feel it.
But I could feel it now.
Every inch of me could feel it now. The tip of the blade Nash had held onto for all those years, etched with the name of the woman he’d betrayed, in her own handwriting, as a permanent reminder of the bad he’d done. Where was my own reminder? How could I possibly pay homage to the years of my life I’d wasted, all because I was a target of a jealous, selfish man’s aims?
Was I even really Harper Daniels anymore?
Or was she just a ghost of the past, a memory I clung stubbornly to in order to keep from processing her death in the waters below?
If I cut myself open, would I bleed Harper Daniels out, or was she already gone? Had she been gone for a long time? Or was her death a recent one, gone with my innocence and lost to the dregs of time?
I didn’t register the headlights that barely skimmed my body as they passed the entrance of the bridge. Didn’t give them a second thought as they cut off and I was once again bathed in darkness.
My sole focus was on the tip of the dark blade, still caked with the blood of a man I loved.
And my own.
So much blood. Now on my hands. I could never wash that away.
I didn’t even know if he’d recovered enough to wake up yet.
What if they never woke up? What if they died from their wounds?
Would I even deserve to know?
Would I have to seek death on my own, or would Rowan come to finish the job for me as retribution?
The blade spun on the tip of my finger, cutting the skin just enough that a small drop of blood welled up beneath the point. I watched myself bleed with a sick sort of fascination, wishing I could bleed out all the emotions and feelings I didn’t want to live with right now.
I just didn’t want to feel for a moment in time. Just one.
And then life stuck a stick in the spokes of my bike wheel when a lone figure stepped into the shadows next to me and took a seat just inches away, our shoulders brushing as he got comfortable.
Rowan didn’t speak for a long time; he just looked out over the water with me in silence, possibly contemplating his own life.
When he finally moved, it was to look at my hand, where I still spun the blade in the tiny pool of blood forming in my palm. Back, forth, back, forth.
His eyes stayed glued to that knife as he spoke.
"When I was little, before you came into our lives, Father used to beat us."
I held my breath, waiting for him to go on. He’d told this story to me before, but perhaps there was a road he hadn’t traveled that needed to be explored this time.
Maybe it would end differently this time.
"My mother, she tried to stick up for all of us boys, but it only got her the same treatment." His eyes lifted to the horizon, where the first glimmer of the rising moon reflected off the surface of the water. "No matter how badly she was beaten, she’d still come to our defense. I always thought she was stupid for that, you know. I hated that she’d let him hurt her like that. I thought she was weak for it."
His locs fell around his face, falling apart and in dire need of attention from the sleepless nights in hospital chairs, the millions of times he must have run his hands over them, through them, sick with worry for his family.
His words switched to a whisper. "I never realized how strong she really was. How much courage it took her to put herself in harm’s way to save us even a fraction of the pain. "
I stopped twirling the blade momentarily, waiting for him to go on. Waiting for him to make some grand gesture and stupid apology, just like they did in the movies. I’d turn it down, and that would be that. They could go back to their lives, and I could . . . go back to mine?
My real one, or the lie I’d been living all this time?
"I was angry at her when she let him take her life to save ours. I hated that she’d leave us, leave me, with that man, just like that." His hands twisted in his lap, and I had to resist the urge to reach out and cover them with my own. "It took me until today to realize that when you love someone, truly love someone, more than you love yourself, you do things that don’t make sense to others. You take bullets for them. You take blades in the chest and refuse to blame them. You protect them from themselves for as long as you can."
He looked sideways at me, and I wanted so badly to look into his eyes, but something stopped me.
If I looked into those sad, beautiful eyes, I’d cave. And I didn’t want to cave. I wanted to stop hurting.
I wanted to disappear.
I didn’t want to be seen.
"All this time, I hid the truth from myself, and so did the others. My brothers let me think they needed me because I needed them to need me. I needed to feel useful, in the only way I knew how. By sacrificing myself and my own happiness for theirs." A heavy sigh snuck from his chest, and I felt a single tear gather at the edge of my lashes. "But what I really did was hurt myself. What I did, I thought I was doing because it was what I needed to do. To honor my mother’s sacrifice, I wanted to make the same sacrifice she made for me, for them. But all I did was cage them in. And in the process, I clipped my own wings, too."
He didn’t say anything more for a long time, choosing instead to stare at the sky in the distance as star after star appeared in the blackness. We watched them together, silent and pensive, needing no words to feel the things he’d come there to make known.
"You know, I think somewhere along the way, I stopped living for myself. I forgot who I was. I was an empty shell, going through the motions for no other reason than the idea that my brothers would be lost without me. But they aren’t." His gaze lowered again, this time to my blade once more, and he sighed.
He’d been doing a lot of that lately.
"I lost control when you came back into our lives. I didn’t know up from down, because for once in my life, I was given something I wanted for myself. You saw me for me, and it reminded me that I was still me to someone. That I was more than just a shield. But I got scared when things spiraled out of control, and when the chips were down, I refused to let anyone help. I made you think that you had to take matters into your own hands to save us. I forced you to live in my little bubble for a moment. And that wasn’t fair.
"I wouldn’t wish my existence on anyone."
The blade stilled in my grip, hands shaking though they didn’t move. My whole body was screaming for me to comfort him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t be there for him when he refused to be there for me.
I couldn’t be that weak. I couldn’t give in.
I deserved someone who would see me as equal, who could open up to me and let me in when things got hard.
I needed more. Everything I’d promised myself—not to fall in love, not to trust someone, not to get comfortable—I’d done it all with them, against my better judgment. And I knew in the end I’d get hurt. But I did it anyway. I let it happen, because I’d lived so long without love, it was revitalizing to bask in the glow of it once more.
For a small moment in time, I felt seen again. I felt like a fraction of my old self. And I was too greedy to realize that good things never lasted forever .
"You blamed me," I whispered against my will, the words falling from my lips of their own accord. "And in turn, I blamed myself."
"You didn’t deserve that," he admitted, swiping at his hair again. "I was afraid to let someone else carry the burden because I’ve lived with it for so long, I’m not sure what living without it would be like. And not being able to blame someone else made me realize if I’d trusted the other two long ago, we might not have missed out on seven years of us."
I might not have had to spend seven years in hiding. They wouldn’t have had to spend seven years as killers.
The world was fucked up like that, though. And there was no going back.
"You can’t turn back the hands of time, Rowan."
"I know that." He looked sideways at me, and this time, it was impossible to resist the pull.
I met his gaze with my own watery one, hating my weakness, hating more the emotions that forced their way to the top. "Do you, though?"
Confusion clouded his features. "I can’t undo what I’ve done to you, Harper. I can’t give you back your life." He laid his hand atop mine in my palm, flattening the blade so I couldn’t hurt myself with it anymore. "But I can give you a home. A future. I can give you protection. And I can give you the chance to love my brothers like they love you."
They did love me. I could see it. I’d been avoiding admitting it to myself because that would mean I’d have to admit that I’d fallen for them. That I always loved them. Even the seven long years I’d been alone, scared, in hiding, and sad, I loved them still.
I would always love the Blackwood boys. The whole world couldn’t change that. Death couldn’t take that away from us.
And neither could a man whose only joy in life was ruining it for others.
I wouldn’t let him .
I’d rather die than stop loving them.
"I can give you my life, in exchange for the one I stole from you."
His words echoed around us as I let them sink in. Could I go back with him like nothing had happened? Could I take his peace offering and love his brothers, but not love him? Could I go through life hating him for what he’d put me through, loving him in secret, as he self-flagellated to atone for his sins?
"I don’t want your life, Rowan Blackwood. I want my own."
"I don’t understand."
"A life full of love from Angel and Nash sounds amazing. But I fell in love with all three of you a long time ago. When I was still me. And taking two-thirds of the whole would be like cutting off one of my legs to survive. I’d go through life wishing I had it back."
There it was. I’d admitted it. Rowan was a part of me, as much as I didn’t want him to be. They all were. And there was nothing I could do to change that.
The heart wants what it wants.
And my heart wanted the Blackwood boys—all of them.
Even this stubborn, arrogant, prideful, and martyring one beside me.
"A life without you in it isn’t much of a life, Ro. After all, you’re the one who loved me first."
I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know how to quantify it, explain it, or make it make sense. I just knew that my heart told me he would understand.
And apparently, he did.
"You know Nash wants that knife back, right?"
I giggled at the idea of Nash throwing a hissy fit because I’d stolen his knife. "Too bad he’s in no condition to fight me for it."
He shifted his weight to give me room to get up, and as my hand flattened on the rough, crumbling concrete, my life flashed in front of my eyes .
Chunks of the bridge came loose, rapidly loosening the structural integrity of the ground beneath us. It was like life was getting the last laugh, bringing us back together only to yeet us into the grim dark depths that waited patiently below. I closed my eyes and bit back a scream, thanking my lucky stars that I got this last moment with him before i had to give it all up.
And then a strong arm circled my waist and we rolled together, one over the other, until we were in the center of the bridge, far from the crumbling edge that nearly claimed our lives a second ago.
I stared up into his eyes, forgetting how to breathe as he panted above me. Adrenaline raced through our veins, pupils dilated, fear slowly ebbing to make way for?—
—laughter.
"Ha. Haha. Hahahahaha . . . "
We devolved into a fit of unhinged chuckles and gasps, his weight atop me grounding me in the moment, crushing the wind out of me, but I didn’t care. I covered my face with my hands and groaned into them, smiling despite myself.
"We’re gonna have to stop meeting like this," he teased, flashing his bright smile at me.
"Yeah," I agreed, smiling right back. "Nash will get jealous if you keep trying to kill me every time we’re together."
"Not every time," he muttered, lowering his lips to mine. "Just once every seven years."