Harper #2
I scramble to unclip the bane of my existence, swatting his hand away to stand from the car.
He rolls his eyes, the expression knocking a few years off his age, before he grabs both his bag and mine and heads for the tarmac.
A few workers notice him approaching and hurry over, taking our bags from him to start reviewing flight plans and timeframes before hustling off to their next duty.
Grant walks up a metal staircase, his thickly corded thighs carrying up swiftly before ducking into the cabin of the plane.
I stand a the base of the stairs, staring after where he disappeared.
Is this fucking real? Where is security?
Customs? The TSA agent who is going to think I’m trying to smuggle something in my bra?
After a few seconds his head reappears in the open doorway.
“Harper, I will leave you here. Get on the plane. Now.” And then he’s gone again, and I’m hurrying up the rickety stairs and over the threshold, following Grant to two seats on the right side of the plane sitting across from one another, with a table between.
Two seats that are plush leather and smell like jasmine.
The captain’s voice rings out through the cockpit, letting all two of the cabins’ passengers know that we will be taking off in a few moments and refreshments will be served shortly.
Grant pulls a laptop out and starts typing away, completely disinterested in my presence. Fine, I don’t like you either.
I literally twiddle my thumbs for a few minutes, taking a can of ginger ale from the lovely, and stunning, flight attendant as they come by to offer refreshments to us. She doesn’t ask what Grant wants, just leaving a can of Coke on the side of his makeshift desk with a glass of ice and leaves.
She walks away with a little more sway in the ass than necessary, looking over her shoulder once she reaches the end of the corridor, shoulders slumping when she realizes Grant’s attention hasn’t shifted from the screen illuminating his face.
“So, you’re loaded?” I ask, getting straight to the point.
“Yes.” He doesn’t try to be bashful or humble in the statement. In fact, there is no inflection at all in his tone, like he’s agreeing to an indisputable fact.
“You don’t drink?” I look around, noting that all the drink choices on the menu left on the table are soft options, not a lick of booze to be found.
“No.” Ok, so not chatty.
“So, are you a sugar daddy or something?”
The laptop shuts. Grant removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.
I scoff, “I know why I hate you, but remind me why you hate me? You’re the one who waited until my sister was in the hospital to finally reach out for help.
To finally tell me there was a problem. To finally get me involved, when I should have been here from the beginning, not now.
Not when I’m too late,” I bite, folding my arms over my chest and shoving my back against the seat.
“I don’t know what history you are trying to rewrite, or if this is guilt talking, but I will not be the person you blame for ignoring the problem until it grew.
I only came out here because it is the one thing Sadie asked of me.
And if tears didn’t make me so fucking uncomfortable, I would have said no.
I’m going to be honest with you Harper, I don’t think you deserve to be here.
I think Sadie needs people around her who are dependable, and despite her efforts to convince me you are amazing, I haven’t seen anything to convince me you deserve that praise,” he says it in a hiss, voice getting deeper as he continues, “You made the choice to be here after the problem grew. You waited until it was so bad that she ended up in the hospital. I called. I texted. I tried to tell you how bad it was. If you want to be mad at someone, the bathroom is that way, I suggest you take a hard look in the mirror. You will get no sympathy from me.”
He starts to open the laptop again, pausing halfway, “And I’m not a sugar daddy…I’m a professor.”
“What do you mean you called and texted,” my voice comes out barely above a whisper. I feel like I’m nineteen again, getting a call to swing by the morgue to identify my Dad on the way to pick up my sister from high school.
“Your phone, that thing that looks like it came out ten years ago, I called it, left voicemails, texted every day for weeks asking for help. Even after how you responded, how little you cared, I didn’t let up. Not once,” he holds up a single finger, looking to my phone on the table.
“I don’t know what you mean, I never got a call from you or texts, nothing,” I tell him, pleading to whatever deity will listen that this is some extravagant lie.
I can feel my stomach turning over on itself, hear the voice telling me to just let it go, that Sadie was off living her life, and I needed to do the same.
Grant stares at me for a long moment before reaching over the table and picking up my unlocked phone, clicking a few buttons before his shoulders slump and his gaze drags to my face.
He pulls out his own phone, pulling up a page and handing it to me.
I scroll, and scroll, and scroll. It’s hundreds of messages, telling me something is wrong with Sadie, that she’s pulling away from study groups, that her work is suffering, that she has been skipping classes and avoiding phone calls.
All of it unanswered. I get to the top of the one-sided conversation and see one lone blue bubble, right after the very first text from Grant. Only one.
Harper: Sadie is an adult and can figure it out on her own. Don’t call me again.
“Harper,” I look up, finding earnest eyes staring into mine, realizing this is not the first time he called my name while I sifted through my tragedy in the palm of my hand. “Who knows the password to your phone, who would have access to it?”
“Only one person, other than Sadie. Why didn’t I see these…” I trail off, knowing the answer but trying to find some other excuse I can convince myself might be true.
“My number is blocked in your phone,” he says, placing my phone back in front of me, “and I don’t think you blocked it.”
I hear it now, the annoyance at my worry over Sadie not returning my calls, the groans when I say we can’t take this trip or go to that concert because I need to save the money for Sadie’s school and supplies.
The argument over moving in together and my reluctance because there was no space once Sadie came home after school while she looked for jobs.
He wasn’t even subtle. He wanted her gone, the responsibility of a little sister to disappear from our future.
He knew I would always choose my sister, so he didn’t give me the choice.
I remember the look of devastation on Grant’s face, realizing that he came swooping into my life just to deliver blow after blow of devastation. It’s the same look on Colton’s face now.
I felt battered and broken by the time we got to Cal Tech and Grant had explained everything to me.
I had to rely on someone else to tell me about my sister’s own life and what she had been going through.
It was the single worst day of my life, realizing how badly I had let her down, all because I trusted the wrong person.