Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
taylor
It was Greg’s fault, or so I decided on the Thursday evening when he’d sat down in our booth for drinks with Jason, Finn, and me. He was late, and he had an excuse for it, but I was getting ahead of myself.
For the past four days, I’d been spending nearly all my waking and sleeping hours either at Harrison’s place or daydreaming about going to Harrison’s place. Lectures were secondary, friends were wondering where I was, and even food was just an afterthought.
I was with Harrison because I wanted to be with Harrison, but also because somewhere in the back of my mind, a clock was still ticking. I still knew that we were living on borrowed time. I knew that the universe would come around and hand in the bill.
Harrison and I didn’t talk about it. For all I knew, he didn’t think about it either.
And I ran from those thoughts as fast as I could, always looking away, always distracting myself by claiming him all for myself in those moments.
Because you could lose anything at any time, right?
So why worry? Why not just enjoy it while it lasted?
Even so, I had it somewhere in my subconscious mind, all written out neatly.
It was a reminder that we had only gotten together because Harrison had wanted to make his ex-girlfriend feel something for him, and we only lasted as long as we had because I didn’t want to examine my feelings too closely.
So on Thursday evening, before Greg arrived with the news that would keep me awake the rest of the night, Jason bought us the first round.
“So?” Finn asked. “You still gay?”
“Subtle as ever,” I told Jason, who laughed and poked Finn in the ribs.
Finn shrugged. “You never know, when it’s sudden like that.”
“Don’t you, though?” I asked. “Because it feels a lot like it doesn’t matter either way.”
Finn cracked a smile, a warm and honest one, and nodded his agreement.
“Let the man be happy,” Jason said.
Happy I was. There was no doubt about that. I was so happy with how things had turned out that I missed Harrison even in these brief hours when I wasn’t near him.
He’d refused to join us on purpose tonight. “Your friendships shouldn’t change because of me,” he’d told me.
“I want them to,” I’d said.
“Is Bennet coming?” he’d asked.
I’d had to shake my head in response.
“There you go. I’ll see you tomorrow. And you’ll have fun with your friends like you used to. Isn’t that the point?”
I’d kissed him on the lips to shut up his impenetrable logic, then left him in his apartment so I’d make it to our bar on time.
My being happy wasn’t the issue. The issue was that Finn was onto something.
I didn’t know how I’d gone all my life without realizing I was a little bi.
I didn’t know how I’d been smitten by so many girls for so many years, only to truly find myself with a guy.
I didn’t know what it was that made me so comfortable around Harrison.
Because I was. When he was around, I was at ease.
I was someone else entirely, someone I’d always wanted to be, but someone I’d kept quiet and hidden out of caution.
Greg showed up after we’d already ordered our second round. He’d missed all the jokes about me never backing down from a dare, but bending down for one. He came to the table with a beer of his own, plopped into the booth, and exhaled. “You won’t believe what I just witnessed,” he said.
“Running late to see the only people who still tolerate you?” Finn supplied.
“Nah,” Greg said, waving that off as irrelevant. “I just watched the worst breakup ever. I almost got splashed with beer.” He pulled out his phone, unlocked it, tapped on his screen a few times, then set it on the table. “Check it out. Right there in the open.”
The image was grainy, and the bar was dim, but Greg was filming from the next table over, so the characters of his little farce were in clear view, even with Greg’s shaky camera work.
My blood curdled instantly when I realized who he was filming. I’d recognize those rich, curly locks anywhere. I knew them from the image pinned to the corner of Harrison’s corkboard, the image from which she watched us make out and fuck and dance in his living room.
“That’s Emma,” I whispered in horror.
“…do this to me? She’s my best friend, Michael,” Emma cried. The guy sitting across from her looked guilty as fuck, but indignant, too. He was tall, lean, and very handsome in a dreamy, innocent way. “My best friend,” she repeated.
“I’m sorry,” Michael said. “I mean it. Truly. I’m sorry. I fucked up bad, Emma. I didn’t want to. It didn’t mean anything.”
“It didn’t mean anything? You ruined everything for something that didn’t mean anything, Michael,” Emma said, furious.
She went to stand, and Michael reached for her wrist. My stomach felt like I’d eaten an anvil. That asshole. He held her wrist, and Emma reached for the glass on the table, beer still foaming to the rim, and she spilled all of it straight into his face before he let go of her hand.
“Are you fucking crazy?” he shouted, but Emma was already hurrying away.
Michael turned for a moment, looking straight into the camera, his eyes outraged, and then the phone moved quickly before the video ended.
“Delete that,” I said.
“No. Why?” Greg asked.
“Because I am asking,” I said. “Delete it, Greg. It’s someone’s life you’re laughing at.”
Greg narrowed his eyes. “You know her. That’s why.”
“Yeah, I know her,” I said. “She’s…Harrison’s ex.”
Finn let out a falling whistle, and I knew what it meant. I knew exactly what he was hinting at because the same thought had been plaguing my mind since I recognized Emma.
I pushed my drink away and found myself spiraling into the abyss of thoughts, each darker than the one before it. Emma was in trouble. She needed someone. Her friend was just as guilty. She needed a friendly face. And who had a friendlier face than Harrison?
Emma needed Harrison.
And Harrison loved Emma. He had to. He couldn’t have moved on completely in such a short time, not when two months apart had only fueled his need to make her feel something.
And I was the one who knew about it. I was the one who was sick to my stomach with the information I couldn’t share.
“I need to go,” I murmured to myself, standing up and walking out of the bar before any of the guys knew what was happening.
I walked out, realizing only when I was across the street that my jacket was still folded in the corner of the booth. But quick footsteps followed me, and I turned to see Jason bringing the jacket to me.
“Hey,” he said, handing it to me.
I put the jacket on without thinking about anything in particular.
“Are you…fuck, man, you’re not alright,” Jason said. “Let’s go home.”
“No,” I said. “I think…I’ll walk around. You go back.”
I turned on my heels and began to walk.
“Okay,” Jason said simply, falling in step beside me. “We can walk. And talk. Or not. Tell me to be quiet if you want.”
I looked at him and nodded slowly.
He nodded back to me.
And we walked deep into campus, going away from the bar and the Bel House. Jason didn’t speak at all, not even once, but he stayed nearly shoulder to shoulder with me as I meandered through the pathways and across lawns.
My mind was spinning with the sequence of events I could see playing out. Until now, Harrison could be all mine because there was nobody else who could distract him. But a few measly weeks with me were nothing compared to two years with Emma. And she needed him.
She would be glad to see him.
She would welcome him, need him, take him away from me. And I couldn’t stay a goddamn thing about it because I’d always just been an accomplice in this twisted game of winning Emma back.
So I would not tell him. I would propose to him first. I would make him move to the cottage in the forest with me, and we would cut the internet, and we would live like hermits until the end of days, and there would never be any risk again, and he would be all mine because I would be the only choice.
And was it really up to me to decide Harrison’s future for him? Could I make this choice for him and live with the consequences?
The right thing to do, the only thing to do, was to tell him. He needed to know, and he needed to hear it from me because I’d found out first.
When Jason and I reached the Bel House after a good hour of walking in silence, Jason blocked the path up the stairs to the door in front of me, and he sat down on top of the stairs, on the deck, and patted the spot next to him. “We’ll talk, now,” he said simply, not leaving any room for debate.
I hesitated, wishing I could step over him, walk into the house, climb up the stairs, and shut myself in my room forever. But I couldn’t. So I sat down next to him and looked at the lawn, grass lit by the porch light above us.
“What got you so upset?” Jason asked. “I mean, specifically. What do you think is going to happen?”
I snorted and shook my head. “Jason, I know what’s going to happen. I always knew.”
“Tell me,” Jason said patiently.
I pressed my lips together and held my breath.
After a while, broken by Jason’s relentless silence, I sighed.
“You know what happened. It was a stupid dare, then an even stupider plan to make Emma jealous. And I don’t know how or why, but at some point, pretending to be together was too much fun to stop, and it became something more.
But that’s just it. It’s just a farce that’s gone too far.
And now we need to go back to the original plan. ”
“Why do you think you need to? Things change, Taylor. People change their minds all the time,” Jason said.
I shrugged. “Just because I know.” He still has her photo in the corner of the corkboard, I thought.
And it was a perfect opportunity. He would be the knight in shining armor, and she would be grateful that he existed, and they would discover that this whole interruption in their happy relationship was just that, an interruption. An intermission.
I turned to Jason, who didn’t look pleased with my answer and was about to protest. “I’m fine,” I said. “It just sucks, because it’s fun, and I didn’t want it to end so soon. But we knew it would.” And then, when Jason’s expression softened a little, I added, “I want to go to bed now.”
He put a hand on my shoulder, squeezed it hard enough that my throat tightened and my eyes stung, and he shook it. “Get some rest, buddy. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Sure,” I whispered, all I could do without cracking.
I got up, entered the house, and was greeted by Peanut, who pushed his nose hard against my leg, then noticed Jason on the porch and forgot all about me.
That was my fate, I supposed. I was great, but there was always someone better standing behind me.
So I went upstairs, shut myself in my room, and stared at the ceiling as certainty slowly built up in me.
This was it. This was the end of the road, and I really wasn’t supposed to be so surprised.
I’d always known that the road was short and unfinished, that it went to a cliff, and that the bridge had never even been planned.
It was entirely my fault for imagining that, once I reached the cliff’s edge, I’d have wings big enough to fly.