Chapter 18 Harper #2
“For five days,” I said, and shock cleaned me out. Turned me hollow and cold. My voice sounded empty and dead. “You’re leaving in the middle of the week for five days. Just like that.”
“I know. I didn’t plan for this, and it’s not ideal—”
“Not ideal,” I repeated. This couldn’t be real. There was no possible way this was real…
“Don’t give me a hard time,” Mom said, heading upstairs, weaving slightly. “I have to. He’s my boss. What am I going to do? Say no?”
“Yes!”
I screamed the word. It broke through the shock and erupted out of me on a tide of molten rage. A fury so white hot, it lit me up from the inside, leaving my skin and eyes burning, my throat dry and airless.
Dash flinched. “Harper?”
“In a second, buddy,” I managed, teeth clenched to keep from screaming again.
I followed Mom upstairs, to our shared bathroom, where she began stuffing toiletries in a bag from under the sink.
“You can’t do this,” I seethed. “You can’t just leave us for five fucking days. And you’re drunk. I can’t believe you’d do this to us. To Dash.”
“Harper, I can’t talk about this right now. I’ll be back on Sunday. We’ll talk then.”
She pushed past me, back down the stairs. I followed on her tail, the fury lighting me up from the inside until I thought I’d combust.
“No, we’ll talk now. You can’t go. You cannot.”
“Harper?” Dash called from the couch. He was standing up, shifting from foot to foot.
“Not now, Dash.”
“But…”
I reached for Mom’s arm as she pulled clothes from the hall closet that served as her closet and stuffed them in a rolling suitcase.
“No. You cannot do this to us. You cannot. I will not let you.”
She tore out of my grip. “I’ll get fired, Harper. Is that what you want?”
“Yes!” I screamed. “Get the fuck away from that cheating asshole and find another job. You think that’s the only one out there? Just what the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Harper…?”
“Not now, Dash!”
And then he started to cry.
“If you walk out this door, I will never forgive you for this,” I ground out, my voice quivering. My entire body shaking. “Never. Do you hear me? I will never fucking forgive you.”
Mom stopped at the front door. “Someday, Harper, when you’re an adult and have to make adult choices, you’ll understand.
” She pulled her raincoat over her head and offered Dash a faltering smile.
“Be a good boy. Mind your sister. I’ll be back in a few days.
” She turned to me, her eyes shining and glassy. “I’m sorry.”
Then she stepped out into the downpour. I stared after her, sure this was a dream. A nightmare. My phone was blowing up. Dash was crying. The rain was pounding…
I can salvage this, I thought wildly. Desperately. Pathetically trying to hold on to a scrap of happiness. I’ll call Mrs. Andolina. Beg her to come back. Yes, I’ll ask a sixty-year-old woman to drive into a hurricane to watch my little brother so I can go to a party…
“Harper?”
I turned. “What is it, Dash?”
Sniffling, he pointed one finger up.
I looked up too, to the steady stream of droplets dripping from the ceiling and onto the living room rug in front of the TV. I stared. The heated fury in my body instantly turned to ice. Out of my peripheral, I saw another leak in the kitchen. A third in the stairwell. Like silvery stalactites.
Something in me snapped. My mind went blank but for flashes of traumatic childhood memories that confused then for now, now for then. I was a little girl and I was me. It had happened and it was still happening, and I couldn’t escape.
I ran out into the downpour and was instantly drenched. My dress ruined. My curls flattened. Makeup streamed down my cheeks with rain and tears. The dentist’s car was turning around and driving away, and I chased after, screaming as the red taillights grew fainter.
“FUCK YOU! I HATE YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME!? I FUCKING HATE YOU!”
I screamed over and over until the lights faded away. Until the car was gone. Until my voice gave out and I fell to my knees on the hard cement drive. My dress tore and my skin too, though I hardly felt it.
“Harper?”
Somehow under the tumult of the storm and my sobs, I heard Dash’s little voice, tear-filled and frightened. It drew me out of the cycle of then and now and into just now.
Pull yourself together. One more time. For him.
But I couldn’t stop crying. It was as if something had broken in me after years—more than a decade—of holding myself together, and I was helpless against it. The rage, the grief, the absolute horror of doing another round of Mom’s addiction…
I can’t do this again. Not again.
I hauled myself off the driveway and staggered into the house.
Dash watched me with wide eyes, his own tears streaming.
Wordlessly, sobbing, I pulled pots and pans from under the sink and put them under the leaks.
The ping ping ping of water hitting the metal added to the horrible symphony of this night: a wailing storm of rain, of tears, of water seeping into cracks and ruining everything good and whole, while somewhere, in another life, another me was dancing in a glittering ballroom with a beautiful boy…
“Harper…?”
Dash was still following me as I set out the pans, now and then tugging my hand with his little one.
My heart broke for him more than for me, but my sobs wouldn’t stop.
I shook my head, trying to explain, to comfort him, but I couldn’t get the words out.
Instead I hugged him close, whispered I’m sorry in his ear, and put him in front of the TV again.
Then I sat in the stairwell next to the dripping water and texted Orion.
I had more than a dozen worried texts and missed calls from him that only made me cry harder. I could barely see the phone keys as I typed.
I’m not coming. I’m sorry.
The phone dropped out of my hands, I pulled up my scraped knees—blood and grime and rain stained my dress—and buried my face in my arms. I tried to dive into the black nothing, to make it all go away, but the pounding rain wouldn’t stop.
The thunder kept booming, and it sounded like the storm was banging on the door, demanding to come in.
Someone was banging on the door.
Dash’s little voice called my name, and then a deeper one.
“Harper?”
The voice. The accent. The scent of cologne mixed with rainwater. Large, strong hands were on my shoulders, gently bringing me around.
I lifted my head, which felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds, and opened swollen eyes. Beautiful dark ones looked back. Orion knelt in front of me, and I burst into tears all over again when I thought I had none left. Though I was a dirty, sodden mess, ruining his tuxedo, he gathered me to him.
“Oh, love.” His voice was low and rumbling in my ear as he held me tight, held me together. “It’s going to be all right.” He stroked my hair, kissed my forehead. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
I didn’t believe him, but in those moments, encircled in his arms, I pretended he was telling the truth.