Chapter 26 Harper
HARPER
Idon’t sleep at all that night. After I get home from the club—perfectly safe in my cab, thank you very much—I face a worried Emma in the living room.
“Oh, thank God,” she says, jumping up from her perch on the couch. “What happened? Did he find you?”
My eyes narrow at her as I realize exactly what had happened tonight. “You called him?”
She doesn’t look at all abashed. “You’ve been a basket case for days. I didn’t think you should be at the club in that condition.”
I just gape at her, unable to form words. “You know,” I finally manage, throwing my purse and keys down on the table. “It’s one thing for him or Mason to not trust me to take care of myself, but I had no idea you thought so little of me.”
Emma gasps. “That’s not fair!”
“Yeah,” I mutter, marching down the hall to my room. None of this is fucking fair.
Emma and I never fight, and the sting of that argument stays with me as I toss and turn all night, only overshadowed by bursts of anger at Nate and sharp stabs of pain from how much I miss him, in spite of all the anger.
“You’re a fucking mess, Harper Cain,” I tell myself when I finally give up on sleep around six a.m. I told Mason I would try to go to school today, but I’m not sure if I’m going to make it. After last night, the thought of seeing Nate on campus makes me physically shudder.
I drag myself into the kitchen and head straight to the coffee pot, distracted when I hear a loud beep from my phone, still in the purse I threw on the table last night.
Who in the hell would be texting me this early?
I dig through the mess in my purse until I find the phone, not really surprised to see several missed messages from Mason.
That’s been pretty much par for the course since Nate left.
But I am surprised to see that one of the messages is brand new—the cause of the alert I just heard. It’s five after six in the morning. Mason is always at the gym at this hour, getting his five miles in on the treadmill before work.
Apparently, not today. Are you awake? I’d like to bring you a coffee.
I stare down at my phone, a lump rising in my throat. He skipped work to come check on me yesterday, and now he’s skipping his gym time. That might not be a big deal for some people, but my brother’s schedule is absolutely rigid.
Coffee would be nice, I finally type back.
His response is immediate. Be there in ten.
I go back to my room, pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater. It’s kind of strange, putting so little effort into my appearance before a meeting with my brother. It’s usually something I stress about—wanting to look mature, put together. Someone he can be proud of.
I still want that, in spite of how angry I am. To make him proud. Only now I’m starting to realize it’s a losing battle. In his eyes, I’ll always be the little kid he got stuck with.
Exactly ten minutes after his text, there’s a soft knock on the door. I open it to reveal my older brother, two paper coffee cups in his hands, a bakery bag under his arm.
It’s not the sight of his morning offerings that have my mouth dropping open in surprise.
My brother looks awful. I seriously don’t think I’ve ever seen him so disheveled.
Messy hair, red eyes, actual stubble on his chin.
Even when our parents died, he never once faltered in his appearance.
Probably for me, I realize now. Wanting to present an everything is fine and under control facade for the terrified little sister whose entire world had been upended.
“Can we walk?” he asks, voice way more uncertain than I’m used to hearing from him.
“Sure.”
I grab my coat and follow him outside. It’s been getting chillier, especially at night, and there’s a thin layer of frost covering the grass in front of the apartment building when we step out onto the sidewalk.
There’s a small park a few blocks from the apartment, and we head in that direction without discussion.
We’ve met there several times since he moved me into this neighborhood, usually for a quick coffee on his lunch break.
Today an awkward tension settles over us as we walk in silence, sipping our coffees.
I have no idea what to say to him. He’s so clearly disappointed in me, and I’m way too exhausted to try to change that. I don’t even know where I would start.
“Do you remember that time Dad drove us to the city for that baseball game?” he blurts out suddenly, and I startle at the broken quiet.
“Yeah,” I say, even though it’s a little fuzzy.
Our dad was a huge baseball fan, constantly bemoaning the fact that Charlotte didn’t have an MLB team.
He enjoyed watching the AAA team that played in town, but my childhood home was a ways out of the city, so he rarely brought me along to see live games.
I think I’d only been to the stadium with him once or twice.
We reach the park before we speak again, Mason leading me over to an empty bench by the running trail.
“You were so excited to be there,” he says once we’re seated.
“You just wanted to look at everything. All the people and the concession stands.” A soft smile tugs up at his lips and his eyes go distant as he remembers.
“You were talking a mile a minute the whole time, your eyes all bugged out. You couldn’t sit still at all—it was driving Dad crazy. ”
The memory comes a little clearer as he talks. “You took me back out to walk around the concourse,” I remember.
He nods. “I stopped to get us a hot dog and all of a sudden, you were gone.”
“I saw someone selling balloons.”
“It scared me to death,” he mutters, and I’m surprised to hear his voice shake. If I remember correctly, I had only been lost for a few moments before he found me. I only had enough time to get scared before my big brother was there, taking my hand.
“You had this look on your face,” he murmurs, miles away in his head. “This terrified expression, like you were sure I wouldn’t come back for you. I can still remember exactly how you looked.”
“But you did come back for me,” I remind him.
“And then we played eye-spy for ages until you’d cheered me up.
” A sharp pain lodges in my chest. It hurts to think about these things, about the way we used to be friends, even though he was so much older.
I always looked up to my big brother. Hell, I hero worshiped the guy.
But he never treated me like an annoying baby sister. He always included me.
How had it all changed so much?
“When Mom died,” he whispers, voice ragged, “you had that exact same look on your face. Like you had turned back into that terrified six-year-old, convinced she’d been left behind.”
I swallow past a lump in my throat. “Mason—”
“I was so angry with them for dying,” he goes on in that same rough voice. “Especially Mom. She could have stayed with us longer. Stayed with you longer.” His hands clench on his thighs. “She should have fought for you, Harper. I’m so goddamn sorry she didn’t.”
I try to blink back the tears, but it’s no use. I can’t speak, I can only stare at my brother. We never talk about this.
“That whole week of the funeral, that’s all I could think about.
How scared you looked. How you deserved better.
And it wrecked me, Harper. I wish I could have been stronger but…
” his voice cracks and I reach for his hand without thinking.
I’ve never seen him like this—regretful and broken.
It’s not my confident, strong, always-composed, take-charge big brother.
He squeezes my hand then straightens a little, like he’s trying to get it together. “I had no idea if I could take care of you. I felt totally inadequate. But I knew I was going to do my best. Because you were my baby sister, and I loved you so much.”
My breath catches in my throat but Mason isn’t done.
He turns to face me. “I put up a wall between us, Harper, and I’m so sorry.
I was hard on myself. I felt like I needed to be a certain way, to take care of you.
To provide what you needed. To be a parent.
But now it’s starting to dawn on me that the thing you really needed was a brother. ”
I wipe at the tears now steadily dripping down my face, shocked to see tears in his eyes too. “You were never a burden,” he says firmly. “Not ever. Being there to watch you grow up is the best thing that ever happened to me, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
“Mason,” I whisper, and then he pulls me into his arms, hugging me tight, and I can feel in the way his chest shakes that he’s crying too.
“I love you, Harpy. I should have said it more.”
“I love you, too,” I manage to croak out around tears. “Thank you so much for everything you did—”
He pulls back, his eyes blazing. “No. No thank yous. It was my pleasure. My honor. Seriously.” He wipes a tear from my cheek. “You look like shit, Harpy.”
I snort out a laugh that kind of turns into a sob. “So do you.”
He grins, holding up the bakery bag. “Maybe muffins will help?”
We munch on our blueberry muffins in silence for a few minutes. It feels like a massive weight has lifted from my shoulders. At the same time, I know there’s more to say.
“On a scale of one to ten, how disappointed in me are you right now?”
He sighs, face closing over. “You’re not the one I’m disappointed in.”
“Nate didn’t do anything wrong.” Until he left me.
“He was my best friend, Harper.” Mason’s voice is as bitter as I’ve ever heard it. “He took advantage of you.”
“No,” I say firmly, but my brother is shaking his head.
“I went to see him, you know.” I straighten at the mere mention. You’re supposed to be mad at him, I remind myself.