Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
H arper
I may be losing my mind but drawing, sketching, and painting seem to be the only things that don’t have me sobbing into my pillow. If I’m spending every minute of every day doing one of those three things, so be it. And if I’ve whipped off the sheet from my mattress, spread it across the floor and have spent the morning flicking different shades of red paint at it, well, that’s just the way things are right now.
It’s freaking cathartic.
Maybe I’ll enroll in an art class when I finally make it to New York.
By the time my mom knocks on my bedroom door at lunchtime, I have paint in my hair, paint on my clothes, and quite possibly paint in my mouth.
“Come in,” I say and she sticks her head round the door.
“Jesus Christ!” she gasps.
“Mom, it’s paint!” I laugh, picking paint off my cheek and probably smearing more over it.
“Oh thank God for that. I thought …” She shakes her head. “You’re feeling better then?”
“Much better.” I point to the sheet. “This helps.”
My mom cocks her head to the right and then the left. “Hmmm–”
“You don’t have to say you like it, Mom.”
“But I do,” she says. I raise an eyebrow. “Snuffles, I honestly do. What … what is it?”
“No idea,” I say, laughing and shrugging. “A wave of inspiration just hit me.”
“Well, they say art doesn’t have to make sense.” My mom tilts her head from one side to the other again. “Hmmm. Want some lunch? I’m going to make grilled cheese sandwiches. I bet they don’t have that in France.”
“Actually they have croque monsieur which are even better.” I wipe my paint-covered hands on my now ruined jeans. “If you give me a minute to clean up, I’ll come make you one.”
“Ooo French food, sounds delicious.” My mom goes to shut the door, then hesitates. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Snuffles.”
With very little luck, I attempt to wash the paint off my hands. It doesn’t work; my hands are stained pink and I look like Lady Macbeth. I strip out of my paint-covered clothes into some sweat pants and a t-shirt and head down to the kitchen.
My mom is full of curiosity as I pull out ingredients from the fridge and get to work. I’m half way through my first croque monsieur, when my mom says, “I almost forgot. Wyatt left you a letter this morning.” She walks to the stack of mail on the counter and pulls out a white envelope with my name scrawled across it. “He looked a little hurt when I said you couldn’t talk to him this morning.”
“Yeah, well,” I say, laying my creations out on the tray ready to slide under the hot grill, “I was feeling unwell this morning.”
“Wyatt didn’t do anything to upset you, then?”
“No, of course not, Wyatt couldn’t do anything to hurt anyone – not even a fly.”
“Well, true, he’s very well-natured but sometimes he can be a bit–”
“Blunt?” My mom nods. “I like that about him. Laurent was a great sweet talker, Mom. He had a way of carefully skirting the truth.”
“I never liked him,” she says. Which is a lie. My mom thought he was amazing. Laurent may have been an asshole, but he was a charming and handsome one, with a very sexy French accent. Unfortunately, he used his charm, looks and accent to entice lots of other women into his bed.
I slam the tray under the grill and turn back to my mom.
She’s holding out the letter. Reluctantly, and only because there’ll be questions if I don’t, I take it from her hand. Wyatt’s handwriting hasn’t changed. It’s as messy now as it was ten years ago. Why is that so depressing? Why does my name in his handwriting look so damn adorable – even though it’s all spidery and scrawled?
I tuck it into my pocket.
“Aren’t you going to read it?”
“Not now.” I’m not sure I ever will. Anything he has to say will make me feel ten times worse than I already do.
“It’s very kind of him to do that research for you,” my mom says.
“Huh?” I say, peering into the grill and watching as the cheese bubbles and browns.
“The research for your friend.”
“Err, right,” I say.
“Which friend was it?”
I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about but I sense big time the need to deflect and distract.
“It’s ready!” I sing, pulling the tray from the oven and then sliding the cheesy, creamy pieces of bread onto waiting plates. “It’s going to be hot.” I slide one of the plates towards her, along with a knife and fork.
My mom slices off a large chunk, blows on it and deposits it into her mouth. “Hmmm,” she says, “heavenly.”
“Told you,” I say, taking a bite of my own.
I should make this for the pack, I think. They all love cheese and ham. They’d die for this.
Then I’m struck with the realization that I will never, ever be cooking for the pack. The piece of bread lodges in my throat and I have to concentrate real hard on not crying as my mom waxes lyrical about the dish.
“I’m going to miss this,” my mom says, resting her hand on my arm. “It’s been so lovely having you around, Snuffles.” She sighs. “I can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow.”
“I’ll come visit, Mom. It’s not as far as Paris. And you can come visit me too.”
She nods and smiles but I can tell it’s not genuine.
I cover her hand with my other and squeeze it gently.
I’m hurting her by leaving. But would it hurt her even more if she discovered the truth?
Later, in the safety of my room, I pull Wyatt’s envelope out of my pocket.
Would it be so bad if I read it? Probably – I can’t even look at cheesy bread without bursting into hysterics.
But Owen’s words are spinning round and round in my mind. I was so sure I was doing the right thing. Now I just don’t know.
Maybe Wyatt’s letter would help clarify things for me either way. Maybe they’d help me cement my decision.
Carefully, I rip open the envelope and pull out several pieces of paper, Wyatt’s untidy scrawl covering them all.
I climb into my bed and draw the pages closer, running my eye over his words.
It’s typically Wyatt. Factual, practical, logical.
He sets out all the reasons we should be a pack. Like pooling our resources and reducing our outlays. He explains in detail why it would be unlikely the hospital would discover the truth about their lies and how he would defend himself if they did. And he even lists all the qualities I have over other omegas.
It’s a little emotionless but there’s so much of it and as I read on, it becomes more heated, more passionate, more heartfelt. Until I reach the very end:
“I’ve always loved you, Harper Hall. No matter what you’ve done, no matter where you’ve been. It’s not something that’s ever going away. And my life will be one million times more miserable without you in it.”