Twenty-one #3
“I’m trying,” London said. “I think I’m trying. I just don’t understand—why did you let me believe the worst?”
Harper looked into the beyond, the Enchantments presiding over their valley. “That’s not—”
“Then what? Because I built an entire story around that, and I’m realizing it wasn’t even close.” London tried to control her tone. The wind moved through the trees behind them, low and steady.
“By the time I realized what you thought was happening, it felt too late. I was so mad at you—I wanted you to fix it.”
The worst part was—that actually made sense.
“I knew you'd already decided. I could see it. The way you looked at me changed overnight. If you trusted me at all, you'd ask. That's all I needed. Just for you to ask.” Harper let out a short, humorless breath. “You never did.”
“Okay, well, I’m asking now,” London said. “I’m trying now.”
Harper glanced at her then, like she was deciding whether to believe it.
London sat with the weight of it. At some point— she couldn't have said exactly when—they'd both ended up sitting in the snow, backs against a machine, legs out in front of them like two people who had run out of energy and decided the ground was fine.
The cold came up through her snowsuit, but London didn't move. She slid her leg closer to Harper’s, gently nudging it. For a second, life felt easy. Like the version of them that existed before never broke in the first place. Like it still could be theirs.
This was the right thing, she told herself. This was how to stop hurting people—hurting Harper—and build a life, free of burden. Free of obligation.
“I need to tell you something,” London said.
Harper turned toward her, unguarded.
“I’ve been talking to a broker. I’m thinking about selling the inn.”
The openness on Harper’s face didn’t shatter. It didn’t crumple. It slowly closed, like a door swinging shut on a room that had just been warm.
“Selling it,” she repeated, now standing.
“It’s a lot to carry alone and I—I’ve been thinking about it since before the storm.”
“Before the storm.” Harper set the can on the seat of the snowmobile. “So, when you asked me to help you fix it—”
“I didn’t know then if I was. I was still thinking.” London lifted to her feet, trying to maintain a connection, trying to explain herself. This was not going to plan.
“But you were already thinking.” Harper’s voice was level. Measured. “You let me spend a month—” she stopped. “London.”
“I know. I—”
“Do you?” Harper cut her off. There was no anger in her face—there was something worse. A kind of clear-eyed, tired recognition. “Because this isn’t—” She exhaled slowly. “I agreed to help you in your time of need. That was the agreement. Fix the inn. Sign the papers. Then we both move on.”
London said nothing.
“But you kissed me. Twice. You put my name in the paper. You have been driving this.” She gestured between them. “And I let myself think maybe—”
Harper stopped, both hands hiding her face now. The wind moved through the pines below them.
“You made a decision,” she said finally. “About something I just gave everything to. Alone. Without talking to me.” She picked up her helmet. “You always do this.”
“Harper—”
“No. You do this. You keep doing this. I open up, let myself think things are changing, and then you make a decision alone and call it the right thing.”
Same fight. Different backdrop.
“I’m not trying to,” London defended. “I’m just tired. And lost. I thought it might be time to move on from the inn. I just didn’t think—I didn’t think you’d want to stay tied to it.”
“I can’t keep having this conversation with you. You don’t get to make decisions about what I want.”
“That’s not what I meant,” London’s hand found Harper’s shoulder, like a touch alone could stop the impending freight train of feelings. “Let me explain how I got here.”
“I know you’re not doing it to hurt me.” Harper’s voice cracked, just slightly, at the edge of the last word. She put her helmet on with the same one motion efficiency. “That’s almost the hardest part.”
What’s the hardest part? London wanted to ask. But didn’t.
Harper swung her leg over the edge of the machine and shrugged London’s hand off. “I hope it works out for you. I’ve gotta go.”
“Harper, wait—”
Too late.
Harper’s engine turned over and she eased back onto the trail without looking back.
London stood and watched her go, not completely sure how they’d gotten back here, to the place where Harper was leaving mid-fight.
The place where she’d ride back down through the snow laden pines alone, back to the valley with the white rooftops, toward the inn that they had spent a month pulling back together.
The inn London was selling.
The silence at the summit was total now. No engines. No wind. Just London and the view and the weight of a decision she’d made alone, the way she always did, and the cold that had been there the whole time finally making itself known.
She finished the beer and tossed the can into her own cargo box. Then, put on her helmet and started down the mountain.