Chapter 66 Lord Edward
“Hello,” I say again. It isn’t a question this time. And yet, I’ve never been less certain of myself. Maybe I ought to hang up. I promised not to communicate with her again.
And yet—can it really be her?
I wait, hoping she’ll repeat my name.
Good lord, I want to hear her say my name.
“Edward.”
There’s tenderness in her voice.
How can that be?
“Edward, it’s me. It’s Harper.”
There’s a lump in my throat that suddenly hurts as much as my leg. I try to swallow, but I can’t.
Why is she calling at this hour?
She must think I’m in London. Anne’s plan to get me here without the paparazzi catching wind of it was effective, after all.
“Edward, can you hear me?”
She sounds healthy. She sounds strong.
I nod, though of course she can’t see me. It’s all I can manage.
“Edward, I’ve been trying to reach you for over a month.”
She’s been awake for over a month?
“They told me—my parents said—that you didn’t want to hear from me. They said you changed your number. They changed my number.”
She thinks I don’t want to talk to her?
“I know you must be furious with me. I understand if you don’t want to talk to me. The other night, you hung up as soon as you heard my voice.”
The other night? The night I almost OD’d. Before Amelia got to me, I picked up the phone. But at the sound of Harper’s voice, all I heard was screaming, crying, sounds from the moment the car spun out of control and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
“Please give me a few minutes. Let me apologize, and then you can go back to hating me for the rest of your life.”
The shock of her words shakes the lump from my throat. She wants to apologize to me? I feel as though she’s speaking a language I don’t understand.
“Why did you take the fall for me?” she asks. “Why didn’t you tell them the truth?”
The truth?
The truth.
I can see it, hear it, feel it: our argument over my family; my weight in the driver’s seat; Harper yelling that she wouldn’t get in the car with me, I wasn’t okay to drive; my slamming the car door shut and stomping to the passenger side, my final steps on two feet; later, reaching for the steering wheel and slamming on the brake only to find that there was no wheel in front of me, no pedals beneath me.
Relief makes my entire body shake.
“My parents assumed you were the one driving,” she explains.
“After I told them what really happened—I thought the police would question me, but they never did. I waited for your family to launch a lawsuit or something. Eventually, my mom let something slip about a deal they’d made.
She said it was better this way, insisted your family had resources to protect you that we didn’t have.
I couldn’t reach you, but I finally spoke to Anne.
She said cutting off contact was your idea. ”
Anne knew I wasn’t the one driving.
Instead of telling me, she sent me here.
“You saved my life,” Harper says. “Dragging me from the car. How did you do that with your leg injured like it was?”
It had to have been Anne who told Harper about my leg.
“I needed to talk to you one last time, to tell you how sorry I am.”
I sink onto the bed. I feel like a little kid who’s run around in circles and abruptly stopped. It’s as though, for months, the world has been spinning and now it’s finally set itself to right.
“I don’t hate you,” I manage finally.
“You don’t?”
I look at my hands. I can still feel the silkiness of Harper’s blond hair between my fingers. I can see her dancing in her underwear across the kitchen of my Tribeca apartment, her bare feet slapping against the hardwood.
“Would you let me visit you?” Harper asks. It sounds like she’s crying. “I’ll fly to London, Scotland, wherever you are. I need to see for myself that you’re okay.”
I pause. “I’m not in the UK.”
“Where are you?”
I could lie. Let her think we’re thousands of miles apart. That’s certainly what Anne would want me to do.
“New York.”
“New York?” Harper echoes. “Where? I’ll get in a cab now.”
The idea that I could see her in a few hours sends a rush of joy through me. Harper would come if I asked.
My hands tremble such that I nearly drop the phone. I prop myself upright against the bed’s headboard. I imagine Harper’s head on my shoulder, just like it used to be, but so much is different now. I reach down and undo the fastening that secures my prosthetic.
I hear Anne’s voice, loud and clear: You wouldn’t have wanted Harper to be a caretaker for the rest of her life, would you?
She made a caretaker sound like a terrible word. Certainly, she made it sound like I’d never be able to take care of myself again. What reason had I to disbelieve her? I’d never taken care of myself before.
I hang up.