Chapter 68 Lord Edward
My sister picks up on the third ring.
“Yes?” she says, instead of hello.
“Why did you send me here?” I ask. After the call with Harper, I didn’t fall asleep, but lay awake staring at the ceiling as the sun rose.
“You know why. It was to keep you out of trouble after you’d nearly killed a girl.”
She lies so easily I can almost believe she’s forgotten the truth. Perhaps that’s what happens when you grow up in a family like ours.
“I wasn’t the one driving that night.” For once, I sound as reasonable, as in control, as she does. “Now tell me, why did you send me here? There are a million rehabs closer to home.” She could’ve easily convinced Harper’s parents that any of those places was better.
Anne doesn’t hesitate before answering, doesn’t weigh her options. When she speaks, her voice is clear, certain, and unapologetic.
“I thought if that place didn’t jog your memory, nothing would.”
I close my eyes. I can see Anne’s assured gait: never rushed or harried, her shoulders back. She doesn’t swing her arms or wave her hips. She moves precisely the way a woman like her is meant to, as though she’s balancing a book on her head.
“So sending me here was some kind of test?”
“One you failed, apparently.”
“Actually, Harper told me the truth.”
Dad’s gait is shorter, brisker. When he’s angry, he hunches his shoulders, a man on a mission, walking with his eyes tilted toward the ground. When he’s smiling in front of a crowd, he rolls his shoulders down.
“She contacted you?”
“Yes,” I answer.
“Well then, she is officially in breach of contract.”
Breach of contract? I practically hear Anne’s smile. Harper’s family will have to return whatever money Anne offered them.
“What’s more,” she continues, “we’re under no obligation to conceal the fact that Harper was the one driving.
I’ll have the story leaked to one of the more reputable papers.
Really, it’s better this way. An American social climber to blame will garner more sympathy.
We can get ahead of it if we manage it right. ”
“I’m not pressing charges.”
Anne laughs. “It’s not entirely up to you. I don’t think the police will care that you don’t want your ex-fling to get into trouble.”
“She wasn’t a fling.”
“Edward, not this nonsense again.”
She says it as though I’m a child begging to stay up past his bedtime.
“How could you let me believe I was the one driving?”
“You didn’t want the world to know about your leg. This was the best way I could think to delay the story.”
She makes it sound as though she did this entirely for my benefit, because I asked her to.
Of course, I want to be like those Invictus athletes, unashamed of my injury. Harper would say I’ve fallen for an ableist narrative about how our bodies are supposed to look, how they’re supposed to function.
Perhaps I wanted to hide my injury because I still hoped I might become the man my father and sister want me to be; as though, if I managed myself just right, I could finally gain their approval.
But the man they want me to be wouldn’t have fallen in love with Harper in the first place.
And I don’t want to be someone who doesn’t love Harper.