Chapter 25 #2
Harper just barely kept the tears from spilling over. Letting them out might ease some of the pressure in her chest, but pitying herself wouldn’t solve any of this. Especially since she’d had more influence over this situation than she had been willing to admit.
Maya had asked her. Had sought her out before she left, wanting to know if she should leave or not. And, like a fucking coward, Harper had lied.
She had expected the pain of that lie to fade rather than grow. Had thought that if she just wrapped her heart in enough acted carelessness, some of it might turn true.
But she’d failed. So much so that she had to wonder if any of her previous relationships had been real, because none of them had felt as painful as this.
Evie left soon after, giving Harper an excuse to do the same, but being in her own apartment was a trial in itself. Patricia’s place was a few floors up from hers, so it only took minutes before she was home. A place empty of both people and excuses.
They’d gotten furniture in, but there wasn’t any life in the place yet. All their stuff was still in St. Louis, stuck there until the Chains could bribe a moving company to smuggle it out of the city.
Nell and Patricia were most hurt by that. They had items of sentimental value that no amount of money could replace, but Harper wasn’t attached to anything. Other than her wardrobe, and that had been refilled after a few thrift store visits.
She hadn’t really noticed how empty the apartment was before. She’d gotten so used to Maya’s place. To how cozy and lived-in it was.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
She pulled out her phone, pacing the living room as she stared at the screen.
It was just a phone call. One press of a button and then the hard part was over. Then the awful weight she’d been carrying around for days would finally vanish.
Assuming Maya picked up, of course.
Cursing, she tapped the call button and put the phone to her ear. The dial tone screamed at her, sounding increasingly mocking the longer it lasted. It went on and on, her heart sinking with every passing second, until it switched to voicemail.
She threw the phone onto the couch. This was so dumb. It was near midnight, making it prime working hours for monstrous warfare. Maya was too busy to handle a random phone call.
Or maybe she wasn’t. They might have gotten attacked. Leaving Maya hurt or captured.
Maybe even killed.
Harper snatched up the phone and pressed the call button again. She gnawed on a nail, pacing faster as the dial tone went off once.
Twice.
Three fucking times.
“Harper?”
Maya’s voice. Surprised. Eager. Worried, almost.
Harper let out a sigh before she could think to keep it in. Her legs gave out, and if her pacing hadn’t brought her close enough to the couch that she could collapse onto it, she would have dropped right to the floor.
“H-hey,” she stammered.
She bit back a groan. Way to play it cool, Harper.
“Hey…” Maya breathed out the word. “Sorry I didn’t answer before. I was… Something came up.”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” Harper dug her fingers into the cushion. “That’s fine. I didn’t really want anything, I just… I needed, uh… You didn’t text today.”
Silence. One that stretched for long enough that it started to feel tense.
Then awkward.
Had a silence between them ever felt awkward? Though, it really couldn’t be anything but awkward, because what the hell was that opening statement?
“Right… I guess I didn’t,” Maya said. “I was training. With Aleksander. Lost track of time.”
Harper nodded, even though Maya couldn’t fucking see it.
“Oh. That… That makes sense.”
She waited for more words, any words, to appear.
None did. At least no good ones, because what Harper wanted to say didn’t suit the first minute of an overdue phone call.
“Is everything okay?” Maya asked, the concern obvious in her voice. “Harper? You there?”
“Yeah, I’m here, I just…”
Harper took the phone away from her ear, groaning into her palm.
This was beyond ridiculous. She’d effectively given Maya the silent treatment, and now she was making it worse by doing it to her face.
Maya had a gift for making her go mute, but this wasn’t like those times. Her voice hadn’t hidden. She was forcing it down a particular path, getting no results for her trouble.
She might as well stop trying. Let her tongue take the reins. It couldn’t exactly make things worse at this point.
“I lied to you,” she blurted out. “When you asked if I wanted you to stay, I lied. I lied because, obviously, I didn’t want you to go anywhere near a place filled with werewolves and who knows what else.
And now, I regret it, because this past week has fucking sucked, since I can’t stop thinking that every moment of silence is only there because something terrible has happened. ”
Harper leaned back, hugging her knees to her chest. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. If not when you left, then at literally any other time, because… because I don’t know how to function when I can’t be sure you’re okay.”
Maya didn’t speak. A tense silence, made all the heavier by the utter quiet of the apartment. It fell like a cloak, weighing her down so much that Harper doubted she could have stood up. She could just curl in on herself and clutch the phone until her hand shook.
“You miss me?” Maya said, voice so gentle that it hurt more than even the sharpest tone could have accomplished.
She was also wrong. Harper didn’t miss her. This feeling didn’t come from a temporary absence, but from loss. A preliminary grief, constructed by her brain preparing for the worst possible scenario, even though it might never come.
Harper didn’t miss her. It was far worse than that. Far too early, too, both to feel and especially to say.
So she settled on something safer.
“Of course I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” Maya sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me? I asked your opinion for a reason.”
“I don’t know.” Harper scoffed at herself. “No, that’s another lie. I do know. I was being stupid.”
“Don’t call yourself stupid.”
“I was scared, then. That you would hate me for asking you to stay.”
“I could never hate you.”
Harper let out a weak laugh. “That sounds like a challenge.”
“Does it? Really?”
Harper pinched her lips together. This evening had no end of painful questions, mainly because the answers were too unpleasant to consider.
She hadn’t lied when she’d said the only people who could handle her were assholes. People who saw her as a problem that could only be solved by breaking it, and who she only stayed with as long as her excuses lasted.
Maya had never been like that. Even though part of Harper had expected it. Looked for it, even. Maya had a way of maneuvering through the pitfalls littered around this relationship as though she knew exactly where they were and how to avoid them. She did and said all the right things.
When would she get sick of it? When would it be too much? When would Harper be too much?
“I don’t like when you go quiet like that,” Maya said. “Please tell me what you’re thinking.”
Oh, nothing much. Just that you’re way too decent, way too patient, and way too good for me; all of which is really impractical given how hard I’m falling for you.
“I’m thinking that all of this would be a lot easier if you weren’t hundreds of miles away.”
More quiet. A long, long quiet that needled into Harper’s chest like icicles.
“Ask me to come back,” Maya said. Harper frowned.
“What?”
“Ask me to come back to Chicago. Ask me to drop everything and leave, right now, because I will do it. I’ll find Aleksander and tell him I changed my mind, and then I’ll run the whole way, not stopping for anything until I’m with you again.”
She spoke with no hesitation. As though it was the only possible answer to this situation.
“Are you serious?” Harper said.
“Yes. You only need to ask.”
Tempting, to say the least. Since this damn worry that had gnawed into her body was at its highest when her thoughts spun tales of Maya lying dead somewhere. Having her within line of sight would negate them.
Harper looked out the window. At the night city of Chicago sprawled out below. She closed her eyes, biting her lip.
“Then I won’t,” Harper said quietly. “It’s important that you’re out there. It has to be. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been handpicked by a literal King.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Please don’t. If you argue, I’ll cave and ask you to come back, and that won’t solve anything.” Harper smiled. “Be honest. Would the Chains be worse off if you left right now?”
Maya stayed quiet. Then chuckled. “I don’t want to be honest. I’ll sound arrogant.”
Harper laughed, the noise ending on a sigh. “Then we shouldn’t discuss it. Otherwise, we might say something we regret. But, if you don’t mind, you can double the updates. I’m kind of a wreck without them.”
“Only if you triple the phone calls. If I don’t have them, I’m kind of a wreck myself.” She cleared her throat. “Actually… Aleksander gave me an hour to myself. I know it’s late, but… can you just talk? Let me hear your voice?”
Harper’s heart fluttered into her throat, smothering her speech in the process.
Maya really had to stop saying voice-stealing things.
“Sure,” Harper said. Though it took her a moment to do so. “But I don’t really have anything interesting to say.”
“That’s not true.” Maya’s voice was so soft that Harper nearly sighed. “Everything you say is interesting.”