48. Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Eight
Harry
The cab ride to the club went by in a blur. Rage, hurt and anger clouding my judgment and decisions. I text Brad asking where he is, and he replies telling me he is at the club waiting on a delivery.
I ball my hands into fists and scrunch my eyes shut. My heart rate reaching what I’m sure is an unhealthy pace.
Raped.
The word goes around and around in my head. Why didn’t she tell me? Why did she tell Brad? How could someone hurt her like that? Is this why she has tried so hard to keep me at arm's length, but why does she think I’d judge her? Feel any different about her? Because I don’t, not even a little. It only makes me want to be with her more, prove to her that not all men are the same, show her the type of love and life she deserves.
The cab pulls outside the club, and I charge through the staff entrance, heading for Brad’s office, needing answers. Still dressed in last night's clothes that I threw back on before the cab arrived, I look disheveled and likely unhinged. I’m not thinking clearly, and I know it, but I can’t stop myself.
“Harry?” Jack says looking up from where he’s sitting on the dark couch in Brad’s office. Then, I see Brad, zone my eyes in on his whiskey-colored ones and I charge at him, like a bull to a red flag. I grab him by the collar and throwing him against the wall.
“What the fuck?” he roars as he tries to move away, but I shove him back with such force he groans in pain.
“You knew. You fucking knew, and you didn’t tell me,” I yell. Balling my hands into fists, I go to swing just as a large hand covers mine and stops me.
“Harry, stop,” Jack yells, trying to pull me off Brad but he can’t. The adrenaline pumping through me has given me a Hulk-like strength.
“No, he knew, he knew, and he didn’t tell me. If you had told me I could have stopped her, if I hadn’t got there—”
“Stopped what? Harry, you are talking in riddles. Back away and talk to us,” Jack begs.
I’m nose to nose with Brad, breathing ragged, eyes wild, my body vibrating with rage. I’ve never felt anger like it. The need to protect her so powerful. I’d go to war for that girl. I can’t get to the guy who hurt her, but I want too, I need to fix this for her. This feeling of helpless ness and guilt is eating me up. I just want to take all her pain away.
“Harry, I don’t know what you are talking about. She only told me that—” I don’t let him finish.
“What, that she was raped? That she went home last night and took so many pills to numb herself that I found her half-dead and had to revive her. That she—” I choke on the last word. Bile burns its way up my throat at the memory of her laid there and I fight to keep it down.
He stills under my grip, his face paling. “No, no she didn’t tell me that,” Brad says slowly as if he’s processing what I just said.
“Don’t lie to me!” I bark, shoving him against the wall again.
“What?” Jack says in apparent disbelief from behind me. “Harry, when?” I don’t answer him, too lost in my own anger.
“Harry, I swear to you, she didn’t tell me that. She told me someone hurt her years ago, but she didn’t say what and she admitted that she took pills in the past, but she promised she wouldn’t do it again.”
“Well, she did, and if I hadn’t got there in time, just like with—” I choke out.
“Harry when did this happen?” Jack asks, his tone sterner this time.
“When she was in her teens, some bastards put his hands on her, and she…” I can’t finish my words, the weight of it all becoming too heavy to hold on to.
“If you need to hit me, hit me. You want to shout, shout, but I didn’t know that happened and if I thought she was going to take those pills, I’d have done something.” His voice is thick with emotion, and I believe him. Jack lets go of my shoulders, but I don’t move, my breathing still ragged, one hand still gripped round Brad’s throat and the other in a fist by my side.
This isn’t me, I’m not a violent person. This is my best friend. I know he would never hurt me, never let Ali get hurt. But suddenly everything comes to the surface, and I crumble.
“She… she was just lying there, like…” It comes out on a quiet sob.
“It's not the same. She’s not Tori, Haz,” Jack says softly, placing a comforting hand on my back and that’s all I needed in order to let go of the rage. I fall into Brad, and he grips me tightly.
“Come on, buddy. I’m sorry. Let it out. We’ve got you,” Brad says, and I do. Without shame or embarrassment, all 6ft 3 of me falls apart in the hold of my friends, my brothers in arms, as I open up and let it all out.
After Scotty died, I was the one to tell Tori. I didn’t want an official telling her; I wanted to be there for her. She took it as to be expected, but she seemed to be okay. She assured me she was, so I flew back to my duties. But no one knew how badly she was suffering. When I returned from Afghanistan at the end of the tour, it had been three months since Scotty died; I turned up at her apartment to find her slumped on the floor of her bedroom. She had taken a concoction of prescribed medication and was unresponsive. I found a journal where she’d poured her heart out and it was clear she was hurting more than anyone had realized. That was the day I decided I needed to leave the military. She went to rehab and eventually, she healed and decided to have a fresh start in London working for our parents’ business and running the charity. Finding Ali like that brought up all that trauma I have tried so badly to bury.
I hang my head in shame. The heaviness in my chest begins to lighten and I let out a sigh of relief. It hurts it hurts so much but releasing it feels, freeing. I’ve never really been good at talking about my feelings. I’d rather cover it up with humor, nights out and keeping myself busy. A lot like Ali and suddenly I get what my sister meant when she said I had met the female version of myself. But that revelation brings me some comfort because, if she is like me, she’s been pushing me away to protect herself, and that only makes me want to save her from her pain even more.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper through my tears.
Brad places a firm hand on my shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “You have nothing to be sorry for, buddy. I’m sorry if you felt I kept something from you. I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily, and I didn’t want to break Ali’s trust. I sensed it was something along those lines and I told her she needed to be the one to tell you and she said she would in her own time and in her own way.”
I nod. Trying to understand it’s not an easy thing to just come out and say and give her grace. She’s not been trying to hurt me. She’s been hurting all this time and didn’t know how to deal with it, something I can understand.
“I feel like a dick… the way I just acted. I’m scared. I reacted badly when she told me. I just, I don’t know what to do. How do I let her know I’m here? This changes nothing. It doesn’t change the way I feel about her.”
“When Ria came back into my life and I learned about her past, I found she just needed time, reassurance, patience, and understanding. You know they all met at that therapy group, right?”
I nod, and it hits me. Ria and Gabby most likely have similar stories and a painful ache hits me in my stomach.
“Fuck,” Brad mutters under his breath as if Jack’s words just made him realize the same thing.
“Ali is going to act like she doesn’t need you. She’s going to tell you she’s fine and she will push you away because I have a hunch that she doesn’t believe she deserves you,” Jack goes on to say.
I nod in agreement, his words sinking in and making so much sense.
“What you need to do is just be there for her, show up for her, give her space. But as long as she knows you are there when she’s ready, I have faith she will come back to you just needs time.”
“I thought I’d lost her,” I choke out, my limbs trembling as images of her lying lifeless in my arms flash in my mind.
“You won’t lose her,” Brad says confidently. “I know she feels the same way about you as you do for her. I see it, I feel it. She just needs to work through some shit.”
I nod, feeling tears welling again. “I miss her. This, fuck, this hurts so fucking much.”
“Love does, my man,” Jack says, bumping my shoulder with his and I give a weak smile. “Just give her some time. She’ll come back to you.”
“I think we could do with a round of whiskeys,” Brad announces, getting up and walking over to his cabinet where he keeps his liquor.
“It’s barely 10 am,” Jack says, looking at his watch.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” Brad declares, pulling a crystal decanter out of the cabinet. He pours the amber liquid into three tumblers and passes them to us one by one. He joins us back on the floor and we clink our glasses together and throw back the whiskey. I welcome the burn of the warm liquid as it trickles down the back of my throat. I close my eyes and exhale. My breathing finally reaches a steady pace and I feel the adrenaline slowly leaving my body.
It hurts knowing she’s hurting; I know she needs space. But I also need her to know I’m not going anywhere, that this doesn’t change a thing and I will spend my days proving that to her. Even if it takes forever, I’m not giving up on us. I’m not walking away from her, because she is it for me. She’s, my endgame.