22. Everest #2
The service itself was fine, just your typical funeral really, and my eyes mainly stayed on my friend.
His eyes were fixed on his mom’s coffin the entire time, all through the service, all the way until it was lowered into the ground.
It was like he thought if he stared hard enough he might be able to see right through it.
After the police originally showed up at the house, we all got dressed and headed to the city so Harden could officially identify her body, and he wasn’t even in the room a full sixty-seconds before he came back out.
He signed the paperwork without a word and then left, yet the way he was staring at that coffin today it seems as though he didn’t truly believe she was in there.
My mom took the reins on everything else for her friend’s funeral, and I’m sure Harden is grateful, but all I want to do is get him out of here.
We’re back at his house now, the crime scene already erased and cleaned, as if his mother’s murder never even happened.
They’ve closed off the upstairs where she was found, but I don’t miss the lingering stares and quiet whispers of everyone here.
Griffin is glaring at every one of them, while Aurora plays host with our mom, thanking them all for coming.
I’m standing shoulder to shoulder with Harden, watching every pathetic fuck here act like they care.
Like me, he’s sipping from a glass that is filled three knuckles deep with whiskey, and I can tell he’d rather be anywhere but here.
Technically this house belongs solely to him now, along with everything in it, and his mother’s entire fortune, not that he cares.
His eyes keep darting out of the window in the direction of the backyard where the pool house lies.
It’s the place we always used to escape to on the few occasions we spent time here as kids, and I swear he is contemplating going there now.
I sip more of my drink, tracking my sister and Griffin, before I turn slightly toward Harden. “Go on, I’ll gather the others, make our excuses and meet you there.”
His stare instantly flicks to mine in wonder, and I nod my head toward the backyard, and on any other day I know my words would have pulled a slight smirk from him.
Instead he looks around once more, before coming back and offering me just the slight tip of his head.
He knocks back the full glass of his whiskey, grabbing an unopened bottle off the drink tray, making his way across the room.
Both Aurora and Griffin track his movements, before flicking their eyes to me in question, and I make my way to my sister first.
“Where’s he going? Is he okay?” she rushes out quietly, glancing at where our family stands close by, and I have to ball my fists to stop myself from reaching out and touching her.
“I sent him to the pool house, told him we’d meet him there,” I explain, moving to stand next to her, just as our brother heads our way.
“You good, RoRo?” Archer asks, ruffling her hair, as Daemon appears behind him like a damn magnet.
“I’m fine,” she snaps, and I see his eyes narrow as he digests her lie, before flicking his stare to me.
We both know she isn’t fine, none of us are.
“What about you, mountain man?” he adds, that childhood nickname feeling more bittersweet than usual, and I nod.
“I’m fine,” I lie, as Griffin joins us, bumping Archer’s fist with his own and offering a grim smile to his fiancé.
“Where did Harden go?” Daemon asks, sounding as if he knows something we don’t, and I narrow my eyes.
“I sent him somewhere quiet, away from this bullshit,” I tell him truthfully, and he grimaces, flicking his stare between the three of us.
“Don’t leave him alone too long,” he warns, and Arch snaps his head in Daemon’s direction, trying to read the undertone of his words.
“Listen, the team is throwing a party this weekend, why don't you guys come,” Archer starts, looking back between us all. “Maybe a change of scenery will do Haze good, and you can stay at the penthouse,” he adds, and it’s not the worst idea in the world, maybe that’s what Harden needs, a change of scenery.
It certainly can’t make things any worse.
“I’ll talk to him about it,” I reply, before looking at Griff and Rora and then back to him. “Can you tell Mom we slipped out, I think we’ve all shown our faces here enough,” I say, and my brother is already nodding.
“Sure, Everest, whatever you need.” He pulls Aurora in for a hug, before doing the same to me, and then once again bumping Griffin’s fist. “Let me know about the party, okay?”
We say our goodbyes and Archer instantly moves over to our mom as we take our leave, Griffin and I both grabbing unopened bottles of champagne as we make our way to the pool house.
Once inside we find Harden sitting alone on one of the chairs, and Aurora and I both take a seat on either side of him, as Griffin sits facing him.
We open the bottles of champagne and raise a silent toast in his direction, all of us no doubt feeling as helpless as the other.
After a while Griffin connects his phone to the speaker and plays one of Harden’s playlists, as he and Aurora argue over one of their favorite shows they watched last night.
They bicker so loud that it almost drowns him out.
Almost.
“She raped me,” Harden mutters, his voice so quiet that I almost don’t hear him, and when those three words register, I wish I hadn’t.
Griffin pauses his debate and looks at him in surprise. “Did you say something, Haze?” Clearly having not heard his confession, but it’s too late for me, the blood in my veins has already turned to ice.
From the look on Aurora’s face, I’m sure hers has too.
“My mother,” Harden starts again, clearing his throat a little with a deep gulp of whiskey. “She raped me,” he repeats, his words sounding even worse the second time around, that it takes everything in me to not throw up all the alcohol in my stomach.
“Harden,” Aurora gasps, her voice breaking completely, as she says his name, but his focus remains on the bottle in his hands.
“I didn’t understand what was happening at first,” he pushes on, almost shaking his head, as if to dismiss the thoughts there.
“I mean, how could I? I was a child, too young to know any better, but,” he trails off and inhales another drink.
“But I knew it was wrong, and I knew I didn’t like it,” he shrugs, his voice as calm as if he were talking about the weather, as if it’s the norm for him to talk this much in general.
“As I got older, I understood. I understood, but I was too ashamed to say anything, and I didn’t fight back, so it just kept happening.
Sometimes it would be quick, sometimes I’d be too drunk to even remember, and sometimes it would feel good and that just made me even more ashamed. ”
Aurora’s cheeks are stained in tears, as silent sobs wrack her body, but it’s the stone cold look in Griffin’s eyes that snags my attention.
He’s staring at his best friend as if he is ready to go to fucking war for him, and I can’t say I blame him.
My heart is thundering hard in my chest, as I recall every time I ever came here.
What his mother said, how he reacted, how she watched us, how she watched him.
How the more she was around the less of himself he became.
How the fuck did I not see this?
“It’s why I am the way I am,” he adds without emotion, as if he didn’t just bring us into his world of pain and trauma, and bile burns my throat.
His blank mask stays in place, even as he meets every one of our stares and sees all the confusion, pain, and anger we can’t hide. He doesn’t react to it, no, instead he just holds his bottle of whiskey up in silent cheers between us all.
“To my freedom, I guess.” Then he rises to his feet and walks out without another word, leaving nothing but destruction in his wake.
We don’t see him again for two days.