Chapter 7 #3
When the movie ends, Harrison leans forward to grab the remote and hit the home button. We stare at the scrolling purple cityscape without speaking.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Harrison’s shoulders move up and then slowly back down.
Everything about him—his expression, his posture, his wrinkled clothes, his crooked glasses—screams weary.
I have an unbearably strong urge to wrap him up in my arms and beg him to tell me what’s wrong, but the problem is that I do know what’s wrong. Some of it, anyway.
“Harrison,” I whisper. “Why are you being nice to me? Why did you let me into your apartment?”
He looks up at me, and I pause at the expression on his face. Wide eyes, furrowed brows, lips pulled to the side.[*2]
There’s a single tear falling down his left cheek.
“Emma, I—”
“No,” I say, closing my eyes and holding up my hands, heartbroken by the emotions I can see on his face. I came here to help, and all I did was hurt. “No—I’m sorry. That’s a weird question. You don’t need to explain yourself.”
“No. I—I didn’t want to be alone.” He pauses, staring at our empty wine mugs on the coffee table. “Hard night.”
I realize I’m the person he’s not alone with because I am physically the closest to him and also because I forced my way into his apartment, but I’m flattered anyway. “I’m sorry it’s a hard night,” I say. “I hope I didn’t make it harder.”
He laughs, then looks surprised at himself for laughing. He clears his throat.
“What?” I ask, prompting him.
His eyes slide toward mine. “Em,” he says, rolling his eyes as if I’m being ridiculous. “You always make things harder for me.”
My throat constricts. “I’m trying to do better.”
He stares at the wall as if it contains all of life’s secrets. My words don’t seem to be registering.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I don’t know about okay,” he tells the wall, “but I am single.”
I look at the wall for further explanation. “What?” I ask it.
The wall doesn’t respond, but Harrison does. “Stephanie isn’t coming back. It’s my own doing, and so I need to be able to live with that, but I really didn’t want to sit here and be alone.”
No, my mind screams. No, not possible. Twenty-seven-year-old Harrison doesn’t break up with girlfriends. He has his life together, and it’s perfect, with the perfect job and the perfect apartment and the perfect girl who adores him. He’s not single.
Harrison’s eyes slide to me again. Raya squeaks in his arms. “You good over there?”
I open my mouth to speak, but a squeak extremely similar to Raya’s comes out instead. Harrison narrows his eyes in concern, and I clear my throat. “I don’t understand. You broke up with Stephanie? Why would you do that?”
He gapes at me, as if shocked that I would dare to ask the question that directly. It’s a full twenty seconds before he responds, and I feel more emotion bubbling up in my angry, hot cauldron of a stomach with every second. “I d—”
“Yeah,” I snap, frustrated for reasons that are unbeknownst to me. “You don’t think that’s a conversation we should have. Got it.”
He pulls his lips together in a thin line, and I feel like someone has punched me, my body now too off-kilter to draw a breath. This is my fault, my body screams. I can feel it in my bones. I don’t know how, but it is. It’s my fault.
Harrison opens his mouth to say something, but I keep going because maybe Doing Better also means taking a step back when it’s clear you’re doing more harm than good. “Please, let me say something, and then I swear I won’t bother you anymore.”
Harrison studies me, then nods his head for me to continue. Emotional distress has morphed into morbid curiosity.
“Look, I am so, so sorry for ruining what was already a shitty night for you.” Harrison’s eyes soften as soon as I start talking.
“I’m sorry for forcing you to let me in, and also for making you watch a movie I knew would make you cry, and, apparently, for making you eat Hawaiian pizza for four years of college.
I’m so sorry I make everything hard for you, but you have to understand I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t at least tried to make things right with you.
Maybe you don’t believe me, which would be completely justified, but I have spent the last five years imagining what it would be like to have a second chance with you, and I never thought I’d have the chance—or the guts, frankly—to turn that into reality.
So even if you still hate me, which, again, would be justified, please, please believe me: I really fucking missed you. ”
Glassy eyes, tense body. As if he’s afraid to move, because if he lets his chest expand to take a full breath, his heart might explode.
“Containment” is probably the right word to describe this, the way his lips are pursed shut and his jaw is clenched.
Another word to describe this might be “heartbreak.”[*3]
“And I will continue to miss you after this, but that’s my problem, not yours,” I whisper. And before he can say anything, I let myself out of the apartment.
Skip Notes
*1 Pink ears | Physical reaction | Frequency: high
Embarrassment.
May be embarrassed by own actions or others’ actions.
*2 Wide eyes · Furrowed brows · Lips pulled to the side | Facial expression | Frequency: low
Emotional distress.
*3 Glassy eyes · Tense body · Bated breath | Emotional tell | Frequency: low
Contained heartbreak.