26. Harper
26
I turned off The Little Mermaid late Sunday night when the credits started rolling. “Love that crab.”
It was five days since August threw me out of his office and four days since I’d stopped crying over it. Over his harsh words, icy glare, and complete disregard for everything we’d been through together.
I allowed the tears to shed for one day. He wasn’t worth more than that. Instead, I woke up the next morning, brushed myself off and went to work. Nic let me make the specialty coffees for a few days while she handled customers. I realized I’d been missing out all this time. The hands-on labor of mixing drinks was much more satisfying and helped keep me focused on the task rather than everything else.
Proud of my progress to self-heal, I treated myself to one more scoop of ice cream and chopped some Twizzlers over it as I reexamined my mother’s list.
“How many times can I check off watching a Disney movie?”
There was a knock on my door that made me jump. Checking my appearance in the hall mirror, I rubbed a hand down my chocolate-stained t-shirt, straightened the bun over my head, and checked the peephole.
I pulled the door open with a smile. “You don’t see me enough during the week?”
Nic eyed me and let herself into my apartment. “I wanted to come by to see how you are…and I have my answer.”
“I’m great. I’m showered, I’m eating—like a lot. My apartment is clean and I’ve even meal-prepped for the entire week.”
“Impressive. Too impressive.”
“Please, won’t you come in and judge me some more?” I closed the door behind her.
“With pleasure. What are we drinking?”
“I can’t drink, I’ve got to be up for work early.”
She rubbed my head. “Aww, you’re cute.” She turned to my kitchen and poured herself a glass of red I had sitting on my counter. “This’ll do.”
“What else have you done all weekend? Scrub the neighbors’ tiles, maybe?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Harp, it’s okay to let yourself sit and wallow.”
I jerked. “Are you insane? What am I a teenager? I don’t wallow. Especially over assholes.” I stood from the couch and headed to the kitchen.
“Harper, you can’t ignore your feelings.”
“I can’t have feelings, Nic. He’s not coming back. My mother isn’t coming back. Why wallow over things that can’t come back?”
I knew I’d gone off tangent by the look on Nic’s face. Her eyes glanced down to the list she’d seen many times before sitting on my coffee table.
Her tone changed drastically to one I’d come to despise over the past year. “Harper, you did mourn for your mother, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did. I helped arrange her funeral, cleaned out some of her things—”
“No, Harper,” she snapped. “I mean really take time to mourn. To grieve, to express yourself somehow over the loss?”
I shook my head. “That sounds counterproductive.” Even I felt the chill over my words. “Of course, I grieved. Doesn’t everyone deal with it differently?”
“You’re obsessed with this list, Harper. You’ve lost yourself in it.”
“I know exactly who I am. I’m an artist…”
“No, you’re a coffee girl.”
“Excuse me? Aren’t you the one who—”
“I’m stating facts, Harper. You’re a coffee girl. An artist is someone who makes art and sells it, you keep it to yourself and obsess over all the reasons you shouldn’t give it to anyone because after all, it will just be rejected or make someone unhappy. What about you? Harper? When will you choose you?”
“I am choosing me. I’m choosing to do everything on this list so I can move on with my life. It’s what’s keeping me strong,” I shouted.
She stilled. “This piece of paper isn’t giving you strength Harper, it’s your weakness.”
My heart ached and I felt myself on the verge of falling apart. “It’s barely been a year and I’m already starting to lose my dad.”
“That won’t happen for years.” Nic shook her head knowingly as if she had a crystal ball.
“I’m losing everyone,” I whispered.
Her warm hand touched my shoulder. “I know it feels that way, but the only person you’ve lost is yourself. I know he doesn’t deserve it, but you keep pushing aside the pain every time you think of him. You’re not crumbling. You’re not breaking. You’re dealing with a broken heart.”
“I am. See?” I held up the empty carton of ice cream.
“Great. That takes care of your stomach. What about everything that’s building up here?” She pressed her hand to my chest, which admittedly had felt like it was carrying a truckful of bricks over the last few days.
I sniffled and hugged my friend, letting her hold me for a moment before I reached for a box of tissues and settled myself on the sofa. “Will you spend the night?” I asked after a little while of our silence.
“Well, I can’t very well drive home, now can I?” She held up her glass to me.
There weren’t many things left on my list to do. Even if Nic was right and I didn’t need to complete it to feel like I was honoring her memory, I still felt like I needed to finish it. But it didn’t have to take priority. I also didn’t need to keep carrying it around with me. Heaven knows I’d memorized it by now.
Sometimes, I’d reach for it when I was missing her, and it was a way to get myself thinking about something else. Something I needed to do.
Instead of obsessing over the piece of paper, I started to tear through unpacked boxes, looking for a photo album. Any one of them. I finally reached it at the bottom of one of the heaviest boxes I’d brought over from upstate.
I knew which it was by the cover. It was the small one from our camping trip around the time I was in grade school. I’d forgotten how much we looked alike. Except her hair was always perfect, her blonde shinier and she was always smiling.
I should smile more.
I cried that night. And the next. I took some personal time off work, and it was the best decision I’d made in a while. On Tuesday, I took a day trip upstate to hang out with my dad and the two of us went through some more of her things, remembering the best memories and laughing over them.
Eventually, I cried over August too. Admitting to myself how angry I was at him and how much I missed the man I thought he was all the same.
I spent two days watching romantic holiday movies, taking bubble baths and leaving my apartment a mess because I was tired of cleaning the life out of it.
I was due to come back to work on Thursday, and was more than ready to get back. But when Frankie called for me to buzz him into my building, I had a gut-twisting feeling my boss had other plans for me.
Pulling the door open, I groaned, taking the paper bag and coffee he was handing me. “Do you usually bring a peace offering when you fire employees?” I was allowed time off, but I felt I’d been pushing it the last few days.
“I’m not here to fire you.” He let himself in, holding his matching-sized coffee.
I sunk my teeth into the bagel and swore I heard a tooth crack. “Did you get this from the cart vendor on Third Avenue?”
“Yes.”
I chucked the stale bagel in the trash. The coffee was worth the risk.
“How’s Nic, does she hate me?”
“I’m sure she’s great. I gave her the day off.”
“What about…”
“Closed today for unsanitary conditions.”
“Really, that’s what you come up with?”
“It’s New York. If you don’t have a food and beverage place that hasn’t closed for unsanitary conditions at least once, it’s not busy enough.”
I moved into the living room with my coffee and he followed. “Is this about the sketches? You want me to finish them?”
“That’s from two weeks ago—it’s dead. No one will want those now.”
“What?”
“I figured you knew. Troy Hartman got hit hard at last night’s game. He’s in the hospital.”
Chills ran down my arms. “Oh no.” I hadn’t been watching the games, but my chest ached—regardless of which brother it was.
“Aren’t you guys a thing? Anyway, he’s also announced this morning that he’s stepping down to minors, effective immediately.”
“He did what? But he’s been doing so well.” I knew the truth but imagined the media would question the sudden change.
He shook his head. “It happens. I see it all the time. Anyway, those sketches are useless now since the focus was on him. I mean, the focus is still on him—this is big news, but it won’t work.”
I nodded. “Actually, if there’s still a focus on him, I think maybe it might. But I need to make some changes.” I smiled to myself as a new image came to life in my head. Not just for what it could do for me…but what it would do for Troy.
Frankie took one look at my face and was all in. “Great. Send it over by tomorrow and I’ll pitch it.”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about it… and I don’t want to pitch it to The Bridge Lineup exclusively anymore. I’m not going to work for them. But they’ll have a chance to make an offer.”
Frankie studied me for a moment, then nodded appreciatively. “Highest bidder freelance kind of thing?”
I bit my lip, knowing this was a risky choice, but I wanted to keep my options open and not depend on one team to finally accept my work.
“Yep. I think I want to do some traveling, be my own boss, draw what I want, when I want to.”
Frankie bobbed thoughtfully and stared at the carpet. “When were you going to give your notice?” He’d been practically pushing me out the door since I started and now sounded like he was losing a puppy.
I shrugged. “What do you need, like two weeks?”
“What do you need?”
I inhaled deeply and bit my lip.
“You don’t really want to come back, do you?”
I shook my head. “No. But I will need a manager?”
Frankie’s brows rose. “Yes, you will.”
“Can we talk tomorrow in your office? I’ll bring by the changes I’m thinking?”
Frankie stood. “I’ll start a list of my contacts in the industry. We’ll need to build you a website, get you on—”
“Just none of that yet. I am planning some time off after these sketches are published and I’m not sure how long that will be.”
Or where I’m going for that matter.
“Take your time. That’s the point of being a freelancer, right? No pressure? I’ll see you tomorrow.” He winked.
“Thanks for the coffee.”
After Frankie left, I was now basically unemployed and already feeling invigorated by it. I pulled out the sketches I’d finished featuring Troy—or rather number nineteen because when I sketched this, it wasn’t him on the ice—and considered my changes.
I looked up recent stories on Troy Hartman and indeed, he was injured—and it wasn’t good. He needed weeks of recovery, followed by a month of physical therapy before he’d see the ice again.
In minors.
My heart broke for him and I sincerely hoped he’d come back strong and ready for the big leagues again.
With that, I flipped over my pencil and started to edit the drawing I thought would never see the light of day.
I was nearly done when my phone rang, startling the lights out of me. Looking at the caller ID, I was hesitant to answer when I saw it was out of the country.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Harper Maxwell?”
“Yes.”
“This is Rosemarie from Far Away Retreats, you put in a request for open retreats in the coming weeks?”
“Oh yes, hi. I saw that everything is booked until end of the year, and I asked to be waitlisted for anything that opens.”
“Well, you’re in luck, we had a last minute cancellation for our Soul-Finder retreat.”
“Oh,” I didn’t have a chance to pull up the details on that one. I’d put in for so many of them desperate for a getaway.
“I think this one checks all your boxes. What do you think? I can arrange for a flight this Saturday.”
Two days .
“Oh, that’s amazing. Um, it’s last minute, but it’s not like I’m doing anything else. So yes. Count me in.”
“Super. It’s a minimum of eight days, and you can extend your stay if you’d like, and we offer half price for extensions.”
My stomach bubbled. “That sounds perfect. Please send me the details.”
“Sending it right now. Once your deposit clears, we’ll send your itinerary.”
I could cry. “Thank you so much, I really need this.”
“We look forward to having you.”