23
I open the door after composing myself.
Liam skips the niceties. “May I come in?” A bottle of wine and flowers are in hand, though I know they are for the cookout
tonight, not me.
I nod and allow him to enter. The two of us here without Ben feels dangerous. He sets the flowers and wine on the island,
bypasses the couch, and steps onto the balcony. I follow and wait for him to speak first. He palms the rail and stares out
at the beautiful night, and then he turns, his eyes catching mine in the darkness. Despite who I am and where I am, my breath
catches as it did that first night we spent together. I hate that my body is betraying me this way, especially after the conversation
I just had with Ben.
“I’m sorry about today.” He exhales and leans against the railing. “I know I’m here for a story, for Ben. But I also think
it’s important that Ben has all the facts.” He crosses his arms. “That’s how you felt, isn’t it? With LaTasha?”
LaTasha. Hearing her name after all this time makes me feel trapped.
“I just want to give him the same courtesy. Even though,” Liam rushes to add, “it’s all in the past. But I just don’t want to feel like I’m keeping anything from him. Especially since I’m writing this article.”
I think about how blindsided I felt when I found out about LaTasha and how I wished Liam would have told me sooner. “You’re
right,” I say. Though it’s not exactly the same thing, it’s still technically keeping something from the man I love. I sigh
and sit on one of the chairs. “I’ll tell him when he gets back. I promise.”
His eyes sweep over my face just like they did that night on the street. The night I broke my own heart. Looking back, I realize
that Liam was asking me to stay, to take a chance, to choose him. To trust him. And I didn’t. I couldn’t. And now, here he
is again, at the worst possible time. “I just don’t want him to get any ideas,” I say. “About you showing up out of the blue.
He won’t think it’s a coincidence.”
“Do you think it’s a coincidence?” He’s looking at me again, and I can see he wants to say so much more.
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. I don’t ask him the same thing in return because I don’t want to know the answer. I scramble
to hold on to any semblance of self-control, to remind myself of what’s real and what should stay in the past. I think about
the conversation I had with Ben, how right I feel when I’m with him, how I don’t have any questions about who I am or where
I’m supposed to be in life. “Ben just called,” I blurt. “He had a great day.”
“Oh yeah?” Liam’s eyes brighten as he sits beside me. “What did he say?”
I fill him in on what Ben shared. “Thank you for encouraging him to go,” I say. “I haven’t heard him this positive in a really
long time.”
“I’m glad.” He clears his throat, taps a shoe. “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you okay?”
I’m silent, but it’s written all over my face. Of course I’m not okay. I’m not okay that Ben isn’t here. I’m not okay that
a man I was once crazy about is sitting on my balcony instead. I’m not okay that the safely stitched fabric of my past has
come undone and that the stuffing is oozing everywhere. I’m not okay that I will soon become a widow. I’m not okay with anything.
I want to continue our conversation from earlier today, to really understand what happened in the aftermath of me leaving
New York. Who is truly to blame for why we never got back in touch? I could have easily reached out to Kendall, or she could
have told me that Liam was trying to find me. I never wanted to admit to her that I’d let my feelings for Liam cloud my potential
with Rita. I’d let both of them down, and it was easier to walk away than explain I’d made a stupid mistake.
Now knowing that Liam tried, however, makes me rethink everything. He tried. I didn’t. What does that mean? I want actual
answers, but I’m so afraid of what I might find there, how I might want to rewrite history. “Look, I know there’s a lot we
both probably need or want to say. But you’re here for one reason, Liam. Ben. This is about his story, like you said, not
our past. I just want to keep it that way, okay?”
Liam waits a beat, then nods. “Understood. From now on, we’ll stick to the story.”
Relief washes through me. “Thank you.”
He pats the tops of his thighs, as if deciding something. “I should get going.”
“Well, I’m actually going too. Wren and Jenna invited me.” Before I can gauge his reaction, I dash into my bedroom, take a moment to breathe and freshen up, then enter the foyer with a smile plastered on my face. “Ready?”
The night is warm, and we walk in silence. I fear I’ve shut Liam down completely, but I’m sure he’s processing everything
like I am. Luckily, Jenna and Wren live close. When we arrive, he stares up at their modern town house.
“Nice place.”
“Wait until you see inside.” I let myself in, and Wren hollers that they are out back.
Liam whistles as he walks in, because their town house truly is its own eclectic masterpiece. Impeccable art, mismatched furniture,
imported rugs, crystals, statues... It is a mishmash of styles and cultures, but somehow it all works. Incense burns in
almost every room, leaving the entire place hazy and fragrant, and when we step outside, the sizzle of burgers makes my stomach
growl.
Jenna is lounging by the hot tub, among her potted plants. Wren stands at the grill, flipping real burgers and veggie burgers.
She wears a bathing suit and a silk robe, her dark skin inked everywhere that’s visible.
“Welcome to our humble abode, reporter man,” Wren says.
I stare between the two of them as they giggle uncontrollably at that statement. “Um, how many edibles have you both had?”
Jenna stands to greet us. “Not nearly enough.” Liam grips her hand, and she holds on a beat too long. “Good lord, you’re attractive.
Much too attractive to be a writer.”
“Ignore them,” I say as Liam offers Wren the wine and flowers.
Wren winks at me as we all settle in. We eat first, and then Liam launches into his easy line of questioning. He never makes the conversation feel stiff or uncomfortable. Before long, Wren and Jenna are sharing all sorts of tales about Ben. The time they got high in a cemetery and got caught. A midnight hike where they were chased by a bear. A hot-air balloon ride where the fire sputtered and they almost plummeted to their death. The soundtrack he wrote for their wedding. As I listen to them now, it’s hard to remember a time before we were all friends.
“We’ve always been protective over Ben,” Wren says now, one arm draped across Jenna’s shoulders. “Being in the public eye,
even behind the scenes, can attract some trolls, for sure. But he’s always been such a stand-up guy. He didn’t date often,
but when he did, sometimes he would pick the worst women. Ugh. Until Harper, that is.”
“Oh,” Liam says, looking between us. “So you two knew Ben before Harper did?”
I jump in to explain. “Ben met Wren years ago at some Hollywood shindig, and they hit it off. When she opened her gallery,
he would come visit sometimes and fell in love with the city. After we met, he introduced me to both of them, and the rest
is history. It’s why I applied to teach here. The fact that Jenna also happened to be a teacher at the same school was an
added bonus.”
Jenna squeezes my knee, and I smile. Liam writes something down and then looks at me. I hold his gaze a beat too long, and
they both notice.
“You guys up for the hot tub?” Wren asks. “You got what you came for, right, Liam?”
“Sure thing.” He stops recording and flips his notepad closed.
I gesture to our clothes. “We don’t have bathing suits.”
“So? We’re all adults.”
“Wren.” My voice is a bit sharp. I know she is a completely free spirit, but there is no way in hell I am going skinny-dipping
with Liam Hale.
“Don’t freak out, babe. We have spares in the back. I’ll grab them.”
“I’ll help,” Jenna trills, running off behind her.
I turn to Liam and offer a nervous smile. “I’m sorry about that. You don’t have to get in the hot tub.”
He shrugs and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Sounds nice, actually. I haven’t been in a hot tub since college. Sounds
like a nice night for folliculitis.”
I burst out laughing. Before I can respond, Wren tosses him a pair of trunks.
“Are those Ben’s?” I ask.
“Who else’s would they be?” She motions to where Liam can change. Thanking her, he disappears, and I squeeze my hands into
fists at my sides as Wren and Jenna pounce on me.
“Oh my God, are you okay?”
“There seems to be a connection here, Harper.”
“I really think you should talk to Ben about this.”
“No, she most definitely does not need to talk to Ben.”
“You guys, stop,” I say, putting a hand on both of them. “I can’t deal with this right now.”
“Dude,” Wren says, her eyes glassy. “I know we talked about this earlier, but seeing you two together?” She mimes an explosion.
“There’s something real here, Harper. And Ben came up with his idea for a reason. And now that reason is changing in the bathroom.”
I snatch the bathing suit Wren is still holding and begrudgingly change in their bedroom. This feels like crossing yet another
line, getting into hot water, half naked, with someone I once fell so hard for. I compose myself, walk back out, and swallow
the lump in my throat when I glimpse Liam’s fit body in Ben’s old trunks.
I am instantly transported back to Ben standing here when he was healthy, flexing and preening until we would all laugh. He would often pretend to curl Gremlin and Pickles like they were dumbbells, and the cats loved him so much, they would flop in his fists, totally trusting. There were so many early days when we would come over for nights like this, followed by hours in the hot tub until we were all pruny and dehydrated.
We slip into the steamy bubbles now, and I force myself to relax. Wine is poured all around, and I drink greedily, trying
to numb myself as quickly as possible.
Wren and Jenna pepper Liam with questions about his life, and then Wren and Liam venture off on a tangent about the art world,
since he has roots there. Jenna floats over to me.
“How you doing, hot stuff?”
“Oh, just dandy. How are you?”
She looks at me. “This is a lot, Harper.” She gestures to Liam. “Not just this, but everything.” She drops her voice. “You
know you can talk to me, right? You don’t have to listen to Wren.”
“I know.” I bite my tongue as a flood of emotions threatens to erupt to the surface. Luckily, Jenna takes the cue and turns
to lighter conversation.
Suddenly it’s late, and Wren excuses herself to get Jenna, who has had way too much to drink, into bed. While she’s gone,
I am left with Liam, in the hot tub, alone.
“Hi,” he says, at a safe distance.
“Hello.”
We stare at each other, and again, all those questions I had from earlier threaten to tumble out.
“You’ve got great friends,” he says. “You both do. You’re very lucky.”
“I am. We are,” I say. “They’re the best.”
“Wren really believes in your art,” he continues.
“I know.” I sigh and rest my head against the back of the tub. “Now I think she’s waiting on me to believe in myself.”
This feels like the same conversation we had so many years ago, when Rita Clementine was the one who was giving me a chance
and I was second-guessing everything.
“And do you?”
Do I? “Remains to be seen.” I shift and glance at my watch. It’s almost midnight. “I better get back,” I say. “Get some rest.”
“Yep.”
We exit the tub and towel ourselves off. I avoid all eye contact, not daring to look at a dripping-wet Liam in my husband’s
bathing suit. We quietly slip back into our clothes in separate rooms and then tell Wren good night on the way out. She asks
me to call her tomorrow as I hurry down her porch steps.
Now the night feels cool, and I shiver beneath my slightly damp clothes. Once again, we are quiet on the walk back, and I
am thankful for not having to pretend.
At our block, he stops, something clearly on his mind, but then he shakes his head and keeps walking to the entrance of the
hotel.
I stop him before he goes inside. “What are you thinking, Liam?” It is a loaded question, especially when I told him I need
to keep our time together about Ben.
He hesitates. “You really want to know?”
No. “Yes.”
“I’m thinking that now I know none of this is a coincidence.” His eyes are intense as he looks at me. “I’m here for a reason,
Harper. I found you again for a reason. I’m just not sure what it is yet.”
I don’t know what to say. I stand still for so long, he finally takes the cue, tells me good night, and enters his hotel. Part of me wants to run after him, to tell him to wait, to explain that even if this isn’t a coincidence, the timing is all wrong. I spent the better part of ten years wondering what my life would have been like if I hadn’t left New York or my one big opportunity or that loft or Liam, and then I forced myself to move on. But it wasn’t easy. It was never easy. And now, when time is so precious, so finite, I don’t want to waste time on what-ifs. But then I remind myself that almost everyone has that one big what-if, or a story about the one who got away. I’m no different, except my what-if is literally a few feet away.
The past and present mingle in my mind as I let myself into my building, rinse off in the shower, and climb into bed. It’s
been a long time since I thought about where my career went off the rails. So much of it feels like my fault because I wasn’t
brave enough to fight for what I wanted. Instead, I ran away from it all before I could inevitably fail. And yet here I am,
in this life, with a man I love and a man I used to love. A man I have to learn to lose. And once again, I have an opportunity
to be an artist.
But what if I try and fail again? I flip through a book, not really absorbing the words. Maybe that’s what this is really
about. I’m afraid that if I put myself out there again, I’ll somehow mess it up. That in this life I’m destined to be a teacher
in Chattanooga. Nothing more. Thinking about what could have been is just a waste of time.
I slam the book closed, plug in my phone, and text Ben good night. When we first met, Ben would always call me right before bed and stay on the line until I fell asleep. Hardly anyone I knew actually talked on the phone, instead communicating in poorly spelled text fragments. But not Ben. Now he gets tired if he talks too long, so we simply text. I know he needs to conserve his energy, that he is hopefully fast asleep, but a huge part of me wishes I could talk to him. I scroll through my texts and pause when I get to Liam’s number. If I’d had his number ten years ago, would I be somewhere else? If I had a cell phone? If I hadn’t run away?
Before I can think about it, I shoot him a quick text.
I really hope you understand, Liam. It’s all just too much.
The message goes from delivered to read, and then he’s typing back. I do understand. I will always wonder what would have happened if things had turned out differently, but the past is the past,
and I will always treasure our time together, Harper. Maybe in another life.
Tears slip down my cheeks because this feels like an ending to something... closure, maybe, after all these years. Maybe in another life , I quickly type back.
I place my phone on my nightstand and stare at the empty spot on Ben’s side. How will I sleep without him tonight? I’ve had
to sleep plenty of nights alone when he had to stay at the hospital and insisted I come home to get rest, but I never really
slept. I would worry about him in that stark room alone, with the whir of machines and the stench of sickness everywhere.
I would feel so guilty for being able to take a hot shower and sleep in our own bed that I would stay up half the night, defeating
the whole purpose of being home so I could rest.
I roll over to smell his pillow and pull out something crumpled behind it. I smooth the balled piece of paper flat and see
it’s Ben’s Master Plan. My eyes fill with tears as I read it again:
Master Plan: Find Harper Someone to Love Before I Go
Get Harper to agree to my crazy idea.
Once she is done telling me I’m an idiot, explain crazy idea.
Come up with a time line for crazy idea.
Find dates for Harper.
Find dates for Harper who don’t make her want to gag.
Find dates for Harper who aren’t sociopaths, psychopaths, or just lame.
Find the one for Harper who can make her laugh and take care of her the way she has taken care of me.
Remind her that I will be watching from beyond the grave... so she better not love him too much.
Now this list has an entirely new meaning. Knowing what I know. Having Liam show up out of the blue after Ben wrote this...
I smooth my fingers across the list again.
Tonight Ben is somewhere good, experiencing things with a group of people who all have something in common. A sole purpose.
And I am here, trying not to think about a past that was left so unfinished, that steered my life to what it is today.
I sigh and close my eyes.
What would life have been like if I’d stayed in New York?
As the question tumbles through my head, my phone dings and my heart kicks. Maybe Ben sensed that I need to talk. I hungrily
reach for my phone and realize it’s just a text from Wren.
DON’T FORGET IT’S THE FULL MOON! You MUST do the ritual tonight, Harper. Don’t forget. I mean it!!!!
I groan and replace my phone on my nightstand. I don’t even know where that piece of paper is. Part of me wants to go to sleep, but I know if I try, I won’t be able to. Not yet.
Before I can distract myself, my phone begins to buzz. Knowing it’s Wren before I even look at it, I swipe open my FaceTime
and see her face pop onto the screen. She’s whispering, Jenna asleep beside her. “Did you do it yet?”
“You literally just texted me thirty seconds ago,” I hiss.
She climbs out of bed and steps into her dark hallway. I can barely make out her features. “You have to do this, Harper. I
have a feeling.”
“A feeling that if I say some magic words and burn some paper that I’m going to get my happily ever after?”
She lights up a joint, takes a deep inhale, then exhales through her nose. The gray smoke curls around her, blocking the screen.
“Something like that.” She coughs.
“Ugh, hold please.” Throwing the covers back, I rummage through my clothes, trying to remember what pair of pants I was wearing.
Finally, I fish the piece of crumpled paper from the front pocket and wave it so she can see it. “Happy?”
“Not until you actually do it,” she says.
I read what I wrote, wondering if anything could really be that easy. Just say some words, make a wish, and boom! Your life
will be different in the morning.
“Are you going to stay on the phone while I do it?”
“Yep.”
Understanding that I am not going to win this fight, I grab a lighter from the bookshelf, next to a manifestation candle that Wren gifted me. If I’m going to do this, I might as well set the mood. I prop the phone on my nightstand so she can see me, then light the candle and place it next to my phone.
“Now get comfortable,” she instructs.
I climb onto my mattress and sit cross-legged, tugging a pillow into my lap.
“Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.”
I do as I’m told, taking a few stabilizing breaths, with the paper clutched in my hand.
“When you’re ready, open your eyes and repeat the words three times. But do it slowly, with feeling.”
Part of me wants to click the End Call button, but after a few beats, I open my eyes and stare at the words—my words—on the
page. Slowly, I begin to repeat them.
“I want Ben to be cancer-free. I want to be known for my art.” I take a shaky breath, slightly embarrassed, but continue with
more conviction. “I want Ben to be cancer-free. I want to be known for my art.” I pause for a moment and let those words sink
in before repeating them a third and final time. “I want Ben to be cancer-free. I want to be known for my art.” Even if I
feel silly, by the third round, my body begins to tingle and my fingers heat up around the piece of paper.
“Good. Do you feel that?” Wren murmurs.
How can she know I feel anything? Too stunned to speak, I simply nod.
“Now, I want you to burn the paper, and after it’s done, say, ‘And so it is, and it is so,’ to make it official.”
Clutching the paper, now warmed by my touch, I dangle it over the candle’s flame. I know that these are just words, and I’m only holding a simple piece of paper, but this whole thing suddenly feels significant. I let the edge of the paper catch fire and watch as it curls into a hot, black fragment, then bursts into ash.
“And so it is, and it is so,” I say.
After a few beats of silence, Wren lets out a massive sigh. “See you on the other side, sister. Sleep well.” She ends the
call, and my heart begins to pound in my chest. What does she mean she’ll see me on the other side? I sit there, unsteady
in my own body, before I blow out the candle and am thrust into darkness.
After a few minutes, my body still tingling, I snuggle under the covers and will myself to calm down. Though logically I know
nothing is going to happen, the idea of Ben being cancer-free is a gift I rarely allow myself to cling to anymore. Maybe that’s
why I feel so resistant: I don’t want to feel hope, even a shred of it, in case it doesn’t work out.
The words keep repeating in my head as I hover above sleep and then finally drift off, Ben and Liam clashing for space in
my heart and head.