Chapter 17 Harper #2
“Stop.” He cups my face in his hands. “You’re not joking your way into handling this on your own.
I know you’ve handled everything else on your own, Harper.
A marriage you never wanted. A divorce that felt like a lifeline.
Starting a business. You’ve done all the big stuff on your own, so it won’t be easy for you to let me in.
But I’m in anyway. Don’t push me out when you need me the most.”
Aiden’s words hang between us, heavy and unyielding, and I don’t know where to put them. I want to deflect. I want to make another joke or change the subject or retreat into logistics, anything that keeps me from having to sit inside the vulnerability he handed me.
But there’s nowhere to hide in this moment. The police are still here. My life is still on fire. And Aiden is standing in front of me, refusing to let me shrink myself down into something easier to manage. Refusing to let me glance away from the truth of him.
Tears blur my vision. “I don’t know how to do this without hurting you. Every time I think I’ve made the right choice, something blows up. Literally.”
Aiden exhales slowly, like he’s been waiting for me to say that. He wraps me in his arms, comfort in human form. “Let me be here for you. With you. Let me stay this time. We will handle the explosions together.”
Before I can respond, a small voice cuts through the tension. “Mommy?”
I turn toward the sound immediately. Mason stands at the edge of the living room, clutching his dinosaur to his chest, eyes wide and anxious. He’s peering past us toward the windows. “Is the bad man going to hurt us?”
I crouch down in front of him, forcing my voice to stay steady even as my heart clenches painfully. “No, sweetheart. You’re safe.”
Aiden kneels beside me. “There are a lot of people making sure he can’t hurt us. And I’m right here. I won’t let anything happen to you or your mom.”
Mason studies his face carefully, as if weighing the truth of it. Then he nods, slow and serious, and steps forward to wrap his arms around Aiden’s neck in a tight hug. “Okay.”
I press my lips together to keep from breaking apart entirely.
Aiden returns the hug gently, one hand resting between Mason’s shoulders. When Mason finally pulls back, he looks calmer, reassured in the simple way children can be when they feel protected. “Can I watch cartoons?”
“Yes,” I say immediately. “Pick something loud.”
He pads off toward the couch and settling in with his dinosaur, the world already shrinking back down to a manageable size. The cartoon his picks is indeed loud.
Aiden and I remain where we are, kneeling side by side on the living room floor, the weight of everything still pressing in but less suffocating now that Mason has found his footing again.
I look at Aiden, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I don’t want to push you away. I’m just… afraid of what happens if I don’t.”
He nods, understanding in his eyes. “We both thought we were poison. We were both wrong.”
I wipe a tear and sniffle, trying not to burst into tears completely in front of Mason.
He’s settled into the couch with the dinosaur tucked under his arm, eyes flicking to the windows every so often before the cartoon’s colors pull him back in.
I stand and pace the length of the living space, careful to keep my movements contained, aware that Mason is watching even when he pretends not to be.
The urge to do something—anything—presses hard against my ribs. I want to clean. Organize. Make a list and start checking boxes because lists make chaos feel like they have an end date.
Aiden watches me for a moment, then gently intercepts my orbit. He doesn’t grab my arm or block my path. He simply steps into it and offers his hand, palm up, like an invitation instead of a command. “Sit,” he says quietly. “Just for a minute.”
I hesitate, then take it. We sit at the island where the detective had been earlier, the recorder gone now, but the echo of questions still hanging in the air. I rest my elbows on the counter and drop my face into my hands, dragging a breath down into my lungs until it hurts.
“I know I’m not responsible for what Marcus chose to do.
I know that… logically. He’s a grown man.
He’s responsible for his own actions.” I breathe and breathe and breathe again.
It doesn’t clear the fog. “But in my heart… my loud, annoying heart says I should be in control of everything around me. That when I’m in control, then I’m safe.
So, I try to control it all, even other people’s actions, so I can stay safe. ”
Aiden leans forward, forearms on the counter, shoulders squared like he’s bracing against a wave.
“Your heart is lying to you. It tells you there was a clean path you missed. There wasn’t.
Your heart is imagining a perfect world with you in charge, so you can feel safe.
And don’t get me wrong—I’d love it if you controlled everything. ”
I don’t know how he can make me laugh at a time like this, but he does. “Oh, really?”
“I’m of the opinion that you’d be a perfect world ruler. But I’m also glad that you’re not, because you’d be too busy for date nights and cuddly sex and ice cream.”
I lace my fingers with his. “So, then it’s a good thing I’m not in charge, huh?”
He nods once, the corner of his mouth lifting. “A very good thing.”
Inside the living room, Mason eventually falls asleep on the couch, cartoon noises fading into soft, uneven breaths.
I carry him to the guest bed and tuck him in carefully, smoothing his hair back and lingering longer than necessary, my palm resting on his back until the rise and fall of his breathing steadies my own.
Aiden waits in the living room, giving me space without leaving. When I come back out, he looks up, concern softening into relief when he sees me standing instead of unraveling.
“He’s out.”
“Good,” he replies. “You okay?”
I nod, though the word feels approximate at best. “I think I need to write things down. My brain won’t shut up.”
He gestures toward his office without hesitation. “Use whatever you need.”
The office is neat in a way that feels intentional.
Not sterile, but orderly. A place built for thinking through problems and containing them.
I sit at the desk and reach for a pen, then realize there isn’t one on the surface.
I open the top drawer, expecting paper clips, batteries, or the mundane clutter of everyday life.
Instead, an envelope slides forward. Must have jerked the drawer too hard. The envelope is old. Yellowed at the edges, creased like it’s been handled and re-handled. My name is written across the front. Beneath it is an address I haven’t used in years. My college apartment.
He wrote this back then?
For a long moment, I stare at it, my fingers hovering like touching it might make it disappear. The room feels suddenly smaller, the air thicker. I glance toward the door, half-expecting Aiden to be standing there, but he’s still in the living room, giving me privacy.
I pick up the envelope.
It’s heavier than it should be. Not physically—emotionally. Six years of silence packed into something thin and fragile. I turn it over in my hands, noticing that it was never opened, never mailed. The stamp is missing. The flap is sealed.
Never sent.
He never intended to send it to me. Never wanted me to read it.
Now, that’s all I want in the world. A distraction.
I swallow hard, my heart pounding in my ears. Every possible version of what could be inside presses forward at once. Apologies. Confessions. Explanations I didn’t get when I needed them most. Or maybe something simpler. Something worse.
Whatever it is, it’s none of my business. He didn’t send it for a reason. I respect his privacy.
But…
I slide it back into the drawer carefully, as if returning it to its place might keep the past contained where it belongs. My hands are shaking when I finally find a pen and scribble a few scattered thoughts onto a notepad, the words barely legible as I try to empty my head enough to sleep.
When I step back into the living room, Aiden looks up immediately. “You find what you needed?”
“I think so,” I say, and mean it in a way he can’t possibly know.
He nods, accepting that answer without pushing. We sit in silence for a while after that, the city lights dimming beyond the glass, the day finally loosening its grip.
But even as I close my eyes later, lying awake in the dark, all I can think about is the envelope in the drawer.
My name. His handwriting. And the six years it waited for me without a single word.