HARPER #3
"I need more from you than stolen moments between your clients and those kids at the center. When's the last time we had a full weekend together?"
Harper opened her refrigerator now, staring at its sparse contents—yogurt, leftover takeout, and a bottle of wine she'd been saving for some celebration that never came. She could hear Matt's voice as clearly as if he were standing behind her.
"Maybe you should cut back on the volunteering. We could have our weekends back. And your evening sessions—do you really need to see clients until eight o'clock? Other therapists manage normal hours."
Even now, the memory of her response made her chest tight with a mixture of anger and something that might've been grief.
"Those kids need consistency, Matt. I can't just abandon them because you want more date nights."
"I'm not asking you to abandon anyone. I'm asking you to make room for us."
Harper pulled a frozen dinner from the freezer—some processed approximation of comfort food wrapped in cheerful packaging that promised satisfaction it couldn't deliver.
Matt's final words echoed in the kitchen's silence. "I need someone who can give me the attention you give those kids. I need to matter as much as your job."
The microwave hummed to life, and Harper found herself leaning against the counter, remembering the cold finality in his voice when she'd refused to reduce her hours or give up her weekend volunteering.
She'd expected him to argue, to fight for what they'd built together.
Instead, he'd nodded like she'd confirmed something he'd already decided.
The frozen dinner rotated slowly behind the microwave's glass door, and Harper watched it with the same detached attention she'd given Matt as he packed his things. He was professional, efficient, like he was checking items off a list rather than dismantling a three-year relationship.
Maybe it's better this way, she'd told herself then. No distractions. No one demanding time I don't have.
The microwave beeped, and Harper carried her dinner to the dining table where Matt had delivered his ultimatum. The pasta tasted like cardboard and artificial herbs, but she ate methodically, the way she did everything—focused on the task rather than the experience.
Her house felt enormous and claustrophobic simultaneously.
Every room held evidence of her carefully constructed solitude: the bedroom where she slept alone, the second bedroom she'd converted into a home office, the living room where she spent evenings reviewing case files instead of sharing them with someone who cared about her victories and frustrations.
I'm a competent, strong woman who pours herself into others, Harper reminded herself, stabbing at her reconstituted vegetables. That's important work. That matters.
But her traitorous heart whispered back. What about someone pouring themselves into you? What about healing the broken parts of you? What about feeling like you're enough just as you are?
Harper pushed the thought away with practiced efficiency. She'd learned long ago that depending on others was a luxury she couldn't afford—a lesson her childhood had driven home with brutal clarity. Self-reliance was safety. Independence was strength.
She finished her meal in silence, rinsed the plastic container, and headed toward her bedroom to pack for tomorrow's mysterious assignment. Soon, her suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed, and she began folding clothes with methodical precision.
Mountain weather, Gerri had said. Harper packed warm layers, sturdy boots, and professional clothes that could handle whatever she might encounter in a shifter community that didn't exist on maps.
As she worked, the house seemed to press in around her, amplifying every small sound—the whisper of fabric, the soft thud of shoes hitting the suitcase bottom, the distant hum of her neighbor's television through the thin walls.
This shifter community will be a change of pace, she told herself, folding a sweater with military precision. I should try to enjoy it while helping this Lila girl.
But even as she thought it, Harper knew she was lying to herself. She didn't know how to enjoy anything anymore—had forgotten the skill somewhere between building her career and constructing walls so high that even she couldn't see over them.
Tomorrow she'd drive into the mountains with a woman whose eyes changed color, to help a traumatized girl in a community that valued secrecy.
It should have felt like adventure, like possibility.
Instead, it felt like another assignment, another problem to solve, another way to avoid examining the hollow spaces in her own life.
I'll be busy, just like I prefer. I won't have time to think about how alone I really am.
Tomorrow would bring new challenges, new people to help, new ways to prove her worth through usefulness rather than simply existing.
It was exactly the life she'd built for herself. Safe, controlled, and utterly, devastatingly empty.