I’ve dreamed of being in this very situation—not the specifics but the circumstances. I’ve closed my eyes each and every night praying that my sleep would be filled with this fantasy, the one where Harlow forgives me for the past and still holds promises of a future. I’d close my eyes as the cell door locked behind me and try my hardest to recall every detail of her face. Each single freckle and the unruly way the waves of her blonde hair tumbled in uncontrollable masses over her slim shoulders. I’d lie still, doing my best to ignore the sound of keys rattling, deadbolts grinding metal against metal, and guards reprimanding rowdy inmates. I’d picture her smile and hope that my subconscious wouldn’t take over, peppering my sleep with the horrible fragments of my new reality.
I want to savor this moment of Harlow standing in front of me, wanting me, and the fact that it’s real and not a fantasy. But that’s exactly what’s made me stall: I’m not so sure that it is. I remember my mother always telling me to never make a decision when feeling especially emotional, and I know that’s what Harlow’s doing now. I’ve lived with the burden of regret, and I’ll be damned if I inadvertently force her to do the same. I want to make love to her more than I want my next breath, but I’d rather die a thousand deaths than cause her any more pain.
“We shouldn’t do this.” The words slice at my throat as I force them out, but I make sure I say them loud enough to be clear. They hurt almost as much as the look of embarrassment that has her scrambling to pull her shirt back on.
“It’s not that I don’t want to, Harlow. God, if you only knew what I wanted to do to you right now.”
“But you won’t.” She smoothes the fabric over the top of her thighs, brings her eyes back up to meet mine and verbally slaps me. “You don’t want to hurt me, right? Well, news flash, Ellis, that ship sailed a long time ago.”
“You’ll regret it—this. If it goes any further you’ll end up hating me even more.”
She must know that I’m right because I catch the way her shoulders drop the smallest fraction, and this win suddenly feels like a massive loss. I reach for her, not knowing if I’ll be met with hostility or apathy, and not really caring. I just want to touch her. The tip of my index finger brushes down her forearm and over her wrist. I’m so preoccupied with the prickling of energy that sparks over the pad of my fingertip that my eyes trace the line I’m drawing to her palm. When her hand catches mine and she steps into me, pulling my arm around her back as she presses her face into my chest, I have to resist the temptation to change my mind and drop any sense of morality to the floor along with her panties.
“I’m kind of struggling here,” I whisper into her hair. “You don’t make it easy to do the honorable thing when you let me hold you like this.” I rest my cheek against the top of her head and squeeze her tighter to me, shamelessly hungry for any form of contact I can get.
“I should clean this spilled milk. The whole house will start to smell, and it’s late. I need to go back to bed.” In spite of her words she makes no effort to acknowledge my admission or pull away from our embrace.
“I’ll help.”
Neither one of us moves for a solid five minutes, despite the fact that we’re both covered in goose bumps and beginning to shiver. I’ll let Harlow decide to break away first. I think if it were up to me, I’d never let her go again.
I figure coffee is always a good ice breaker, and Harlow could never function very well in the morning without it. I busy myself brewing a pot when I hear the floorboards above me squeak, letting me know she’s about to come down. I didn’t want to up and leave without seeing her this morning, especially since I’m not sure when I’ll get another chance. I don’t even know where she lives anymore, but her overnight bag clued me in on the fact that it isn’t here.
“Morning, sunshine!” I say with more familiarity than she looks comfortable with as she enters the kitchen.
For a second she looks somewhat shocked before she notices my actions and makes her way toward where I’m pouring two cups of coffee. She snatches the closest cup and hugs it close to her chest, inhaling its aroma like an angry little caffeine junkie. I physically try to suppress my amusement by dragging my hand over my face, tempering my urge to smile. I’d forgotten just how moody she is when she first wakes up. If you ever need the definition of an anti-morning person, it’s Harlow Stevens.
While she tentatively sips at her coffee I steal glances over my own cup, letting my eyes wander over the woman that stands in place of the girl I left behind. My reasoning had seemed so clear and sound in my own mind when I decided that pushing her away would be the best thing for her. It’s what got me through the time I spent locked up. I wanted the best for her, and I’d proven unequivocally that wasn’t me. I believed that fact, clung to it when I wanted to cave and write to her, begging her to come visit me. Looking at her now, my reasoning doesn’t seem quite so astute. I may not be viewing her in the best of circumstances, and I know that ambushing her hasn’t helped any, but she doesn’t look happy or full of vigor, she doesn’t even look overly well. What she looks is bone tired, and weary.
“How are you feeling this morning?” I ask conversationally, hoping that the unease settling in my gut is unfounded. The pallor of her skin causes me concern, and I quickly realize that I don’t know this Harlow or at least this version of her. I noticed her taking her medication last night, but never pressed for information and I’m now observing that I probably should have.
“Been better,” she says taking a seat at the kitchen table.
At least her level of sass is healthy.
“You’re not looking too good.” I move over to where she’s sitting. “Do you need to take anything?”
“I’m fine, Ellis.”
“If there’s one thing on this earth I know to be true, it’s that when a woman tells you she’s fine, you’re screwed because she’s anything but.” I grin—a small attempt at baiting her into opening up—but she looks away instead, and it does nothing to make me feel any better.
“The new drugs I’m on don’t make me feel too great if I haven’t eaten. I’ll be okay once I’ve got some food in me.” There’s a sad tone to her answer that stops me from pressing any further about her health. I know she’s not telling me something, but I don’t have the right to demand she explain what it is, no matter how much I want to know.
“How about I take you to breakfast? We can kick back and watch the scandal it causes over pancakes and bacon?” It’s a long shot to get her to spend more time with me, and in truth I’m amazed I’ve managed to stretch things out this long. So when she agrees, I almost choke on my coffee.
“Fine, but you’re buying. I can’t be too long either, I have stuff I need to do today.”
“No, great. That’s great,” I stammer, draining my cup and placing it in the sink as I pass. “I’ll go grab my jacket.”
I race up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and round into the room I spent last night in before she can change her mind. It’s only when I spin around that I realize I wasn’t even wearing a jacket last night. I push my hands through my hair and take a deep breath, forcing myself to slow down. Her agreeing to breakfast is because she’s hungry, and I can’t let what almost happened in a confused moment of haste fog the reality of our situation. I notice my cell on the bedside, snatch it up and make my way back downstairs with a fraction more composure and renewed sense of reality.
“Let’s walk,” she says zipping up the red parker she’s slipped on over her cream sweater. Her jeans are rolled at the ankle and true to form she’s wearing a weathered pair of blue Chuck Taylors. I’m still wearing the slacks and white shirt I’d arrived in yesterday, the only difference is a day’s worth of scruff over my face and a watery mascara tearstain by my shoulder. I’d rubbed it with a wet towel, but it seems it’s there to stay—a reminder of what I do to Harlow.
“Sure, you want to head over to the Bait House?”
“Best pancakes in town—where else would we be going?”
“That’s good with me.” I gesture toward the door. “After you.”
I follow a step behind, allowing myself the luxury of watching her without making her feel uncomfortable, or at least I hope I’m not. I hadn’t lied when I said that pancakes sounded good, but every step closer to the Bait House reminds me that it’s a step closer to having her tell me goodbye. She’s already said she has plans today, and I don’t want to leave her yet but I don’t have a good enough reason to stick around if she’s not going to be here. This place holds the best and worst memories of my life, and there’s not a single one that doesn’t involve Harlow.
We’ve almost made it to the pier before she finally breaks the near silence neither one of us seemed in a rush to fill. “This feels strange, like déjà vu, don’t you think?” The wind rolls across the frothy whitecaps of the Atlantic, whipping her hair over her cheeks as she turns toward me.
My hands stuff themselves deep into the pockets of my slacks, my arms rigid at my side warding off the early morning chill from the ocean. “It’s déjà vecu,” I say pensively to myself rather than answering Harlow.
She stops, turning entirely to look at me now, making a futile effort to push her hair behind her ears and stop it from distorting her vision. “What was that?” she asks, looking confused, while fighting an impossible war with the wind.
“I said it’s déjà vécu, not vu. It’s what most people are experiencing when they think they are feeling déjà vu.”
I’m greeted with a telling blank stare. She has no clue what I’m talking about, so I carry on. “Déjà vu is the sense of having seen something before, right? Only, that’s not what this is. This is déjà vécu, the experience of having seen an event before, but in great detail, so much so that you can even recognize the smells and sounds. We must have walked to this pier, what, maybe a thousand times? We’ve smelled the salt in the air, and listened to the ocean lap and break against the legs of the pier without even consciously realizing it. That’s what’s brought on the sudden sense of familiarity…déjà vécu.”
She blinks a few times, the ghost of a smile appearing. “That’s probably one of the most nerdish things I’ve ever heard you say. Why would you even know that?”
I laugh a little at the way her expression has knitted her brows together. “I’ve always been a wealth of useless information; you know that.”
The moment I say the words aloud, I catch something pass over her that steals the tiny smile from her lips and triggers the realization that she used to know that. These days we don’t really know anything about each other at all.
The gulls circling above cry out, harmonizing gently with the whistling breeze and crashing waves, a bittersweet symphony that makes me ache with regret. “Let’s go,” I say, pointing in the direction of the Bait House and gently guiding her elbow. She turns to face forward while I do my best to stop from looking back.
Sitting in our old booth overlooking the water, while trying to have light conversation to avoid the heavy one we should be having, is harder than I expect. The waitress, thankfully nobody I knew, took our order swiftly but has yet to return with our drinks. Harlow’s fiddling with the corner of her blue paper napkin and I want her attention on me.
“I feel like I have a million and one questions for you, but I can’t think of where to start,” I admit.
Her eyes flick up from the table, and she crosses her arms in front of her. It’s a defensive move, but her face doesn’t display the same guardedness her body does. “Go for it, what do you want to know?”
I’m not expecting her forthright response and now I’m on the spot, wondering how deep I can delve. Should I jump in with both feet, ask about her relationship status? Enquire about her heart condition? Casually ask if she thinks she could ever love me again? I settle for a paltry. “Okay, where are you living these days? I noticed you had an overnight bag with you yesterday.”
“I’m not far,” she answers, adjusting herself in her seat. “I moved to Raleigh after graduation. I’m still close to the hospital for work, but I’m a little closer to Mom, so it works well.”
“You work at the hospital, where? Duke?”
“Yeah,” she says with a smile that I can’t help but mirror. “I’m a counselor.”
An acute sense of relief washes over me, and something in my chest feels instantly lighter. I’ve carried a certain amount of dread with me for so long that what I did—how I left—altered her life for the worse. Not that the event itself didn’t completely blow her world wide open, but the fact that she went on to achieve her goals, even after the damage I caused, makes me so incredibly proud of her. I want to tell her that, but I don’t know how to voice it without it sounding contrived or condescending.
“That’s great,” I murmur. “I bet you’re fantastic at it.”
She snorts and unfolds her arms. “I wouldn’t go that far, but I definitely enjoy it. It has its rewards.”
I’m about to ask her more about that when her cell rings, and I catch sight of the display as she retrieves it from her jacket resting over the seat next to her.
“Sorry, I need to get this.” She looks a little uncomfortable and angles herself away from me.
Martin. Whoever’s calling is named Martin, and she looks uncomfortable. Is he her boyfriend? Oh, God. Suddenly I feel overwhelmingly sick. Where the hell was the waitress with our drinks? I need something to push down the bile I can feel rising up at the prospect of her being with someone else. Why had I just assumed she wouldn’t be in a relationship? Oh Christ, what if she’s married? Why hadn’t that been my first question? I can feel my throat closing up as I lean to the side so I can get a look at her ring finger.
Gloriously bare.
I can breathe now.
That doesn’t mean that this Martin person isn’t her boyfriend, though, and the reprieve at the absence of a wedding ring is short lived when I tune in to her hushed conversation.
“How’s my baby boy been? I hope you managed to get some sleep last night and he didn’t keep you up too much.”
It’s as though the world tilts with that one sentence and throws me completely off my axis.
“Yeah,” she continues. “He’s going through that clingy phase.”
The waitress appears and places a pitcher of water between us. The glasses clatter as she deposits them from her tray onto the table, obscuring what Harlow is saying to Martin. Fucking Martin.
“Whose is the decaf coffee?” she asks, and I stare vacantly at the name badge on her navy Bait House shirt, not knowing how to make my voice work.
Harlow lifts her hand signaling it’s hers as she continues to talk on her cell and I continue to suffocate slowly in my seat, letting her words murder me internally while she laughs at something Martin just said.
“Sorry about that,” she says once the call has been disconnected and her cell placed back into her jacket pocket. She must register my internal anguish when she brings her attention fully back to me because she asks, “Are you alright?”
No. Not even close. I almost bark. “Everything okay at home?” I challenge instead, not bothering to hide the hurt obvious in my voice. I’m waiting for her to confess that she has a baby. A baby, and no doubt a boyfriend too. A family she didn’t think to mention when we almost fucked in her mother’s kitchen last night.
Harlow’s eyes narrow, her posture stiffening with the action. “Yes, everything’s fine.”
I can’t believe she’s not going to elaborate. My blood runs white hot under my skin; I have absolutely no right to be mad, but I am. I’m furious, and devastated and a thousand other emotions that I don’t have time to label. I spit my next works like they’re poison on my tongue.
“Who’s Martin?”
She shifts but doesn’t look remorseful, not even a little.
Goddamn it.
“Sharpe, you’ve met him, remember?” her words are delivered low and cool, an exact opposite to mine.
Martin Sharpe? I roll the name around in my mind, waiting for some form of recollection. “Martin…from Duke? Your old counselor?” I feel like I’m about to pass out. “You had a baby with Martin.” It’s a statement, not a question and it takes her by surprise. She drops the water pitcher she’s holding.
“What? No!” Incredulity is laced through those two small words, and it colors her cheeks. The water sloshes over the side of the jug, but miraculously it rights itself and doesn’t topple over.
“But, you just said—” I let my words trail, completely perplexed.
“What are you talking about, Ellis? He called to ask what time I’d be home because he’s dog sitting my new puppy.”
I’ve never wanted to kiss her as badly as I do right now. My pulse is almost painful as it throbs rapidly under my flesh. I drop back, sagging in my seat as the tension ebbs across my shoulders and scrub my hand over my face.
“So you’re not with him?” I clarify as an afterthought.
“I think his wife and kids would have a problem with me if I were.”
I reach over and take a long drink of water from her glass, almost draining it in one gulp.
“What’s gotten into you?” she asks as I place the glass back down between us.
“I’m sorry, Harlow, I don’t know.” I laugh humorlessly. “I heard you say something about a baby and, and, I don’t know, I guess my mind sort of ran away with itself.”
“You look like you’re about to have a heart attack, Ellis. Which is kind of ironic if you think about it, since I’m the one sitting here with heart failure.”
She winks and re-pours herself another glass of water.
“Heart failure,” I echo. “What do you mean you’re sitting here with heart failure? You’re joking, right?” I ask the question already knowing she’s not. I can feel it, and don’t ask me to explain; I just know it’s the truth.
Harlow’s mouth tips down at the sides and the back of my throat and nose begins to burn as I watch her countenance soften. I try my best to swallow down the panic as she meets my worried eyes with ones that hold an acceptance I’m in no way prepared for.
“I need a heart transplant, Ellis, and I need one soon.”
I hold my breath; it’s not a conscious action, I just somehow stop breathing as I process her words. A thousand questions fight their way to the forefront of my mind, causing a surge of confusion and fear to careen into me, threating to knock me down. I don’t trust my voice to not break if I try speaking any of them. I don’t want to believe that this is real.
My stunned silence must unnerve her.
“Are you going to say something?” she urges after a long moment.
“I, I…” my mouth opens and closes like a goldfish. I shake my head, trying to settle on just one thought and failing. When I meet her eyes again, I know what I want to ask. “Are you scheduled for a transplant? Are you at the top of the list?”
Her eyes drop to the floor taking my heart along with them. You don’t look away to answer a question like that if it’s good news. She lets out a soft, almost inaudible sigh and doesn’t look at me when she answers with only one word.
“No.”