“Regan, can we talk?” My legs feel like jelly from the non-stop nervous jiggle when I pull myself to stand up. The hard leather chair outside the meeting room has been making my bum numb for a good thirty minutes. As much as I hated leaving Ruby this morning, I also didn’t want to be late. I walk toward Harper and make a sweeping hand gesture down my crisp clean outfit of choice.
“Sure, what’s up? Do I look all right? I thought my scrubs might work in my favour but I can borrow one of your suits if you think that will look better. I’m not sure we have time for me to change, though.” My garbled muttering isn’t the only evidence of my rocketing anxiety. I can feel sweat droplets gather at the back of my neck and trickle a path the length of my spine, my stomach feels like a raging ball of acid, and I’m one bad swallow away from throwing up my non-existent breakfast.
“You look fine.” She takes my elbow and steers me away from the seating area outside of the arbitrator’s office. We walk until we reach the ladies’ restroom, and when she’s done checking underneath all the stalls, she turns to face me, and my stomach drops.
“What’s wrong?”
“Did you ever tell Joel that you couldn’t cope? That you hated Ruby?”
“No!” I grab the instant hit of pain in my chest like she’s struck an almighty punch at my heart.
“Did you tell Joel about screaming at Ruby, leaving her weak lungs to gasp for air and cry herself to sleep?”
“No…I…I, Oh, god, he wouldn’t?” I buckle with the pain, a direct hit, as agony and despair explode inside me.
“Actually, he wouldn’t, but his lawyer just gave me the heads up. She made it perfectly clear that if this isn’t settled, she will insist this information being made available in court.”
“I’ve never told anyone that story, not even you. I was so ashamed.” Tears I’d been valiantly keeping at bay all morning burst their banks and stream down my face. Harper holds my shoulders, her face a mix of twisted comfort and concern. The former I can handle, the latter isn’t what I need to see and frankly terrifies me.
“I-I can’t believe this. I only told him a few days ago, when Ruby was…” I suck back the sobs tearing through me, and I stutter to explain. “I thought I was losing her, and I felt like the worst mother. He tried to comfort me and I wouldn’t hear any of it. I told him just how bad a mother I had been. I was distraught. I never dreamed he’d use that against me.”
“Is there anything else you shared that I don’t know about?” Her flat tone fails to mask the hurt in her voice.
“No, I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t think this was even a possibility, so I don’t know. I’m sorry, Harper.” I couldn’t feel any worse right now. I should’ve told her, if not back then, I should’ve told her last night when she asked all those damn questions about me and Joel. I was perhaps a little embarrassed, but I wasn’t remotely ashamed, and I shared all my secrets. What I did to Ruby that night, I’ll never forgive myself for.
However slighted, Harper’s focus is rightly with the task in hand.
“I know you said no last night, but I have to at least let it slip—” Harper waves her phone in her hand and quirks her lips with her tentative inquiry that I shut down before she finishes speaking.
“No! I won’t stoop, Harper.”
“We don’t have to put anything in writing. I can just casually leave a photo on my screen on the table, face up.”
“What? You have photo?”
“I have one of you with four finger print bruises around your neck the day you got back from the cabin.” She scrolls through her phone and holds it out to me. Shocked and almost speechless, I snatch her phone. The screen fills with the image of the living room in my sister’s apartment. I’m lying on the sofa, asleep and I don’t even have to zoom in to see the marks Joel left on me. My hand flies to my neck, the skin tingles with the ghost of the pressure I can feel as fresh as I remember how those bruises got there. It was amazing, wonderful, and I feel violated by the harsh light of the picture before me.
“You took photos! As in, more than one?” Anger bubbles inside me, and I don’t know which emotion is going to surface, rage, betrayal, or hurt.
“I was worried. I kept them in a private folder.” She bristles at the accusation in my voice. Her back straightens and she takes a discrete step back.
“You have a folder?” My jaw clenches, my fists too. I don’t believe this.
“I was worried for my best friend.” She tries to defend her actions, and as angry as I am, I can hear the panic in her voice and see the sincerity in her eyes. I have to remind myself this is Harper; she does things differently, but she has my back, always has, and always will. She loves me, and I love her.
“If you were so worried, why did you never ask me?” I exhale, as I force myself to let this go.
“I assumed you would tell me if you were in trouble, and up until very recently, I thought you had told me everything.” Her shoulders slump, and there is no accusation in her tone; she’s just a little hurt. I nod my understanding and cup my hand for her to hand over the evidence.
“Show me.”
“It’s only a few pictures.”
“Show me.” She hands me the phone with the secret folder open. The gallery of pictures is only four. Even so… “Fuck, these look bad.” I flick between the images, all of me asleep, and I fight the creepy vibe that she has one of me spread eagled, completely naked on my front in my bed. I happen to remember the heat wave we endured that summer, so catching me naked wasn’t a stealthy operation.
She takes the phone back and quips optimistically, “Or good.”
“No. I said no last night, and I meant it.” My tone holds no argument. I am shutting this down. “Joel did nothing wrong here, despite what this would look like in a court. It was consensual, and I won’t burn him for doing something I wanted. It would ruin his career. He’s a good doctor, Harper, and he loves his job. I won’t be responsible for taking that away.”
She hits back, softly but the strike is painfully accurate and my heart stills. “Even if that means losing Ruby?”
“I’m not going to lose Ruby,” I state with more conviction than I confidently feel.
“He’ll have more than what his lawyer let slip here, Regan. Trust me, this isn’t the end of it.”
“Maybe, but I won’t lie.”
“Fine.”
“Come on, Harper, where’s your fighting spirit? Since when do you need to play dirty?” I step to her side and squeeze a sideways hug. She tilts her head to keep eye contact, and a wicked, knowing smile spreads like warm treacle across her face, glossy, tempting, and so bad for you.
“You really don’t know me at all, do you, Reggie? That’s what I do.” She winks and nods for me to follow her long legs as they eat up the distance to the restroom door.
We walk in silence down the corridor, her arm threaded through mine. She keeps me moving at a pace even when panic knocks me sideways at seeing Joel seated in the same chair I only recently vacated. My stomach clenches with tight anxious knots, and saliva pools in my mouth as I struggle to swallow without heaving. He looks effortlessly immaculate in a crisp white shirt, a casual, light honey-coloured linen jacket and dark jeans. His dirty blonde hair isn’t so much styled as artfully arranged in a sexy this-way-and-that mess of thick unruly strands. He stands when the person who must be his lawyer, approaches. Confident, easy charm rolls off him, and I falter when he turns to face me. His immediate instinctual smile wavers on his soft, full lips when his eyes fix on me, and even from this distance, I can see the contradiction, they hold more uncertainty than I do in my whole body. He’s worried.
Harper stands stiffly at my side when we reach the door.
“Regan.” Joel gives a curt nod and seems to savour my name in his mouth, as though he has rolled it around and let it rumble from his lips with the gravelly undertone of his voice. It makes the hairs on my neck spark to life, even today, damn him.
“Assface.”
“Extremely mature,” his lawyer snarks with a sickly smile. I pinch back a tight smile, irritated that’s she’s right.
“Alison.” Joel’s deep reprimanding tone makes his lawyer jolt, contrition replacing her brief smug expression.
“Shall we?” Harper opens the door and allows Joel and his lawyer through before whispering to me as I enter. “Not helpful, Regan,”
I mutter under my breath, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.”
“Try harder.”