16

 

Harriet was silent as I drove her back to her apartment block on the other side of town. I watched as she picked her thumbnail and studied it as if it was the most interesting thing in existence.

She hadn’t said much since Sarah had hijacked the Thanksgiving Eve dinner with her heinous announcement.

She had done what she had set out to do. Isolate me from Harry.

“Can I come up?” I asked, afraid to raise my voice from more than a whisper.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Harriet waited until the car had pulled to a stop in the lot adjacent from her building to speak. She gripped the handle to the door, pushing herself out of the deep bucket seat before I had a chance to put the car in park.

I was a gentleman. She knew that I would have opened the door for her. That I wanted to treat her like a lady. Always. But she was determined to escape.

A flash of anger ricocheted through me. Sarah’s ‘cat that got the cream’ expression flashed across my eyes and I slammed my fist down on the steering wheel. Sounding the horn, though that wasn’t my intention.

Harriet froze, her whisky eyes were wide as they reflected the orange glow of the street lamp outside. Her gaze travelled from my fist to my face. Fear laced through her expression and I hated that I put it there.

“I just want to talk.” I did not look at her, but buried my head in my hands. I was so fucking ashamed of what Sarah had done and I had no one to turn to within that moment. Now, the girl that I was falling in love with couldn’t get away from me fast enough.

Wait? Falling in love with?

Harriet leant forward and took my knuckle in her hand, brushing her thumb over the bumpy ridges.

“What am I meant to do, Elliot?” Harriet sighed, and her tone was defeated. “You got her pregnant.”

“This isn’t about her. It’s about us.” I said adamantly.

“Is it?” Harriet laughed without humour, her hand still on the handle to the car door. “Because it seems to me that if I meant anything to you, you would have told me that you got your ex-girlfriend pregnant.”

“She’s not my ex.”

“Fuck buddy. Side piece. Casual fling.” Harriet snarled. “But then again, why should you tell me? I'm just some stripper that you bang on Thursday nights!”

I wanted to tell her so badly. I wanted to explain how vulnerable I was. Emasculated and powerless I’d felt. How I’d always be plagued with doubt about what happened. Had I wanted it? Even though I was unconscious. Some part of me must have done because I’d gotten hard. Sarah couldn’t have gotten pregnant if my body hadn't been up for having sex with her.

I clenched my fists. My eyes were unseeing as my insecurities and questions rushed through my mind. As I looked into her whiskey eyes, I knew that I’d lose her. And the way that Harriet looked at me? Like I could fight ten bears and still come out victorious?

I didn’t want to give that up just yet.

The car door slammed and Harriet disappeared into the night. Our conversation was over. I didn’t know if our relationship was as well.

 

 

I’d driven around for a while after I dropped Harriet off. I didn’t want to go back to the Manor, though my father had invited all the men to his study for brandy and cigars.

The same study that Harriet and I had come together for the first time.

I pulled up outside of my own home on Goldryn Row. A small mansion, a newer addition to the street. I could see the bright spotlights of Goldryn Manor from my front garden, if I squinted. I pulled up into the garage, punched in the key code and entered my kitchen. I threw my car keys into the dish with such force that it knocked it on the side. There was a bottle of aged scotch on the counter with a note on the side. A gift from a contractor probably. I picked up the thick parchment before discarding it as unimportant.

Harriet had walked away from me. Silent tears had leaked out of her eyes as she had unlocked her door. She hadn’t looked back once.

I didn’t know if she would forgive me.

The past few weeks, with Harriet’s casual friendship and passionate sex had been beyond imaginable. She was a chameleon soul. Harry fitted into my life in whatever way that I needed her to. She was a tide. Ebbing and flowing. Always changing but remaining the same. Soft where I was hard. Strong but fragile. The perfect contradiction.

I grabbed the bottle of amber liquid and marched through my home, taking my steps two at a time. I slammed my bedroom door behind me and sunk down onto the comforter before I took a slug from the liquor as if it was water.

I reached into my jacket pocket and took out the wrinkled sonogram. I fucking hated Sarah for the way that she had stormed into my life. I rubbed my hand over my face, dragging my lips apart as my eyes fixed on the grainy black and white image.

It was a child. My child.

Regardless of how the bulbous-headed foetus had come to be created, the image didn’t lie.

I drank. And drank. And drank. Until blackness claimed me.