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Protecting His Baby by Nikki Chase (23)

Harper

“Are you okay, Harper?” Melinda stops by my desk with her cup of afternoon tea. “You don’t look too well. You seem really tired.”

“Is it that obvious?” I cringe. I try to be professional at work regardless of what happens in my personal life, but my mind has been running in circles, and my body is apparently starting to be affected, too.

“Yeah,” she says. “You haven’t been yourself since you got back to work. You know, after you took your sick days.”

“Yeah.” I give Melinda a weak smile.

Guilt creeps into my conscience. I told the whole office I had a crazy-high fever and had to ask a neighbor to drive me to a hospital where I was diagnosed with a bad case of the flu.

I know it sounds excessive, but I disappeared without calling because there was no signal at Logan’s house, and I had to come up with a good enough cover-up story.

I mean, I can’t just tell people I skipped work because I ran into my dead boyfriend’s long-lost twin brother and spent a couple of days being held hostage in his house where we also had hot, kinky sex.

“I heard about this bad strain of the flu that’s been going around. I read on the news there was even this teacher who died from it. The flu season is just really bad this year.” Melinda eyes me with a mixture of concern and caution. “Maybe you should go home. If you still don’t feel well tomorrow; as far as I know you still have plenty of sick days left since you’re always at work.”

I laugh softly along with her, knowing she’s probably more worried about getting infected herself than she is about my well-being.

But now I have a good excuse to go home early, so I’ll take it.

I fake a small cough. “Yeah. It’s almost five anyway. I think I should go home.”

I gather up my stuff and say goodbye to Melinda, then walk my usual route home, not even paying attention to my surroundings. I know these sidewalks like the back of my hand.

Not too long ago, I’d scoff at anyone who dared to suggest going home early. I was dedicated to my work, and I wasn’t going to let some stupid flu keep me away from my desk. Leaving the office early was for the weak.

But I guess Logan has made me weak.

Nobody has died, but I feel like my heart has been grabbed, squeezed, twisted, and wrung out. Honestly, I feel much like the way I did when Mark died.

Is it because I feel like I’m losing Mark all over again?

Or have I come to care about Logan the way I cared about Mark?

Oh, God.

What does it matter?

What’s the point of obsessing over this?

Mark is gone forever, and Logan wants me gone from his life forever.

The healthy thing to do is forget about them and move on with my life. I’m pretty sure that’s what my therapist would say, even though I haven’t seen her since coming back from Logan’s.

In fact, I haven’t left my apartment except to go to work since coming home. I don’t even go out to buy groceries or eat out. I simply get food delivered every single day and stay in my PJs all the time.

It’s such a cliché, I know. I’m that girl from every romantic comedy ever who wastes her life away on the couch, eating reheated pizza and ice cream from the tub.

But I guess clichés exist for a reason.

I almost walk past the brightly-lit mall when I remember something. I need to make a stop at the drugstore. Or maybe I should just order the thing online and get it delivered so I can get back to my couch a few minutes earlier?

Nah. I need to at least make an effort. Stopping by the drugstore isn’t such a big chore, damn it. I can do it.

So, I enter the heated building with the shiny floors, brilliant lighting, and loud people. Ah, the mall. The temple to commercialism.

Like every teenager, I loved the mall. Then, it completely lost any appeal to me.

I have no idea if I grew out of it or if I was too depressed after Mark’s death to enjoy anything.

All I know is everyone here looks happier than me. Every single one of them. Except for that one middle-aged guy manning the information desk while playing on his phone, looking bored.

I wish I enjoyed this like most people. Why can’t I take pleasure in the things other people do? What is wrong with me?

I used to take pride in the fact that I wasn’t like most people. Most people didn’t take their careers seriously and most people didn’t achieve as many things as I did in a short time.

But I realize now that was only a Band-Aid I used to deal with the loneliness of having no family to rely on (although there are people who are fine despite being on their own), and of having lost someone I deeply cared about in such a sudden, tragic way (although there are people who have lost their loved ones and gone on to have great lives).

Now, I feel like I’ve lost Logan, too. The only person with whom I connect after years and years of loneliness.

But I never had him. So what am I grieving for?

As I enter the drugstore, I quickly find the aisle where they stock the thing that I need. This isn’t my first time buying it, but it still feels weird.

I pick up the product from the shelf and hold it in my hand, turning it over to read the writing on the box.

The last time I bought this, Mark was still alive. Still, I was terrified. I was young.

I’m older now, but not necessarily wiser. Maybe that’s why I’m just as terrified. Or maybe it’s because I know, no matter what happens, I won’t have anyone in my life to support me.

I guess if things get really desperate I could take a cab to Logan’s house in the mountains. The thought has crossed my mind more than a few times in the week that I’ve been home.

I’ve lain in my couch, tapping the screen of my phone to open the taxi app. I’ve gone as far as entering his address. But I’ve always changed my mind.

Logan would just drive me back home again. Or worse, he’d tell me to go home on my own. Or worse, he wouldn’t even open the door for me, hiding in some dark corner of his house while I pound on the door.

Hey, maybe this is exactly what happened to that woman who went over, looking for him while we were hiding in his office. Logan dumped her and she couldn’t let him go.

Damn it. I may be depressed and pathetic, but I still have some dignity. I won’t go there just for Logan to turn me away—which he definitely will do with no second thought.

I grab a few bags of chips and cookies before I join the line at the register and pay for my purchase. I know these aren’t healthy, but which part of my life is healthy at this point?

As I walk out of the store, I find myself almost laughing to myself at how similar things are to the way they were around the time of Mark’s death.

Maybe my guess is right, after all. Perhaps, like Sisyphus, I’m doomed to repeating the same heart-wrenching things, over and over again.

It’s almost the end of winter in a city that doesn’t normally snow anyway. But as I step outside the building, I’m struck by how dull and lackluster everything is. I feel like I’m living in a black-and-white movie.

As usual, I take the shortcut through the park. It’s already dark but it’s not that late. Besides, it’s ridiculous to worry about some mugger who wants whatever change I have in my wallet when my whole world is crashing down.

Besides, I like that it’s quiet here. During the day, there are kids hanging off the colorful playground equipment and joggers listening to their iPods while they exercise.

But at night, there are only plants and empty walking paths. The darkness means at least I’m seeing this place as it is. There are no colors here so it’s natural for everything to be in grayscale.

I stare ahead, my gaze empty and my mind filled to the brim with tangled thoughts.

I don’t even see anything until it’s too late. Of course I don’t hear anything either.

The first thing I notice is the hand over my mouth and the warmth of a body pressed against my back as another hand pulls me back.

I scream out but my voice is muffled by a large, coarse hand that smells like metal.

Labored breathing draws near to my ear. In a low voice, the man who has captured me says, “Shut up, or I’ll cut you, bitch.”

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