Tangled up in Love

by Charlotte Byrd

  I know that Jackson probably wishes that I would open up to him, but it feels nice talking to Aurora.

  She wasn’t there.

  She doesn’t have her own experience of the situation.

  She didn’t know Julie and Martin, so it’s easier for her to just be there and listen. And at this point, that’s all I really want.

  “I’ve always wanted to have a friendship like you and Julie did,” Aurora says. “Just to have a girl to talk to about things. It’s different than talking to a guy, or a therapist.”

  “I’m not really sure we have a friendship anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I shrug, looking down at the floor.

  “Just give her some time, Harley. Someone just killed a man she loved. She probably just needs some time to grieve.”

  I nod, hanging my head. I hope she’s right, but I am not really sure.

  “You don’t think so?” Aurora asks.

  “I’ve never seen her have a connection like the one that she had with Martin. And now that he’s gone?” I take a deep breath, trying to collect my thoughts. “He’s dead because of me.”

  “No, he’s not,” Aurora says, shaking her head.

  I roll my eyes. She takes a step closer to me, putting her hands on my shoulders.

  “Look at me,” she says. I refuse. She repeats herself again and again until I do.

  Finally, I look up at her, reluctantly.

  “Someone shot Martin and killed him. You didn’t do that. You can’t put that on yourself.”

  “But he wouldn’t even be in that situation if it weren’t for me.”

  “And he wouldn’t be in that situation if he wasn’t a bodyguard,” Aurora corrects me.

  On an intellectual level, I know that she’s right. But on an intuitive level? Down in the pit of my stomach, I know that he’s dead because of me.

  “I really appreciate you saying all that, but I just need some time to come to grips with everything.”

  “Yes, I understand,” she says, pulling herself away from me.

  “Can I run something by you though?” I ask after a moment. She nods.

  “It’s something my mom mentioned. She thinks that it was probably Parker who was on the bike that night. And that it was he who shot Martin.”

  Aurora leans a little bit closer to me.

  “Is that what you wanted to run by me?” she asks. “Do you not think it was Parker?”

  I shrug.

  “No, it probably was. Or, I don’t know. I mean, he fit the general description but it all happened so fast, I don’t really know.”

  Aurora eats a handful of blueberries out of the bowl she brought out of the refrigerator.

  I take one, too.

  It’s so sour that it makes my whole face contort, but as soon as the taste dissipates I reach for another.

  “There’s something else she got me thinking about as well.”

  Aurora pops a blueberry in her mouth and waits.

  “My mom suggested that it was Parker who leaked the story to the press about me being pregnant.”

  Aurora stops chewing for a moment, staring at me.

  19

  Harley

  When we are interrupted…

  “You knew that I was pregnant, right?” I ask.

  She nods slowly. “Well, sort of. I mean, I saw that they said you were but I wasn’t sure if it was true or not.”

  “It was. I lost the baby after the attack,” I say the words slowly, trying to avoid taking myself to that dark place where all I have are flashbacks of what happened.

  I don’t want to talk about that, I want to talk about Parker.

  “The only people who knew anything about this were Julie, Martin, and Jackson. And my doctor and the nurse staff at her office. But that was it.”

  “So…what are you getting at?”

  “What I’m getting at is that Parker couldn’t have known about the baby, right?”

  “Journalists do have a way of finding things out, Harley. Okay, here are two possibilities. One possibility is that a journalist was just following you and Jackson around and wanted to get a good story and investigated this all on their own.”

  I nod. “That doesn’t seem likely.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Jackson wasn’t really in the news that much before. I mean, he was sort of but not enough for them to track him down and then get my medical records and do all of this investigating.”

  “I agree,” Aurora says. “But there is someone who did have an incentive to track you.”

  “Parker.”

  “He’s a stalker, in that real sense of the word. Just because no one knows where he is doesn’t mean that he is any less interested in what you’re doing. He may have been following you and then discovered that you went to the doctor. And then wondered why the hell would she go to see someone there? And that might have led him to finding out about your pregnancy.”

  “And that would’ve made him very angry,” I say.

  “It doesn’t seem to take much,” Aurora says.

  “And then, what, he just went to the press about it?”

  “He didn’t have to go to the press, as you said. Not everyone would be interested in a story like that. But a few specific publications, like the ones owned by Minetta, would have been. And of course, the Post.”

  “But why? Why would he want them to know?”

  “I’m not sure,” Aurora says. “But I think he is getting a kick out of this. Being involved with you, and getting away with everything, is making him a much more powerful person than he ever was before.”

  There are a lot of what-ifs in this story, but something about it feels right. No one else would really have the incentive.

  And the only other way any journalist would know about my pregnancy is if the medical staff just revealed it to them on purpose, without anyone coming to them with questions.

  That seems like a very unlikely scenario.

  “So, what do you know about Parker?” Aurora asks after a moment. Her question catches me by surprise.

  “Actually, it’s kind of funny to admit, but I don’t really know anything.”

  She furrows her brow.

  “I mean, I know how this whole thing started. How he was in the beginning and then how things escalated in terms of him following me around, but when it comes to knowing anything specific about him, I really don’t know much.”

  Aurora nods, running her finger around the outside of the blueberry bowl.

  Saying this out loud really disturbs me.

  How could this person be such a big part of my life and I know so little about him?

  “It’s so embarrassing to say, but I guess he scared me so much over all of this time that whenever he wasn’t around, I didn’t want to spend my time thinking about him. You know what I mean?”

  She nods her head.

  “You don’t have to, I was just asking.”

  “No, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. I need to take control of this situation. That man has done so much to ruin my life and he’ll keep going if I don’t stop him.”

  “Harley…Aurora interrupts me. “That’s not what I meant at all. I don’t want you to do anything that would put you in harm’s way.

  “That’s the thing though.” I start to laugh. “Just being Harley Burke puts me in danger. He’s out there. And no one knows where he is. But clearly, he is not anywhere far away, like the police suggested, because he rode up on a bike and fucking blew away my bodyguard!”

  A pang of anger courses through my veins. I feel its ball of energy in the pit of my stomach and I feel nauseated.

  “I just can’t sit around and do nothing anymore. I mean, what more am I going to let that asshole take from me? He took my fucking child!”

  Tears start to run down my face, and my whole body starts to shake. Aurora wraps her arms around me.

  “What is going on here?” someone says, startling me.

 
; “What did you say to her?” Jackson demands to know.

  20

  Harley

  When he shows up…

  Jackson takes me into his arms before I even have a moment to realize what is happening. He pushes Aurora away from me, turning me away from her as if she was the one who is responsible for my pain.

  “I’m fine, everything is fine,” I say, pushing away from him.

  “Yes, I can see that,” Jackson says. “What are you doing here?”

  “I just stopped by-” She starts to say but he interrupts her.

  “Why?”

  “I needed someone to talk to.”

  “I am no longer that person.”

  Without saying another word, Jackson tugs on my shirt, trying to pull me out of the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Let’s go,” he demands.

  “No.”

  “Harley, let’s go.”

  “No. What the hell are you doing?”

  A man I don’t recognize is standing before me. He looks like Jackson, but the anger that I see in his eyes doesn’t belong to the man I knew before.

  “What’s going on?” I whisper. “Why are you so…?” My words trail off.

  I am still feeling emotionally fragile and overwhelmed by the conversation with Aurora and I’m not entirely equipped to deal with this new Jackson.

  “I am not anything, Harley,” he snaps at me. “I just don’t understand why I come home and find you and my ex-wife hanging out together.”

  “Well, she came over looking to talk to you. And you weren’t here.”

  “So you just invited her in? As if that’s…normal?”

  “I don’t know what’s normal anymore, Jackson. My life isn’t normal. She was here and we got to talking. And it was nice. It was nice to have someone to talk to.”

  “You can talk to me!” He raises his voice and it echoes in my mind.

  “Yeah, right,” I say under my breath, turning away from him.

  “What? You can’t?” he snaps again, grabbing my arm.

  “Why don’t you say that a little louder then?” I say, taking a step back.

  “Listen, I am very sorry.” Aurora tries to get in between us. “I really didn’t mean to start anything.”

  “You didn’t,” I insist.

  “Of course you did. You always do.”

  “Okay, let’s just all calm down,” I say after a moment. I feel this conversation going in circles without making much progress.

  “Fine by me.” Jackson walks over to the refrigerator and buries his head in there.

  “I’m going to go,” Aurora whispers to me.

  “Wait, what? You’re not going to stay the night?” I ask.

  “It’s not a good idea,” she says calmly.

  I walk her out to the foyer. I can’t help but be a little bit disappointed.

  “I had fun today,” I say, handing her her coat.

  “I did, too.”

  “You know, you can stay if you want. God knows this house is big enough.”

  She smiles.

  “No, it’s okay. It doesn’t feel right. Jackson doesn’t really want me here.”

  “That never stopped you before,” I joke.

  She laughs. I’m glad. When the words came out of my mouth, I immediately thought that it might be crossing the line.

  “Where are you going to stay?” I ask.

  “At the Ritz probably.”

  I nod.

  “Hey, call me if you need anything, okay?” she says, taking my hand in hers. I give her a slight smile.

  “Sure.”

  “You promise?” she asks.

  “Yes, I promise.”

  After Aurora leaves, I go into kitchen to get my laptop and phone and then turn straight around to go upstairs.

  “Are you even going to talk to me?” Jackson asks.

  “Not when you’re in such a bad mood.”

  “What did you expect?”

  I stare at him, shaking my head.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” he asks. I shrug my shoulders and wait for him to explain.

  “I come home and I find you hysterically crying. My ex-wife is here just standing there. I thought that she did something to hurt you.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “No, that’s what I really thought, Harley.”

  I take a deep breath, exhaling slowly.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Jackson.”

  I turn away from him, but he follows me up the stairs.

  “When she first showed up here, yes, I was a little confused. I didn’t know why she just pops by like this. But she was really distressed. She had a big blow-up with Elliot, so we just talked about that.”

  “Fuckin’ Elliot Woodward,” Jackson says under his breath.

  “Yes, that’s the guy. So I tried to convince her that she can do a lot better than him. I’m not entirely sure if that worked, but we just got to talking about other things and it was nice.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Julie. I told her that Julie doesn’t want to be my friend anymore and that she blames me for Martin’s death.”

  “And Aurora made you feel better about that?”

  I shrug. “It was just nice to tell someone, okay?”

  “You could’ve told me.”

  “No, I couldn’t. You’re too…involved. Ever since that happened, there’s this ocean between us. This space of everything that we should say to each other but we don’t. All you do is work and all I do is anything but think about that night.”

  Jackson reaches for me, and this time I don’t push him away. I’m standing a few steps above him, so when he pulls me closer, his chin is at my shoulders. I welcome him into my arms and we hold each other for a few minutes without saying a word.

  “I’m so sorry about everything,” Jackson says. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more to…stop it.”

  “You couldn’t have. You did everything right, Jackson. I don’t blame you at all.”

  “I know you don’t, but I blame myself.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t.”

  21

  Jackson

  When I show up…

  I am a stranger here.

  Not in my house, but in her arms. I’ve never felt this way before. I never even felt this way when we first met.

  But holding her now, pressing her body against mine, I feel like I don’t belong with her. It’s like I don’t deserve her.

  The shooting has pushed us so far apart that I worry that we will never get back to that other place.

  She won’t talk to me about what she’s feeling and I can’t tell her how I’m feeling either.

  We both lost the baby but neither of us can really say a word about it to each other.

  And then there’s Martin.

  I know that she blames herself for his death, and Julie blaming her for it as well isn’t helping things.

  But what can I do about it?

  What can I do about it besides hold her close and pray that she believes the words that are coming out of my mouth?

  Harley walks upstairs and I follow her.

  Once we get to the master bedroom, I sit down on the bench at the far end of the bed and wait.

  She puts down the laptop and her phone on the desk and sits down next to me.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she admits.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel so…bad…all the time.”

  I’m tempted to tell her not to feel this way, but I catch myself from saying this at the very last minute.

  What hubris, right?

  Who the hell am I to tell anyone how they should or shouldn’t feel? No, all I can do at this moment is just listen and be there for her.

  “I am just so sorry that it happened,” I whisper.

  “Me, too,” she agrees. “And I’m so angry.”

  “Me, too.
”

  We sit for a moment, leaning on each other, and listening to each other’s breath. We lost something we never knew we even wanted and it will take a long time to get over it, if ever.

  “What can we do now?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. Just take it one moment at a time. Then one hour at a time. Then one day at a time?”

  She shrugs. “That’s not good enough.”

  “I don’t know another way.”

  I hold her in my arms for a while until it feels right to pull away.

  “Are you really mad about me being friends with Aurora?”

  This takes me by surprise. It’s hard to answer that. The thing is that I don’t even really want to be friends with her, but that’s really my own problem.

  “I’m not really sure that she would be the best friend you could have,” I finally say. She narrows her eyes, scrutinizing me.

  “Why is that?”

  “Aurora is a difficult person to be around. She is kind of a taker. She always has these problems that she comes and dumps into my lap.”

  “If you don’t like that, why did you put up with it for so long?” Harley asks.

  I don’t really know how to answer this question.

  We have a history together.

  We lost a child.

  We have known each other for a very long time and for many years when I closed myself off from the world, it was nice to know that there was someone out there who cared about me.

  Harley waits, but I don’t tell her any of these things. Instead, I just shrug and wall myself off from her.

  “Why do you even want to be friends with her?”

  “I’m not sure if I do,” she says. “But it was nice talking to her today.”

  “I just don’t want you to get hurt,” I say.

  But the truth is that that’s only partly true.

  I’m also afraid. Just the thought of my ex-wife hanging out with the woman I want to make my future wife makes me sick to my stomach.

  There is nothing that I’m hiding from either one of them, and yet, imagining them spending time together like they did today on a more consistent basis - just throws my whole world into turmoil.