Work of Art

by Monica Alexander

  He tipped a fake hat at me when he pulled back and said, “You too, Harper. I’ll talk to you soon, and I’ll send my buddy back.”

  I smiled as he left, feeling like I’d honestly connected with someone, and that rarely happened. I didn’t let people in, but I liked Brandon’s straight-forward honesty. He was genuine. He was also probably screwed up as hell, but weren’t we all?

  I turned away from the doorway to start cleaning up when I felt some standing behind me, and then I heard a sharp intake of breath. When I turned around, I almost fainted. Standing in my doorway was Ryan Carson, the guy who’d broken my heart eleven years earlier. Instead of fainting, I turned and vomited into the trashcan that was thankfully right near my feet.

  Chapter Seven

  Ryan

  “Harper?” I asked, not believing what I was seeing.

  It had been over a decade, but she still looked as beautiful as the last time I’d seen her, even as she was puking into a trashcan. Instinctively, I walked over to her, gathered her long, thick, half-pink hair into my hand and held it back as she spit into the trashcan.

  “Get off me,” she growled, shaking my hands free from her hair as she stood up and turned away from me, the glare in her eyes murderous.

  For the few brief seconds I’d touched her hair, it was so soft, and I remembered how it used to spill over my arm when I held her after we made love. It had been all one color back then, but it still looked beautiful hanging to the middle of her back.

  So many memories were suddenly assaulting me all at once, memories I’d buried and stifled and forced myself to let go of. Like how she always smelled like strawberries or how her full lips pressed together when she was thinking about something or how her eyes would sparkle when she was happy. And then the thing that had torn us apart, that had changed everything and ripped her away from me.

  I’d lost everything that day. Everything. And I realized it way too late.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked in a clipped, bitter tone, as she ran her hand under her bottom lip.

  I couldn’t figure out why she was mad at me. I hadn’t done anything except let her stomp on my heart. I should be the one who was pissed, but it had been eleven years. I could move past it just to get the chance to talk to her again, see how she was doing. Over the years I’d emailed her a few times, since I had no idea where she’d gone or what she did after she’d fled Boston, but I never heard back. And I never, ever stopped thinking about her. Now she was standing in front of me, and I couldn’t believe it.

  “Uh, I was here to get a tattoo. My friend Brandon recommended you, but I didn’t know it was you.”

  She spun around to face me, her hair fanning out behind her and coming to rest over her left shoulder. “You’re Brandon’s friend?” she spat. “The one who’s getting married? Whose wedding I’m going to?”

  “Uh, yeah. Wait, what? You’re coming to my wedding?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes to glare at me. “Well, I didn’t know it was your wedding, but yeah, I’m going with Brandon. He just asked me.”

  “Shit,” I cursed. “You’re the hot tattoo girl he was talking about.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Harper, I didn’t know he was talking about you. I didn’t even know you lived out here. How long have you been in San Francisco?”

  My mind was reeling. This was a girl I never thought I’d see again. She’d walked out of my life unexpectedly, leaving me with nothing more than a break-up email. It was shitty, but I could forgive all that as long as she was happy. But she sure didn’t look happy.

  “I’ve lived here for eleven years,” she said in a clipped tone.

  “Eleven years? So you came out here right after . . .” I drifted off, not sure what to say exactly.

  “Yeah, after . . . that.”

  “It’s good to see you,” I said honestly, because it really was.

  “Screw you, Ryan,” she said, turning away from me again.

  “But–”

  But I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. Why was she angry with me? I should be angry with her. She was the one who left, who broke things off, who never contacted me again. Then I realized she was crying, and her shoulders were shaking, so I did what any decent guy would have done, I went to comfort her even though I knew she would push me away.

  And sure enough, as soon as my hands closed around her shoulders, she shrugged me off.

  “Leave me alone, Ryan,” she seethed, growling my name and sounding much sexier than I should have found her in that moment.

  “Okay,” I said, backing up with my hands in the air, but I wasn’t leaving.

  Then she spun around and faced me, her eyes wet and red-rimmed, and wet streaks on her face where her tears had fallen. “Get out. Get out of my parlor now, and do not come back.”

  “Fine,” I said after a few seconds, knowing her well enough to know that she needed space.

  I walked back out to the waiting room in a daze, still trying to wrap my head around what had just happened. Harper Connelly lived in San Francisco and worked not two miles from my condo and a block from my office. It was insane that we’d never run into each other, but what was even more insane was that I still found her so incredibly attractive after all these years.

  Not that she hadn’t always been beautiful, but I figured after more than a decade, feelings would fade. But it was as if we’d never been apart. She was still the girl I’d fallen in love with when I was sixteen, and she still had an incredible power over my emotions.

  I realized my heart was pounding out a staccato rhythm, and my breathing was shallow as I walked away from her, knowing it was the wrong thing to do. Why was I walking away?

  I found Brandon flirting with the receptionist with the large fairy on her shoulder and the ring through her lip.

  “Hey man, you chicken out?” he asked me.

  I nodded, unable to utter any actual words.

  “Pussy. Come on, let’s go get drunk.”

  I nodded again, thinking that was a great idea.

  Chapter Eight

  Harper

  Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.

  I’d fallen to my knees in the middle of the room as soon as Ryan had left, unable to remain on my feet. The tears were falling silently down my cheeks as I was assaulted with memories of him that I’d buried deep, and the anger that I thought I’d let go was bubbling at the surface. My hands shook, and the floor below me seemed to be tilting and moving before my eyes.

  I never thought I’d see him again, never. He was a part of my life that I let go, I left behind, and he had no business being here in the present. He was the past.

  But he’d been there, so close. He’d touched me, and his scent had assaulted me and thrown me over the edge. It had made him real.

  For two years he’d been everything to me. While everyone else treated me like I had the plague, Ryan Carson had held me and defended me and loved me. He didn’t care that his family hated me, that my stepfather was in prison for stealing millions of dollars or that my mother was having an affair with a married man. He’d loved me when I felt completely alone in the world, he’d helped me find my father, and he’d made me see how amazing life could be with someone incredibly special.

  Memories of us riding around in his Corvette with the top down and singing at the top of our lungs and laughing and kissing for hours because all we wanted was to be as close to each other as possible assaulted me. He’d been the first guy I’d slept with, and for a long time, he was the only guy. He’d been my first real boyfriend. He’d been kind and loving and God, that smile of his, it could tear me apart.

  But Ryan Carson had also hurt me worse than anyone on the planet. Because when I needed him the most, he ran the other way, and for that I couldn’t forgive him.

  It was the summer after our senior year. I’d held off as long as I could, but after two weeks, I couldn’t wait any longer. I was late, so I took a test, and it was pos
itive. It was the worst news, and I was delivering it at the worst time since we were both set to leave for Yale in two months.

  I watched all the color drain from Ryan’s face as I shared with him the news that I’d ruined his life, but then he’d hugged me and told me he loved me and that we’d figure it all out.

  But no matter what he said, I hated myself. I hated that I was the self-fulfilling prophecy my mother had told me I’d become when she found out Ryan and I were sleeping together. She’d had me at seventeen and told me again and again that I was going to be just like her. And I’d proven her right. And the worst part was, I had a goddamn scholarship to fucking Yale. I’d worked my ass off, gotten the grades I’d needed, scored high enough on the SATs, and I’d been accepted. I was getting out – out of a place where I’d never felt like I fit in and where everyone hated me, including my mother. Ryan and I were going together, so we could be together.

  And then I’d ruined everything.

  But Ryan wouldn’t let me see it that way. He held my hand and kissed me and talked about our future and the plans we’d make and the baby we’d raise, and sure it would be hard, but we’d do it together, and he’d get his trust fund when he turned twenty-one. Everything would be perfect, because we’d be together.

  We wouldn’t tell our parents, because they’d tell us we were nuts. They’d chastise us for being irresponsible and lecture us as if we were kids. But we weren’t kids, and we could handle this. We’d just go to New Haven, live our lives and return home when we could prove to everyone that we’d done it.

  And it was the perfect plan until I’d ended up in the hospital when I was eight weeks along. Ryan panicked and called his dad, because he didn’t know what else to do, and his parents had called my mom. And that’s when everything changed.

  My mom kicked me out. She told me she didn’t want me in her house, and I had a week to figure out where I would live. So I called Ryan. He said we’d leave together like we’d planned. And he told me he loved me. He was leaving for a week to go to The Vineyard with his dad and his brother. They were going on the same sailing trip they went on every summer, but we’d leave when he got back.

  Everything was fine until his mother came to see me. I should have turned her away at the door, but I was trying to be polite, thinking we’d be in each other’s lives forever, so I’d better start building a relationship with her. So I’d asked her to come in, have a seat and have a glass of iced tea. And I was so stupid to do that.

  Not that it would have made a difference, but at least if I hadn’t invited her inside, I wouldn’t have had to listen to the cruel words she’d spouted for the next hour.

  Almost as soon as she sat down, she told me I was making a mistake and I was ruining Ryan’s life. She called me a whore and a gold digger. She told me Ryan had confided in her that he was scared of being a father at such a young age and that he felt trapped, but he’d never tell me that, and she felt it was her obligation to be her son’s voice when he couldn’t do it. I didn’t believe her. I refused to believe her, but after a while, she wore me down.

  She let me know in no uncertain terms that I had another option and she would even pay for it. My stomach churned at her suggestion, but she made point after point that started to resonate with me, but the one that stuck was that she said it was what Ryan wanted. She said he was too good of a person to ever tell me that, but he didn’t want me to have the baby, and did I really want to do something that big with a boy who didn’t want the responsibility?

  Then she offered me ten thousand dollars if I would abort the baby, leave for the summer and break things off with Ryan.

  And that was my breaking point. I told her to get out of my house. I immediately called Ryan, knowing I wouldn’t get him, but he’d get my message when he got back on land. I told him it was important. I needed to talk to him.

  I waited until Saturday when I knew he’d be back, but he never called me. All I got was an email from him letting me know that they’d decided to stay on the boat for another week and he’d call me when he got back.

  I panicked, because I had nowhere to go, and my mother wanted me out of the house. So I packed as much of my stuff as I could into my car and went to a motel.

  Three days later I got another email from him.

  Harper,

  This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I can’t see you anymore. I don’t want to be a father, and this time apart has given me some much needed clarity. I think we need to go our separate ways. I loved you for a long time, but this is just something I need to do. I hope you’ll understand. I also hope you’ll take my mother’s advice and terminate the pregnancy. It’ll be the best thing in the long run, you’ll see. Take care.

  -Ryan

  I called his cell, but it went to voicemail. And when I called every day for the next three days, I left pleading, crying messages for him to call me, but he never did.

  And after sitting in that motel for five days staring into nothing and waiting for Ryan to call, the reality of my situation finally hit home. So I called my dad, flew out to San Francisco and never looked back.

  And I forced myself to forget about Ryan Carson, but now, with him living in the same city as me and having come face-to-face with him, the guy who’d told me he loved me with every fiber of being and then broke up with me without a second glance, I couldn’t just forget about him. I couldn’t erase that I’d seen him again and that he’d brought back all sorts of feelings that I’d buried deep. I was angry and wished that instead of throwing up and crying that I would have punched him. It would have been more fitting.

  All I could hope was that I’d never run into him again. Because if I did, I might not be as civil as I’d been a few minutes earlier.

  Knowing I needed to talk to someone, I picked up the phone and called Kelly. She knew the full story about Ryan and me, and in that moment, when everything felt as raw as the day he’d sent me that email, I needed her.

  Chapter Nine

  Ryan

  “Dude, you’ve barely touched your beer, and you’re staring into space like a zombie. What the fuck is up with you?”

  I looked over to see Brandon staring at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was.

  I sighed. “It was her – Harper.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, she’s smokin’ hot, right. I know she’s not you’re type, but she’s totally mine.”

  Yeah, he wasn’t going to like what I told him next.

  “She’s my ex-girlfriend.”

  Brandon’s eyes went wide as saucers. “Say what?”

  I sighed and swallowed, trying to figure out how to say what I needed to say. I hadn’t told another person this story, ever, but now it just seemed pertinent that I talk about it, about her, about us.

  “Harper was my girlfriend in high school,” I said without preamble

  “No shit. You fucked her, didn’t you?”

  Brandon’s eyes were gleaming, and I just glared at him. “So not important, man.”

  “Oh, right, got it,” he said, finally hearing the graveness in my voice. “So what happened?”

  I took a long swig of my beer. “In a nutshell, she got pregnant, we decided to move in together and have the baby, and then while I was away on a sailing trip, I got an email from her telling me she changed her mind, and she got an abortion.”

  Brandon’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit. She did that without telling you first.”

  I shrugged. “I guess she panicked, but yeah, I wish she would have talked to me about it. I would have done whatever she wanted. But she just did it without telling me, and at the time it was really hard for me to forgive that. When I got home from my trip, I had multiple tearful messages from her, so she must have known I was upset, but I couldn’t call her back. I needed time. I figured I’d see her when school started in the fall and we’d work everything out then. We were both going to Yale, but once school started, I didn’t see her on campus. I called her cell, but she’d changed the number. A
nd I never saw to her again. I emailed a few times over the years, but she never responded.”

  I shrugged.

  “So you just saw her for the first time after, what, ten years?!”

  “Eleven,” I corrected him, knowing exactly how long it had been. “It’s been eleven years, and she looks exactly the same.”

  “Damn. Do you still have feelings for her?”

  I shot him a look of disbelief. “No, but it was surprising as hell to see her, that’s for sure. By the way, why are you bringing her to my wedding?”

  Brandon chuckled. “Because she’s hot and cool as shit, and I’ll need someone fun to hang out with because you’ll be tied up getting married. You don’t mind if I bring her, do you?”

  “No,” I said quickly, but I think I just said that because I thought it was how I should feel.

  I truthfully wasn’t sure what I was feeling at that point, but I knew what I shouldn’t be feeling and that I shouldn’t have been rattled by running into someone I hadn’t seen in eleven years who I used to have feelings for. But there were all these crazy emotions swirling around in my head, and I couldn’t make sense of any of them.

  Brandon was watching me as if he wasn’t sure what to do with me.

  “Bring her if you want, I don’t care,” I told him.

  Brandon eyed me skeptically. “Are you sure? It’s your wedding day. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.”

  I shrugged. “It won’t make me uncomfortable, and I highly doubt that my family will even remember her. It’s fine. I just won’t tell Trish who she is.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “Keeping secrets from the wife already?”

  “Stop it. It’s not like I’m seeing Harper or anything. She’s a girl I dated a hundred years ago. Trish wouldn’t care even if she knew, and because of that, I’m not telling her. It doesn’t matter.”

  Brandon chuckled. “Okay, man,” he said sarcastically, as he took a swig of his beer, so I slugged him in the shoulder.