“You should go.” I removed her hand from my chest, tucked it behind her back, but she leaned in again, eyes lit with determination. “No, Jenna, I’m serious. You should—”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her. Standing on the bottom step of the front porch. A look of blood curdling shock on her face. Her eyes, her beautiful, expressive eyes, darted from me to Jenna and back again. Our puppy hopped past her, tongue lolling, and started gnawing on the hem of my jeans.
Harper might as well have been a statue in a museum. No movement. No rush to say something, cry, scream, anything. Heck, I wasn’t even sure if she was breathing.
“Harper?” I dared and her eyes formed into slits.
Suddenly, I realized I was still holding Jenna. Or, more accurately, holding her hand behind her back to keep it off me, which still didn’t look fantastic, I gathered, not to Harper.
Dear God. This couldn’t be happening.
Harper began backing away, shaking her head.
“No!” I took off after her, adrenaline pumping. “No, no, no! Harper!”
I made it up the stairs fast enough for the guest room door to be slammed in my face. I jiggled the knob. Locked. Of course.
“Harper?” I rapped my fist to the door. “Come on, baby, open up.”
Shuffling on the other side. What was she doing?
“Open the door, Harper. Talk to me.”
Nothing but more movement, drawers opening, the sound of a zipper. Was she packing?
The hinges rattled as I beat my fist to the barrier between us. “Harper, I’m serious! Open the door, please, baby, please talk to me. Don’t do this.”
“Go away!” she railed from the other side.
My pulse was all over the place, pounding in my ears, raising my body temperature.
“You don’t know what you saw. It wasn’t—she wasn’t…” At a loss for words, I pushed my forehead to the door, shut my eyes. Tried to breathe, even though my lungs felt deflated. “Please, baby. Please open the door.”
“Lawson? Is everything okay?”
My gaze shot to the bottom of the stairs, where Jenna stood with a hand on the rail.
“Maybe I should try to talk to her?” she offered, but I knew better.
“Get out of my house.” I wasn’t a violent man, by any means, but it was all I could do to keep my composure. “Now.”
“Lawson…” She started up the stairs.
“I said Get. Out!”
She jumped, whipped around, and scrambled for the front door. Guilt ripped through my gut, but I immediately pushed it aside. I couldn’t worry about anyone else’s feelings.
“Harper?” I set a palm to the door, feeling as if my world was collapsing out from beneath me. “Open the door, so we can talk. Please. What you saw outside—”
The door flung open, and I stepped back, nearly toppling over.
Waterlogged lashes framed the eyes staring me down like a traitor. Tears carved paths down her cheeks. The pert nose I adored was red and swollen. Her lips—those full lips I couldn’t get enough of kissing, trembled so prettily my heart gave at the seams.
Her breaths were ragged, her chest bouncing as if she was internally moving heaven and earth not to cry.
“Harper.” I took a step toward her, but she threw up a palm.
“Please.” Her hand moved to join the other, which was gripping the handle of her suitcase. “I don’t want to hear anything. I just…” She expelled a watery breath. “I just want to leave, okay? No fighting.”
“I don’t want to fight, either, Harper, but if you would just listen—”
“I don’t need to, Lawson. I have eyes.”
“But what you saw—”
“Was your ex-girlfriend wrapped in your arms? The one who loved you for one more moment, so you wouldn’t have to own it, that you’d lost your everything…did I get the lyrics right?”
She did. But I never thought hearing my own words, words meant to heal me, to possibly heal others, could feel like knives driving into my ears. “Babe…”
“You wrote songs about her, too, Lawson. Your fans love them. And her.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“A year. Less, actually.”
But it felt like a lifetime. A version of myself I not only no longer connected with but that I wished I could go back and give a few life lessons to. Assure him that it was going to be okay. He didn’t have to change for someone else. He was enough—had always been enough.
Desperation pounded inside my chest. “Don’t do this.”
“I called an Uber.” She moved past me for the stairs, and I let her, because I was an idiot and because I couldn’t see the logic in stopping her when she was determined. Harper’s dad may have been in jail, she may have been eighteen and pregnant, but she was also the most headstrong woman I’d ever met. She kept her shoulders squared as she descended the stairs, her chin up. Regal as a duchess abdicating her seat.
“You can’t leave.” I followed her. “There’s an eviction notice on your door, the hearing’s probably soon, if it hasn’t already passed.”
“I’ll get a hotel room.”
“With what? You don’t have a credit card.”
At the landing, she turned on me, eyes flashing. “How do you know what I do and don’t have? How do you even know about the eviction notice?”
“Because I pay people to know things and report them, when it’s important, and you not having a home, other than here with me, is kind of important.”
“For your information, I do have a credit card—my father’s, that he left me for emergencies.”
“Which doesn’t work, because your father pled guilty to a felony and is about to spend several years in prison.”
Her eyes grew rounder. “What did you say?”
I knew what she meant, but I was desperate to stop her from leaving. “Your dad’s credit card probably won’t work,” I said gently.
“Not that. You said he pled guilty and is serving a jail sentence. How do you know that?”
“Like I said, I have people around me who know things and report them, when it’s important.”
“When it’s important.” Tears filled her eyes. “I have to go.” Sniffle. “I named the puppy Bella, by the way.”
Bella.
I went after her. “Harper, you can’t walk away. After all that’s happened between us, you can’t…” But she was still walking. “Harper!”
She stopped at the door, back ramrod straight. Her shoulders rose and fell with every labored breath. I’d done this to her. Somehow, I’d messed everything up. Broken her trust. But there wasn’t a chance in hell I wasn’t going to fight with all I had to try and fix it.
“Please.” The word exhaled out of me. “Please don’t walk away from us. I love you.”
For a moment, she was silent. Staring at the door, the strap of her laptop bag slung over one shoulder, her small hands gripping her ridiculous pink suitcase.
Then she said the words that reopened the wound on my stitched heart.
“I love you, too, Lawson.” She glanced at me from over her shoulder. “That’s why I have to leave.”
chapter twenty-seven
Harper
I always thought it was more than a little stupid when people talked about having a broken heart. Like it was physically impossible for your heart to break. It wasn’t made of glass. It wasn’t made of stone. It was a large muscle that pumped because the brain told it to. Maybe it could tear, sure, but a pretty traumatic event would have to happen. A fatal car wreck, jumping off a high rise or, perhaps, a knife aimed at exactly the right spot.
Apparently, I’d suffered the latter.
This hurt.
This hurt like I’d not only been stabbed in the heart but gutted all the way through. Entrails, blood, guts and gore splayed out on the cement, making passersby gag and children scream.
Note to Self: Do not use horror movies as an antidote to depression.
Problem was the alternative h
ad my mind wandering not to another genre of film but to my laptop, which led to social media and all the videos that’d given me an education on Lawson Hill. Out of the question.
The landlord had mercy on me, allowed me to pay prorated rent in order to stay in the house for the next couple of weeks. The plane ticket was already booked, a one-way trip to the start of a new chapter. Since on-campus housing came fully furnished, there was no need to shop for dormitory supplies. A blessing, since I’d spent a good chunk of my savings to not only keep a roof over my head but also for the storage unit that now housed the life Dad and I had built over the last eighteen years. Beds, dressers, tables, boxes of knickknacks and Dad’s books.
Savana had orchestrated all that. Pulled together a team of boys—Luke, Easton and several of their musician buddies—who came over, moved everything via their long bed, big-tired trucks, and accepted sandwiches and lemonade as payment.
Now, there was nothing left to do but wait.
“I’ll have to get a job,” I said as Savana painted her toenails in my bedroom, empty save for the twin air mattress I’d picked up after we’d put everything in storage.
“Maybe there’s a coffee shop or something nearby.” She blew on her toes. Started another coat of electric blue polish. “From what I’ve heard, everything’s pretty much within walking distance, right?”
I shrugged, turned the page of the Nashville Lifestyles magazine I’d found in one of the closets as I was boxing up Dad’s clothes. “Guess so.”
“Just make sure you’ve got pepper spray.”
“Don’t worry. I probably won’t be leaving my room much, otherwise.”
“You’ll have a roommate right?” Chris was lying on the floor on her stomach, legs in the air and crossed at the ankles, scanning through her Instagram feed. “Maybe you guys can play chess together or bridge or something. What do British people do for fun?”
“I’m pretty sure they do most of the things we do, with a few exceptions,” I said.
“Like playing chess and bridge?” Savana winked, fanned her toes.
“Regardless,” I said, “roommates aren’t allowed.”
Chris’s eyes met mine. “You mean you’re gonna be there all alone? That’s horrible.”
“It’s not that horrible.” I flipped the page. “I’ll have too much studying to do to worry about socializing, anyway.”
“Yeah, but how are you supposed to meet a hot British guy?” Chris blinked owlishly at me.
She was a hundred and fifty percent serious.
My mouth opened, to speak, to laugh, to cry. Those days, there was no way of knowing. My emotions were all over the place. I’d gone to a gynecologist, who promptly confirmed the pregnancy but added it was still early and I’d need to find a doctor once I arrived in England. Since then, reality had begun to sink in, much like I’d jumped into a great body of water and was slowly, slowly drifting down with no chance of seeing the surface again.
This was my life.
I was moving forward, pregnant, with no one to rely upon but myself.
Savana let out a snort. “Yeah, okay, as if that’s ever going to happen.”
Chris raised up further on her elbows. “Why wouldn’t it? Harper’s gorgeous, even if she is American.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said, turning another page. How to Get a Spot at Nashville’s Most Prestigious Open Mic Night. My thoughts drifted back to the night at the café downtown. When I got to experience the magic that was Lawson Hill performing with just a guitar and a sack full of southern boy charm.
“I mean, Lawson’s not gonna just sit back,” said Savana. “He may be a nice guy, but it’s not in him to not fight for what he wants.”
Chris’s mouth ticked. “He is kinda scrappy.” She wasn’t wrong.
Lawson had sent at least fifty texts, begging me to speak to him. To give him a chance to explain. I didn’t want an explanation. I didn’t think my heart could take it. He obviously still had feelings for his ex. And I had a future ahead of me. I couldn’t play tug-a-war against the woman who, for over three years, had carved herself into his life.
I couldn’t be that girl.
I wouldn’t.
“He said he stopped by.” Savana tightened the nail polish cap and set it to the side. Her gaze latched onto mine. “Just a couple of days ago, too.”
“Wait.” Chris sat up, set her phone down. “He did?”
I looked away, scraped my teeth across my lower lip. Stared at the magazine page filled with meaningless words and photographs. When he’d shown up on my doorstep, rang the doorbell, knocked again and again, pleaded with me to please, please, Harper, open up, I’d almost caved. I missed him. Wanted him. Wanted his arms around me, his lips in my hair, and his beautiful voice telling me everything was going to be okay.
I had it bad for him.
No, that wasn’t true.
I loved him.
Which was terrible, really, because, historically, the men I loved tended to disappoint me in ways that left my entire world shattered.
“Let me in, Harper.” He sounded tired. Like he’d deliberately kept himself up for days. “Please. I miss you.”
I’d pressed my forehead and palms to the door, imagining him on the steps outside. Imagining what he’d do if I turned the knob, what words he’d weave or if he’d say anything at all. Heaven knew he didn’t have to. He had that much power over me. The power to make me forget myself with a single sweep of his gaze. It was a little embarrassing, what those eyes of his did to me. But I needed to get a grip on my emotions. And, apparently, my libido, which had skyrocketed since six pregnancy sticks had popped positive.
“If I let you in, Lawson,” I’d told him, my voice dark and foreign, even to my own ears, “my heart wouldn’t survive it.” It wouldn’t. At least I was strong enough to admit the truth. “Please. Please go away.”
My phone rang, yanking me from my reverie.
“Hey, that’s your weird Ohio area code.” Savana tossed the cell from where I’d left it on the air mattress. I caught it. “Maybe it’s about your dad?”
“I don’t know.” I swiped the screen. “Hello?”
Silence. Faint voices on the other end.
“Hello?” If this was another political call, I swore I’d scream.
“Harper?”
Dad.
I got to my feet so fast my head spun. “Dad?”
Savana and Chris exchanged wide-eyed glances.
“Hey, sport.”
“Dad, I…I can’t believe it’s you. You’re calling me.” Emotion rose in my throat. “We’re talking.”
He let out a strained laugh. “Not for long, I’m afraid. They only allow so much time for phone calls.”
“How are you?”
“I’m…here. For now, anyway. Waiting for my sentencing date, after which they’ll probably move me to a minimum security.”
I couldn’t believe I was talking about prison with my dad. My dad, who had raised me by himself, pushed me to be the best, to never give up. The dad who was now incarcerated for committing an act I never would’ve dreamed him capable of. Not my straightlaced, by the book, rule-abiding father. It was still too much to process.
I wrapped an arm around my belly, hugging my waist. “Who was she, Dad?”
His breath hitched. For a moment I thought he didn’t mean to answer. Maybe I should’ve led with another question. There were so many. Too many. And yet who was she was the one dangling at the forefront of my mind. Followed by why and how could you and what am I supposed to do with a dad in prison?
“A mistake.” His exhale rolled over phone. “A foolish, foolish mistake.”
“Why wouldn’t you see me? I was there, you know. In Columbus?”
“I know. But at the time I just couldn’t. I couldn’t let you…” A shaky breath. “I couldn’t let you see me like this, sport. Bad enough I had to lie to you.”
“Wrong. You didn’t have to lie. You could’ve told me. You could’ve returned my ph
one calls, given me more than vague responses and…and lies, Dad. You lied to me.” Emotion stretched across my chest, constricting. My hands shook. “I had to find out from a sheriff. Can you even imagine how freaking scary that was? How terrifying?”
“I can imagine, yes.”
“Then why?” I paced the room. “Why did you lie?”
“Because I’m so proud of you, Harper. Do you know that? I’m so proud of you. No father could be prouder. And I’d failed you. I have failed you tremendously, and there was no way to fix it. No way to take back the choices I’d made, no matter how foolish and potentially disastrous.”
I let out a humorless snort. “Disastrous. Is that what this is?”
“I’d say so, yes. My lawyer says I’m looking at five to six years, maybe less depending on good behavior.”
Five years. Five years behind the bars of a prison cell. No freedom. No purpose, at least not as he had before, to educate, impart knowledge on others. He was always wildly passionate about teaching. In fact, the school had awarded him so many Teacher of the Year awards, it’d become a running joke of who’d beat out John Evans, if anybody. Everybody loved him. It was part of the reason why I hardly blinked an eye when he’d said he had to go back to help transition the new hire.
When he’d lied.
“Of course, my career is over,” he said. “No one will ever want to hire a guy with a felony on his resume.”
“Correction. No school will hire a licensed teacher who had an affair with his student.”
“That, too.” There was a stretched pause, and I thought maybe the line had died. But then he inhaled and said, “Every day, I think about what I could’ve done differently. From…her, to keeping the truth from you. I’m so sorry, Harper. If you could only understand how sorry I am.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I’d always been good with words. I read, studied, understood and retained faster than most of the other kids in class. I’d written essays that not only earned perfect scores but wound up tacked to the classroom corkboard. However, words did not exist for this. Words couldn’t convey how I felt inside.
I’d lost my father. Whether for five to six years or forever, I didn’t know. Turned out there were no words for that, either.
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