The waitress’s demeanor changes. “You’re really just her boss?”
I nod and point to our offices across the street. “You can call over there if you want. The receptionist will tell you the same thing.”
The waitress takes another look at Harper. “No. I believe you. I’ll bring you her bill.”
“No!” Harper protests. “I want another.”
“Harper, no,” I command. “You’re done.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring her a glass of water, too, please.”
The waitress nods and rushes off.
“I’m taking you home,” I tell Harper.
“I’m worthless to you, too,” she mumbles.
I cross my arms. “Nobody is saying that.”
“No, you’re just showing it. You and Declan.”
The waitress appears with a black check tray, and I barely glance at the obscene number before pulling my money clip from my pocket and dropping a charge card onto it. I make Harper drink the water while I sign the receipt, adding a tip large enough to cover both the waitress and bartender for putting up with her, then lead her from the restaurant back to my car.
We’re barely a mile down the road when I hear Harper muttering and starting to look green. Of course, the movement would make her sick. By some miracle, we reach her apartment complex, and I get her inside. But she immediately rushes down a hall, and I hear retching.
“Fuck.”
I find her hunched over the toilet, crying while her stomach empties into it.
The beautiful woman I fell for is gone, replaced by a shell that embodies all my worst fears, but I react on instinct, years of Maddox and I taking care of our parents once they were too far gone to care for themselves makes me move without realizing it.
I turn on the shower and tug the soiled clothes off of Harper. Then, I lift her tiny body and set her in the bathtub. I roll up my sleeves and begin to wash her. Harper is sobbing and incoherent, and, for a moment, something inside me insists that I’m going to lose her just like I did my parents. She had far too much for her size, and any reasonable bartender should have cut her off hours ago.
I get her washed and pull her clean hair back once I’ve dried her off. I know it’s not over yet. Experience tells me that. I carry her to her bedroom and lay her on the bed.
“I’ll be right back with some water and aspirin.”
She nods.
I didn’t recall a medicine cabinet in the bathroom, but a quick rummage through the kitchen drawers reveals a small assortment of necessities. I grab the aspirin and a glass of water, but as I’m heading back with it, I hear more retching from the bathroom.
The fear tightens in me again. This is my worst nightmare. I remember the days, coming home from school to hear my mom already puking, too addicted to even get through the daylight hours before she started drinking. Seeing my dad passed out on the couch in the living room, a half-empty bottle of vodka open on the side-table, and oftentimes, a lit cigarette dangling precariously over the edge of an ashtray.
I could handle friends getting drunk at night in college, but this…day drinking is too close to those memories I try to keep locked away. Maybe Declan was the one who pushed her over the edge, but he was right. She dropped, and I wasn’t there. I didn’t help her, and when he piled it on with the forced leave, she snapped.
Worse, I don’t know how to help her.
I set the water and aspirin on the nightstand and return to the bathroom to see her kneeling over the toilet, arms resting on it. I remember my mom looking like that almost every night. Drinking rather than facing her problems, then drinking some more because reality hurt too much.
I can’t. I can’t do it again.
I can’t give her the life she needs, the one she deserves, and this is what happens when she tries to mold herself to my lifestyle instead. If I stay, it’ll destroy her. And if this is how she reacts, she’ll destroy me. The cycle will get worse and worse until neither of us will be able to escape.
I pick her up and set her in the tub again. The water isn’t warmed up yet, but it should only be a minute or so.
“Harper? Are you home?”
I don’t recognize the voice, but it sounds like salvation. I stand, making sure Harper will be okay in the tub for a minute, then head into the hall, where I find another young woman.
“Are you Lee?” I ask.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Axel.”
She studies me for a moment, then nods. “Okay, Axel, what are you doing here in the middle of the day?”
I glance into the bathroom and see the water still landing on Harper, who looks as gray-green as she did when I brought her in.
“Look. I messed up, and everything got out of hand. Things between us were never supposed to go this far.”
Lee crosses her arms, toe-tapping impatiently.
I run my hand through my hair. “I can’t be here. Not with her like that. I left water and aspirin next to her bed. Can you take care of her?”
Lee nods.
“Tell her…tell her I’m sorry. I can’t be with her. I’m done.”
Lee’s mouth is hanging open in shock, but I need to get out. I push past and out of the apartment. I need air.
I need to get my life back on track, and that means I need to leave Harper Sullivan behind.
23
Harper
Things between us were never supposed to go this far. I’m done.
The words play on repeat in my head, the only thing breaking through the throbbing hangover that started after I woke up from a nap yesterday evening and continues to linger even now, a day later.
I don’t remember much. I recall Declan ordering me on leave, and me going to the restaurant for a drink that became two. But after that, it becomes a blur until about the point I remember Axel leaving me in the freezing cold shower spray while he went to talk to Lee.
He couldn’t even break up with me face-to-face, which isn’t like him. Instead, I had to ask Lee if I’d been hearing things. He hasn’t told me much about his past, but I’ve heard enough around the office to know that I must have triggered something, a memory so awful that he felt I didn’t deserve the dignity of hearing he was leaving me from his own lips.
Lee wasn’t spared my shame, either, having to take care of me instead of enjoying a bit of free time before going back to work today.
The light is too bright, and it makes my head hurt, but my whole body hates me. Getting out of bed for more aspirin is a question of which agony is more unbearable, the one in my head, the one through the rest of me, or the one in my heart?
I tried, and I failed. I wanted to be everything to Axel, and I fell in love with him.
Things between us were never supposed to go this far.
I start crying again. He never felt about me the way I do about him. I’d lost everything, the job I’d worked so hard for, the money to help my dad, my virginity, and the man I loved, all because I didn’t see the truth sooner.
It was never about me. It was about the sex for him, just like everybody else. He’d used me, finding his own pleasure in seeing me bound and fucking me, but not seeing me as anything more than a temporary plaything. I was different, a diversion from the modelesque submissives he’d gotten used to. He probably meant to relieve a spot of boredom before going back to what he liked.