“No. Thank you, but I need to do this on my own.” She flipped her phone over. “I’ll text him now and set up a meeting.”
* * *
Addison took a deep breath before ringing the doorbell. It felt strange to ring the doorbell, but it also felt strange to just walk into Harrison’s house. Her hands were trembling, and she shoved them into the pockets of her jacket.
She’d showered and put on her favourite dress and did her hair and makeup carefully. Her eyelids were still noticeably swollen from crying, but she’d wanted to look good. She wanted Harrison to see what he was missing, what he was so callously throwing away.
She glanced at her phone. It was almost two-thirty on a Sunday afternoon and the whole neighbourhood seemed weirdly quiet and still. Normally on a beautiful day like this, people would be everywhere. Walking their dogs, mowing their lawns, gossiping over fences.
Not that she minded. She felt odd, like she was the one sneaking over to Harrison’s house to fuck him while his fiancée remained blissfully unaware. Sorrow and anger crowded into her chest, creating pain so sharp it was hard to catch her breath.
The door swung open and she stared at Harrison, a little gasp escaping her mouth. His nose was swollen to twice its size and double black eyes were already starting to develop. A steri-strip across the bridge of his nose held a shallow cut together.
“Come in.” Harrison’s voice was nasally and stuffed up like he had a bad cold.
She followed him into the house and to the kitchen.
“Do you want tea?” he said.
“No.” Her throat was a tiny pinhole.
He sat down and pointed at the chair across from him. “Sit down, Addison.”
She had a childish urge to say he didn’t get to tell her what to do anymore. She swallowed it down and sat. They stared silently at each other before Harrison said, “Well, are you going to say sorry?”
Her jaw dropped. “What?”
He pointed to his nose. “Your brother broke my nose, Addison. He broke it because you told him that I was cheating and -”
“I didn’t tell him anything. You told him yourself,” she said.
He touched the bridge of his nose and winced before pouting like a little kid. “It hurts a lot.”
She just shrugged and that all too familiar look of frustration passed over his face. “Your ignorant hick brother came to my house and hit me in the face. Look at this!” He pointed to his nose again. “The doctor at the ER said my nose would never be the same, Addison! Your brother is lucky I’m not having him arrested for assault. It would ruin his career as a firefighter.”
She kept her mouth shut. Antagonizing or arguing with Harrison on this particular point would only guarantee that he pressed charges against Daniel.
“I can’t go to work like this,” Harrison said. “I’m going to miss all this week. Do you know how many files I have on my desk right now?”
“Maybe Crystal can bring them by,” Addison said.
He blanched, the paleness of his skin exaggerating the bruising under each eye. “Addison, I can explain about Crystal.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “I’d really like to hear why you’re cheating on me with your legal assistant, Harrison. Who, by the way, I’m always really nice to. I bring her coffee whenever I come to your office, and I send her flowers on her birthday. That’s nice, isn’t it? To give coffee and flowers to the woman who’s fucking your fiancé.”
“Don’t be coarse!” Harrison said.
She slammed her hand on the table and Harrison jumped. His girlish squeal of fear made laughter bubble up in her chest. “You don’t get to tell me what I can or cannot say anymore, Harrison. You lost that right when you stuck your dick into another woman. I came here because I want an explanation and an apology! Give them to me or I’m leaving.”
Harrison glared at her. “An apology? You want an apology from me when this is your fault?”
She gaped at him, but there was a small part of her deep inside that wasn’t surprised he was doing exactly what Harper said he would. Gaslighting and manipulation – she’d seen him do it to other people countless times. Why would she be any different?
“How is this my fault?” she said.
“You’ve been so busy with wedding stuff. Everything is wedding this and wedding that,” Harrison said. “You’ve hardly paid any attention to me or my needs. When was the last time we even had sex, Addison?”
“I tried,” she said. “I initiated sex all the time and you kept saying you were too tired, or you weren’t in the mood. I asked practically every damn night and you just kept turning me down, Harrison. And this is your wedding too… you could have tried being a bit more involved in it. I’m running my ass ragged planning this wedding and still trying to keep our sex life alive and you’re turning me down left and right and -”
“Maybe I keep turning you down because you don’t do it for me in bed, Addison!” Harrison shouted.
There it was. The very thing she’d worried it might be. What, in her heart of hearts, she knew would be the reason. Her anger evaporated, leaving her dull and listless as she slumped against the chair.
“Look, I’m not trying to hurt you, but you want an explanation, right?” Harrison said. “So, here it is. You’re not sexy. You’re not sexy and you’re not good in bed, and you’re not experimental enough.”
“I would have been willing to try,” she said through numb lips. “If you’d only asked, I would have tried.”
Harrison scoffed. “We both know that isn’t true. You’re not like Crystal, okay? You’re a good girl and you’d never be into the stuff that I like. I’m doing you a favour, all right? You shouldn’t be mixed up in this kind of stuff anyway.”
“Are you… are you kink shaming yourself?” she said.
He flushed and looked away. “Look, I still love you, all right? I still want to marry you… eventually. We’ve been together for so long, we lost our virginity together for God’s sake, and I think it would do us both some good if we took a break.”
“A break,” she said.
He nodded eagerly, like she was a teacher’s pet who’d given the correct answer. “Yeah. We can both do some exploring, maybe try out some sexual relationships with other people. It wouldn’t be love or anything like that – just getting certain things out of our system before we settle down and get married.”
He took her silence for agreement and continued on. “A break will be good for us. We’ve been together since high school, and neither of us have ever been given the chance to sow our wild oats. Look, I like certain things in the bedroom, yeah, but give me a few months to work those out with a woman who can actually give me what I need, and then I’ll be good. It’ll be out of my system and I’ll be ready to settle down and marry you.”
He reached over and took her hand. “It’s you I love, Addison. It’s you I’ll always love. But, you gotta understand that I have needs. You’re not good in bed, babe. You’re stiff and not that responsive, and you couldn’t give a good blowjob if your life depended on it. This little break, the wedding postponement, will be good for both of us. I can be with some women who know what they’re doing in bed, right? And once I’ve been with women who are good at sex – and I’m not talking about the kinky stuff because I swear I won’t make you do that, babe - I can give you some pointers about what they did to please me.”