Finding Me (10 page)

Danny’s hands slide along my jaw on either side, and before I can stop it, or question if I
want
to stop it, he kisses me.

The bar erupts in catcalls and whistles as Danny’s arm slinks to my back, and he dips me slightly as his lips move over mine for several moments.

“Thanks,” Danny whispers in my ear as he rights me. His hand brushes along my hair, tucking it behind one ear, as he somehow seems to manage to smile even broader.

Danny moves his stool beside mine as we watch a few men and some officers that have appeared to escort the women out of the bar. Thoughts and emotions work to break through the tiled façade I’ve buried them under. I keep them at bay by finishing my beer as our food arrives with a man that apologizes for the inconvenience, offering us more drinks that we decline.

When we finally stand up to leave, Danny accompanies us. It takes an exorbitant amount of time for us to cross the small bar with people approaching Danny, pleading for autographs and pictures.

“Alright, handsome, I think much more and you’re going to lose your friends.” A large, bald black man appears, his voice deep and husky as he creates a human barrier between Danny and another group of fans.

Danny places a hand on the small of my back that had I not seen in the reflection of the window we just passed, I wouldn’t have known was there due to my many layers. The cold air hits me like a wall as it usually does here, causing my muscles to constrict painfully.

“What are you guys doing Saturday?” Danny asks, undeterred by the freezing temperatures.

“I’ll text you her number, but her California blood is too thin for this weather,” Fitz says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

“Okay, where’s your phone,
friend
?” Danny asks, taking a step closer to us.

My muscles protest as I move my arm from around my middle to retrieve my phone from my purse.

Danny takes it from my grasp with a smile. His fingers move quickly over the screen before retrieving his own phone and looking at it with a satisfied expression, then hands me back my own phone.

“Don’t trust me?” Fitz teases.

“Some things you can’t leave in the hands of others,” Danny replies, wrapping an arm around Fitz. He pulls back with a laugh and then engulfs me in his arms.

“I’ll see you Saturday.”

“I didn’t say yes.”

“You will.” He winks, squeezing my hand for a brief second. Then he slowly releases my fingers, allowing the cold to assault my skin with vengeance against the warmth he left behind. I hear him laugh as he follows the large black man that’s clearly giving him a hard time down the road.

“Best. Friend. Ever.” Fitz tugs me closer, and we walk with me under his arm to the car. “I should wear a badge. No, no, a medal!” he cries, patting a spot on his chest as we make it back to his car. “I bet you can find one online.”

When I get home, the silence swallows me. The threat of impending thoughts has me deliberately drawing out the process of getting ready for bed in an attempt to avoid them. I watch several episodes of a sitcom that I manage to laugh at a few times with only slight force as my mind quietly buzzes.

Eventually, I turn it off and let out a deep breath as I close my eyes and lie back. The night begins unraveling, one thread at a time. The kiss had been so sudden and such a surprise it hadn’t fully registered until just now. I press my fingers to my lips at the memory of feeling Danny’s, soft and warm, against mine, his chin slightly rough. My eyes fill with tears, and I get up and go back to the bathroom and begin brushing my teeth, though I had just moments ago. I scrub until my gums burn and my eyes release a new stream of tears.

I lie in bed again, feeling like my chest has been stuffed with cotton. I can’t breathe. I can hear the condescending tone of my heart as images fly through my mind—images of Max smiling and laughing, looking at me with adoration and love. I can feel his skin warm against me, taste his lips as they touch mine. My breath hitches as a sharp, gut-wrenching ache forces me to curl into myself and grasp my chest to make sure I haven’t somehow been physically ripped open.

I need comfort. I need to hear him, to feel him, to smell him. But I can’t, and the fact causes my pain to intensify. I reach for my phone and hit a couple of buttons, fighting the guilt for calling so late.

“Hey!” her chipper voice is so clear, it sounds like it could be beside me, rather than across the country.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes.

“Ace? Are you okay?”

The sound of concern in Kendall’s voice only makes it worse. A strangled cry emits from my throat as I picture the expression that I know accompanies her current tone.

“Oh, Ace, what happened? Are you alright?” I hear a few quiet murmurs in the background, but can’t distinguish any of it over my gasps of breath.

“I can’t get over him,” I choke out. “I don’t know how to make it go away.”

“Oh, Ace.”

“I got kissed tonight,” I whisper, wiping at my cheeks that are wet from tears.

She doesn’t reply. I can imagine her trying to figure out what to say to encourage me that everything will be alright. It’s horrible that I need to hear her tell me that I should come back, and that Max and I will get back together, because after all, I’m not sure that I
can
go back.

“Maybe it’s because it was the first time? Maybe this had to happen for it to get easier.” Her words cripple me. Kendall’s my only sister that doesn’t ask about boys or dating, like she understands that my heart won’t stop loving Max, but this advice speaks in volumes to me. It tells me she thinks it’s over.

“Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.”

– J.K. Rowling

“H
ow are you feeling today, Harper?”

Our hour always begins with this same simple, overly common question that I’ve begun to loathe. Traditionally, this greeting can be evaded so easily with a smile or a returned question. That’s never the case with Kitty. She seems to really want to know.

It’s been a couple of weeks since she brought up my dad and the reasons for me moving out here. When I returned, I didn’t apologize for leaving the following week, and she didn’t either. Maybe we both know that she pushed too hard. Or maybe we both know that I’m just not ready for her to push that hard.

“I don’t know.”

Kitty waits patiently. I’m tempted to wait with her, see how long she can actually tolerate this silence.

I don’t last long. “Fitz and I went to a bar Friday, and this guy that Fitz knows asked me out.”

Kitty’s head tilts to the side. “You’re concerned about going out and having a good time?” I don’t protest. I don’t know how to explain my objections without sounding a little crazy. “Harper, time will always pass, but sometimes you forget to pay attention until it’s too late.”

“Too late for me to go out with this guy? Or too late to fix things?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t we discuss Max a little today? Perhaps that will help you find the answer you’re seeking.”

I shift in my seat, already uncomfortable with the mere thought of where this conversation will lead. My fingers trace along the seat cushion.

“Do you think that your connection to Max could be so strong because he’s the only man you’ve ever slept with? That you feel like you’re committing an indiscretion by caring for another person?”

I’m slightly shocked by her words. Generally, she never allots me feelings or thoughts, always working to prod them from me. I shake my head and shrug at the same time. “No.” Her eyes obviously catch the small shrug, and I reiterate. “I think that I would feel like I was committing an indiscretion, but I don’t think the reason I feel that way is because I’ve only slept with him.”

“What made you decide that you were ready to give your virtue to Max? Obviously, you had waited a very long time.”

“I just knew,” I say, blinking back the memories and Kendall’s taunting voice in my head for Kitty using the word virtue. “I think I knew way before I admitted it to myself that I loved Max.”

“Were you in any serious relationships before Max?”

I nod. “Yeah, I dated several guys. I was just always reluctant to go that far for some reason. It had just never felt right.”

“Do you think that you were afraid to sleep with other guys prior to Max because of what happened to you at that party?”

“No.” I shake my head, working to explain to her what I already know. “No, I had sex with Max because I was ready, and I wanted to. I dated a lot of people before he and I got together, but they never gave me the same feelings that he had.”

“I’m glad. That … situation…” She pauses, and I can hear her thoughts, though she doesn’t voice them. We spent most of last week discussing the last night of my drinking at parties after Kendall called me last Wednesday.

“Hey, Kendall,” I’d answered with ease. I had feared that things would become more strained with my sisters and me when I made the decision to take some time away from our mom. I didn’t ask my sisters to do the same, and was reluctant to tell them all initially, concerned I’d influence their decisions. However, if anything, Kendall’s and my relationship seems to have reached a new level of growth. We’ve always talked about things, but often times we experienced so many situations together that we were usually sharing different perspectives, inside jokes, or filling in details. Now we explain our completely separate lives to one another—something that is much harder, but feels even more significant.

“Did he hurt you?” I could hear the trepidation in Kendall’s voice, and it had me stopping in the middle of the aisle with my shopping cart still only half-filled with the groceries I was in dire need of.

“What? Someone hurt you?”

“What did Nathan Hudson do?”

My blood ran cold and my focus was forced to split from the fear of what she had heard to who in the hell told her something. “What are you talking about?”

“What did Nathan Hudson do, Ace? Did he hurt you?” Her voice rose with an intensity that made the small hairs on my arms and back of my neck rise.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice was strained, desperate to deflect the entire conversation.

“Goddammit, Ace, please!” I couldn’t imagine her face with the unfamiliar tone that echoed back at me. I didn’t know if she was ready to cry or scream. “Swear to me, swear to me he didn’t touch you.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Who have you been talking to?”

“Oh my God …” Her voice had become so quiet that I missed a few of her words as a mom came around the corner with a cart full of toddlers fighting over something. “…why didn’t you tell me?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“When did it happen?”

“You know why I hate him,” I urged.

“Is it why you left?”

“Are you listening to me?”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Her voice was forceful, impatient, and filled with tears.

“Kendall, stop. You have no idea what you’re talking about. This isn’t something we’re discussing.”

“Like hell we’re not discussing th—”

I hung up.

Then I’d turned off my phone before she could call back and abandoned my shopping cart.

I had to go see Kitty an hour later and was still shaken about the situation, still trying to figure out who in the hell was talking about things and why, after it had been so long.

“My sister’s upset with me.”

“Why is that?”

“Because she wants to discuss something, and I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because there are certain things that are best left buried.”

“You know, the things that you bury are typically the same things that have inflicted the most pain.”

My palms rub together nervously, while my mind anxiously reached for a safe topic to discuss.

“Why is she insisting on discussing it with you?” Kitty continued.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what, or how she knows.”

“Harper, why are you concerned about her knowing?”