Those Three Words, Are Said Too Much, They're Not Enough
This is not what I wanted. I thought that this chapter would play out a little bit differently but it didn't and this is what i'm left with. I don't think it's horrible but what I wanted to do was a lot better. Idk. Hopefully the next will be a lot better. I also had to change the song to Chasing Cars because I ran out of lyrics to Shelter and this song is beautiful. I loved it way before Lee even did it. I plan on using it more fully in the next chapter.
Chapter 9/?
His car is parked far enough away from the house that no one will be able to see her getting into it with him. They haven’t touched since she let go of his tie on the bridge and started to walk off and he walked behind her trying to clear his head and know that this is going to happen and he really has no say over it at all. He can’t say no or question it. He’s completely indebted to her and has to do anything she says. He’s going to constantly work to get back in her good graces, which means he has to take her back to his hotel room and let her do whatever she wants. Not that he doesn’t want to, he’s been dreaming of something like this happening since the moment it stopped happening. He would play out a hundred different scenarios in his mind. Each one with a different setting and emotion and he’s pretty much thought of this instance happening as well. She’s mad and hurting and he takes her back to his place and tries to help her with that. It’s not ideal, he never wants her to be mad or hurt and he does not like that she hasn’t even looked at him in over ten minutes. She’s pressed against the passenger side door, one leg crossed over the other and her hands are folded over her knee.
As soon as the car stops in the parking lot she’s out and walking to his side to wait for him to get the courage to get out, so she can follow him to his room.
It feels weird not to worry about who sees them. Paparazzi hardly know about this town everyone else in it doesn’t care that Harper and Lee are famous so they’re not going to tell anyone. That’s why they feel comfortable about walking into a hotel room together in the broad daylight. They know that if they want it to, it’ll remain completely between them.
When the door closes she grabs his tie again and his hands wrap around her slim waist, the plastic key card falling to the floor by his feet. She takes a few deep breathes, finally breathing the same air that he’s breathing and her heart pounds as she presses her lips to his aggressively. He pulls her into the room down the hallway and he leans her against the wall with his hands moving under his dress, pushing it up her thighs. She runs her fingers through his hair, pulling at the strands before her hands fall to his shoulders then down his chest and stomach to get to the buckle of his belt. She leans on the wall behind her and he lifts her up against it, his fingertips digging into the skin on her hips. She arches her back into him and he holds her to the wall hip to hip as she continues to work at his pants and finally pulls them down off his hips and they pool at his feet, the buckle hitting the floor with a clang. He kisses her neck, biting gently at her skin as her eyelids close tight and she holds her breath to choke back a moan at the feeling of his rough fingertips on the sensitive skin of her stomach and her legs. She sighs in disappointment when he takes his hands off of her and moves them to the front of her dress, over the fabric on her hips to pull her away from the wall. She gets out of his arms and pushes him out of the way then reaches back to grab his arm and drag him to the bed. She pulls up her dress and slips off her underwear and drops them to the floor while all he can do is watch.
He’s not moving and that frustrates her so she pushes his chest and he sways back.
“Come on.” She almost cries.
“Harper…I….”
“You want me?”
“Yes.” He grabs her hands but she pulls them away from him. “But not like this.” Not with tears of sadness and anger still staining her face.
“This is the only way you’re going to have me.” She whispers out and he immediately reaches out for her to get her dress off but she pushes him away again. “I don’t care about that.” She rushes out and he looks at her. “I don’t….this isn’t going to mean anything. I just need you.” She admits and he looks at her sadly now and she shakes her head. “No. Don’t. Don’t look at me like that; don’t feel bad for me about something that you did to me.”
“I want to fix it.”
“You can’t. You broke it. All you can do now is just…” She trails off and drops her eyes to the ground. Fuck me. Her head shakes at her blunt thought and pulls him back onto the bed with her so she can keep kissing him because she doesn’t want to talk to him or look at him or even touch him. That’s why she keeps her dress on. The less skin on skin contact the better she thinks she’ll feel. Like this won’t be pathetic and weak and giving into something she’s so wanted to forget. She’s just a shell anyways. There’s no substance in there so it’s not like she would be able to feel anything that meant anything anyways. Right now all she wants is the fast, sharp, pleasure of him. Just sex. It’s like the way she used to be before she ever even met him. Completely detached and meaningless, something that has to be done so she can move on and get her mind off of it, so she’ll know what it’s like and how it feels. Except now, it comes with about a hundred pounds of emotional baggage that she tries to shut out as he pushes her dress up over her stomach and pulls off his boxers, awkwardly getting off his shoes and pants before he leans in over her and she moans his name by accident, this kind of sex should never include names, as he kisses her chest and rocks into her body.
Her hands curl into the bedspread, trying desperately not to hold onto him because she doesn’t want him to think that he’s needed for anything more than what he’s already doing to her. She never forgot what this was like, it kept her up at night, made her burn that he could be out there doing this with Chloe and that thought makes tears burn her eyes, yet again, for the millionth time and she feels like a joke. She is pathetic and desperate and stupid to think that she could do this with no feelings and she’s completely taken out of the moment and that feeling she was getting so close to slips away from her mind and body and she sobs, tears streaming out of her eyes and he lifts his head from her shoulder, his lips leaving her skin and stops moving.
“Hey?” He whispers into her ear as he brushes her hair away from her face. “Are you okay? Am I hurting you?”
Yeah, for the past ten months.
“Just stop.” She says as she pushes on his shoulders and he groans as he pulls out of her, unsatisfied and frustrated. She throws her forearm over her arm to cover her eyes and when she feels him kiss her cheek gently she moves out of the way to escape his touch.
She pulls her dress down and he gets off the bed and goes into the bathroom to finish himself and when he comes out he picks up his boxers from the floor and pulls them on. She’s curled on the side of the bed with a pillow clutched in her hand half over her face as she cries.
He climbs onto the bed and puts her hand on his back wrinkling the fabric of her dress.
“I want to hate you.” She cries and his hand falls off her back onto the bed. “I’m so tired of crying over you, I want to get over you. I loved you so much and I can’t just stop doing that.” She rolls over so she’s on her back and he fights the urge to brush the tears off her face with his fingertips. “I don’t want to stay away from you but we’ll never be the way we used to be, I can’t ever trust you again, I just can’t. I could try, I wish that I could, it would be so much easier and I wouldn’t feel like shit all the time but you were with her Lee. I can’t get past that.”
He can’t say anything to that.
“I love you.”
“That’s not enough.” She cries. “You still did it. I don’t know if you’re going to do it again.”
“I won’t. I would never.”
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me and you did. I don’t believe you.” She sits up suddenly and he’s left reaching after the spot where she used to be.
“Do you love me?” He asks, honestly scared to know the answer.
She pauses as she balls her panties into the pocket of her dress. Totally classy, she thinks to herself.
“Yeah.” She finally answers and he can tell that it pains her to admit it and say it.
He leans on his elbows to look up at her. “What happens to us?”
She leaves the room right now and never sees him again. Buys a cabin in the woods like the Unabomber with Jake so she doesn’t have to read magazines with him in it or watch television shows updating the country on the state of his certainly rocky love life. But she needs him to take her back to the house. She’s a half an hour from home and cabs and busses exist out here.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She repeats sadly and drops his head into his hands, pushing the heel of his hands into his eyes before he looks back up at her.
He nods slowly then gets off the bed to walk past her so he can get his pants back on and pick up the key card. His shirt’s untucked and his tie is loose and his hair is a mess and he finally looks like the boy she used to know, even though she feels like she doesn’t know him at all.
“I guess I have to take you back.” He says awkwardly, his hand on the door and she shuffles her feet from side to side.
He opens the door and she starts to walk out, the bright sun is harsh on her tired, weepy, eyes. He holds onto her hand at that last second and refuses to let go when she tries to pull away.
“I love you. I want to make this work. There has to be away.”
Her lips form a tight line and she turns away from him, her hand slipping through his as she strides across the parking lot.
Back at the house she mingles though the room, trying to make distracted small talk with her family members but she fails at that and ends up sitting on the couch with a blank look on her face while Jake sits next to her and talks to Tim about something. From that position she can see Lee sitting on the deck, his shoulders slumped in disappointment and hurt as he talks to Andrew, presumably pouring his heart out and trying to make amends for what he did.
It’s been almost a year. Almost a whole year since they did anything close to what they were about to do today. Months since they’ve even touched each other. But she still has all these feelings for him. She has no idea what the appropriate amount of time to get over someone is but she feels like for her, it’s never. She’ll never get over him. He’s her first love. At 23 she found her first love and quite possibly her only love.
Jake puts his hand on her knee absentmindedly and she feels nothing for him. He’s perfect and she feels nothing. Not while Lee is consuming her mind and her heart and right now pretty much the same space. She needs distance that she knows she’ll never get and time that will pass too slowly and a man in her life that will fall tragically short of him but she won’t mind.
That night after the last of the family members and friends leave, she doesn’t know when Lee left, he got up from the deck at some point and she never saw him again, she and Jake start to pack up her room and the tension and silence is so thick it’s difficult to function.
“Jake.” Her voice cuts across the room and he looks up at her and puts a picture frame down into a box.
“You slept with him, didn’t you?”
“How…”
“It’s not really a secret Harper. It’s just…..everyone knew that it was bound to happen at some point. You love him and he is so obviously in love with you.”
“I don’t want…”
“What? You don’t want him? Maybe not but you can’t really help who you fall in love with Harper.” He shrugs and she’s shocked that he doesn’t sound upset. “I wish you could fall for me but that’s not going to happen.”
“You’re a great guy.” She tells him softly and if she was standing next to him she’d touch his arm.
“And so is he Harper. He messed up but…he loves you and he’s apologized over and over again to you right? He has to mean it. I don’t know him but I know you and I know that you don’t just fall in love with just anybody. Give him another chance Harper.”
“I don’t think I can.” She says quietly as she takes a seat on her bed.
“Give it time. Give him another chance. If it’s meant to be it’ll happen.”
When the last of the things are packed up Katie and Harper head back to L.A, Jake goes by himself after a short goodbye by his car.
She calls Lee a few days later while she’s alone in the apartment so Katie can’t talk to her about her choices because she’s not really sure which way Katie would go. She thinks she’s holding out some hope for the two of them, just like the rest of America seems to be doing but Katie did push other men towards her, begging her to get over him.
When he picks up he sounds tired and hollow and a little hesitant to think about the way the conversation is going to go.
“Can we talk somewhere?” She asks him.
“Where? Yes. Where do you want to meet? Now?” He’s suddenly energized and she finds it suddenly exhausting.
“No, not now.” She looks out the window at the night sky. “How about tomorrow? We can get coffee or something?”
“That would be great.” He sounds so hopefully and he should. She’s thinking that she’s willing to give him another shot and she should feel hopeful too. This is their second chance, their last chance to make it work and it could really work out for the best. He loves her and, for better or worse, she loves him. That should be all that they need to be happy but she has this nagging feeling that something is going to go wrong and he’ll leave her crying, begging for a third shot that she just can’t give to him.
They’re both nervous the next morning. It’s still dark out when they decide to meet up because they both hope that paparazzi don’t wake up this early so they can meet discretely. He gets there first and spends ten minutes trying to figure out if he should order or wait for her and he gets up from the table he claimed to stand in line and then sits back down again over and over again, much to the amusement of the barista behind the counter who recognizes him and idly waits for who he’s going to meet, even though she has a pretty good idea.
Harper shows up five minutes late. She took those five minutes that morning while she frantically changed her clothes because shorts were too informal but then she realized that was a stupid thought because she’s just going to see her ex boyfriend, not going on an interview or anything and it’s already so hot out but she doesn’t want to show too much and give him any ideas but it’s not like he doesn’t know it all already and in the end she ends up wearing the very first thing that she put on when she got dressed.
She catches him halfway between one of his indecisive walks from the table to the counter and they both freeze when they see each other. She in the door way, he in the middle of the small room, blocking the path of several people.
“Hi Harper.”
“Hi Lee.”
They must look like idiots because the people that pass them all give them a scathing look as they push their way through the door, making Harper step to the side.
“I got a table.” He says as he points to it and she nods.
“Okay.” She drags the word out and takes a step to the table and he makes a mad dash to get there first to pull out her chair for her and she smiles tightly at his good manners.
“I….I’m glad you wanted you talk to me, I really want to talk to you.”
“I don’t really want to talk. I don’t even want to think.”
“Okay.” He leans forward and puts his forearms on the table before they slide off. “So then what?”
“I don’t know. Can we…” She watches him noticeably perk up at the ‘we’ and she sighs, why can’t she be like that. Because she’s not the one fighting for redemption, she’s the one giving it. “Do you think we can just act?”
“Like what? Together? Do you want to get back together?”
She squirms in her seat. “I guess. I don’t know what else to do Lee.”
“This. We do this. We should be together, I want to make this work, and I’ll do anything to make it work.”
“I know you will.” She just doesn’t know if she will.
He sits back and folds his hands together on the table. “When can I take you out?”
“Do you think we should maybe……go slow for a little while? I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to go out and been seen yet?”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. There’s no point in rushing it. We’ve got nothing but time anyways right?”
She smiles weakly again and he reaches out and covers her hand with his own and she has to force herself not to pull away because she’s been trying to pull away from him for months.
“We’re gonna be okay Harper.” He says it like he believes it, like it’s the only thing he’ll ever believe in. That and her and what he feels for her.
Their ‘relationship’, she cringes at the word because it’s so familiar yet so foreign to her, doesn’t start out slow at all.
She goes over to his place, the place that they picked out together, that was supposed to be their place, the next night and no one knows that she’s going there. She just tells Katie that she’s going out and slips through the door before she could ask a follow up.
He welcomes her in with a shy smile and she feels like she could throw up as she walks in. It’s so weird to be here now. Last time that she was she was decorating the place in her head and completely and undoubtedly in love with him and everything that he represented to her and for her and now she can’t help but think that Chloe was probably all over this place, their place.
“I’m sorry it’s messy.” He tells her, his hand still lingering on her hand.
She looks around and then looks back at him. “It’s not though. It looks exactly as I remember it.” The walls are still white and blank, not even a picture hanging on the wall and the only thing that looks like it’s been changed is that there is now a couch and a TV sitting in the living room. “Why is it the same?”
“I got this place for you Harper. It was meant for you. I was waiting for you to come back.”
“What if I never did?”
“Then….this is what my life would’ve been.” He says with a shrug as his fingers wrap around her hand and he pulls her into his chest. “I missed you so much Harper.” He whispers, his lips close to her ear and her eyes shut on their own and she puts a hand to his back and the other snakes up to his shoulder.
This time when she gets him to the bed she lets him take all her clothes off and she gets his shirt off his body and her hands run across his chest and shoulders and arms and she’s able to get through the whole thing without an aching feeling in her heart because she basically shuts that part down. She acts like she did before she meant him, before she knew that sex could mean something more. He tries to kiss her in a way that will get her heart to open but she’s got it locked down tight and it doesn’t bother him as much as it should. He thinks that he has to keep trying. It won’t be an overnight fix, there was a lot of pain and time that was passed and shared between them it’s going to take time to heal. And time is on his side as long as she doesn’t turn on her heels and run away from him.
She doesn’t like to stay with him for a long time. She doesn’t want to fall asleep in the same bed as him or wake up in his arms or even have his arms around her. As soon as they’re finished she decides that she must leave. She’ll often roll out of bed while his hand is still tracing across her back trying to connect to her.
They fly under the radar a month. She comes in and out of his place with ease with no one noticing and then one day she forgets to throw on a baseball cap and sunglasses and one tourist snaps a picture of her and sells it for god knows how much money to US Weekly and rumors start to spread like wildfire. It’s suddenly breaking news that they’re back together and half of her fans are threatening to jump ship because she’s taking him back after what he did and the other half are jumping up and down because they’re together again and all is right with the world.
People follow them a lot more closely now, just dying to get a picture of them together so they can prove the things that they’re saying with real evidence.
He doesn’t really care that people are talking. She’ll look down at the magazine that he has on his kitchen table with a two page story of them in it and start to bitch the writer out and he’ll shakes his head and listen to her but inside he truly doesn’t mind it. If they’re together then people are going to talk. They’re both famous and well known and they have a fan base that cares about them and how they feel. He kind of even wishes that they could be photographed together. He has nothing to hide and it would mean that she’s starting to accept they he is now in her life for the long haul. Now it feels like he’s just some casual fling that keeps happening over and over again. He wants her to love him the same way she he loves her. He can’t feel that kind of passion when she kisses him. It feels cold and calculated and he wants to fall asleep next to her and wake up with her and make breakfast for her. He’s searching for the way they used to be and it kills him to think they might not ever get there.
Andrew calls him, for the first time in months, and demands to know ‘what the fuck is going on?’”
“People are saying that you’re together and I don’t know what to think because apparently Harper isn’t telling anyone anything, not even Katie and I just want to know the truth. Are you and her together?”
“I don’t know.” He says honestly and Andrew is silent for so long what Lee thinks the line has gone dead. “Andrew?”
“How do you not know? Either you’re sleeping with her or you’re not.”
“Then I am.” He winces because he’s not sure if he was supposed to say that. If she’s not telling anyone then he probably shouldn’t be either. “But I don’t know. It’s…..different. I feel like she doesn’t really love me.”
“Can you blame her?”
“Ouch.”
“I’m sorry Lee.” His voice softens and Lee forgives him. “I’m sorry for everything. I just bailed on you like that when you probably had no friends because no one likes a cheater….”
“You always knew how to make me feel better.” Lee jokes and Andrew laughs.
“I couldn’t believe it man. I couldn’t believe that you would do something like that.”
“I can’t either. It was the stupidest thing that I’ve ever done and now I feel like it’ll haunt me for the rest of my life because she won’t love me anymore.”
“She does love you. It’s so obvious. She’s just……her. It’s the way she deals with things; she’s a little slow emotionally. But if you really want her then you got to stick by her.”
“I do really want her and I would stick by her forever.”
“Then you’ll be alright. You two are amazing; you know I’ve always thought that. Everyone has. It’ll all work out for you. Just give it time.”
Lee’s starting to fucking hate time. It passes slowly but suddenly its two months into this new thing with her and it’s like they’re not together at all. If it wasn’t for her coming over almost every night and dragging him, sometimes he pulls her, into bed he would feel like he wouldn’t be with her at all. It’s like she’s using him and he’s no longer okay with it.
She refuses to acknowledge that they’re something. She changes the subject when his name is brought up in interviews.
“We see that you’ve been starting to hang out with Lee again, anything happening there or are those just rumors.” The interviewer will ask and Harper will get this strange look on her face and pull at her clothes.
“They’re rumors.”
“But what about the pictures of you coming out of his place late at night?”
“We’re….on speaking terms, let’s just call it that.”
Speaking terms? He has to laugh bitterly at that. They don’t speak at all. Unless you could count the words that are passed between them as they move together in bed, telling each other what to do to make the other feel good.
“But you’re not together?” The interviewer will push but Harper will roll her eyes.
“No.”
“Do you think you ever will be?”
She’ll take a long pause and Lee will wait with baited breath, hoping that her answer will be something different from what it was for the last interview.
“I don’t think so.”
It never is.
Chapter 9/?
His car is parked far enough away from the house that no one will be able to see her getting into it with him. They haven’t touched since she let go of his tie on the bridge and started to walk off and he walked behind her trying to clear his head and know that this is going to happen and he really has no say over it at all. He can’t say no or question it. He’s completely indebted to her and has to do anything she says. He’s going to constantly work to get back in her good graces, which means he has to take her back to his hotel room and let her do whatever she wants. Not that he doesn’t want to, he’s been dreaming of something like this happening since the moment it stopped happening. He would play out a hundred different scenarios in his mind. Each one with a different setting and emotion and he’s pretty much thought of this instance happening as well. She’s mad and hurting and he takes her back to his place and tries to help her with that. It’s not ideal, he never wants her to be mad or hurt and he does not like that she hasn’t even looked at him in over ten minutes. She’s pressed against the passenger side door, one leg crossed over the other and her hands are folded over her knee.
As soon as the car stops in the parking lot she’s out and walking to his side to wait for him to get the courage to get out, so she can follow him to his room.
It feels weird not to worry about who sees them. Paparazzi hardly know about this town everyone else in it doesn’t care that Harper and Lee are famous so they’re not going to tell anyone. That’s why they feel comfortable about walking into a hotel room together in the broad daylight. They know that if they want it to, it’ll remain completely between them.
When the door closes she grabs his tie again and his hands wrap around her slim waist, the plastic key card falling to the floor by his feet. She takes a few deep breathes, finally breathing the same air that he’s breathing and her heart pounds as she presses her lips to his aggressively. He pulls her into the room down the hallway and he leans her against the wall with his hands moving under his dress, pushing it up her thighs. She runs her fingers through his hair, pulling at the strands before her hands fall to his shoulders then down his chest and stomach to get to the buckle of his belt. She leans on the wall behind her and he lifts her up against it, his fingertips digging into the skin on her hips. She arches her back into him and he holds her to the wall hip to hip as she continues to work at his pants and finally pulls them down off his hips and they pool at his feet, the buckle hitting the floor with a clang. He kisses her neck, biting gently at her skin as her eyelids close tight and she holds her breath to choke back a moan at the feeling of his rough fingertips on the sensitive skin of her stomach and her legs. She sighs in disappointment when he takes his hands off of her and moves them to the front of her dress, over the fabric on her hips to pull her away from the wall. She gets out of his arms and pushes him out of the way then reaches back to grab his arm and drag him to the bed. She pulls up her dress and slips off her underwear and drops them to the floor while all he can do is watch.
He’s not moving and that frustrates her so she pushes his chest and he sways back.
“Come on.” She almost cries.
“Harper…I….”
“You want me?”
“Yes.” He grabs her hands but she pulls them away from him. “But not like this.” Not with tears of sadness and anger still staining her face.
“This is the only way you’re going to have me.” She whispers out and he immediately reaches out for her to get her dress off but she pushes him away again. “I don’t care about that.” She rushes out and he looks at her. “I don’t….this isn’t going to mean anything. I just need you.” She admits and he looks at her sadly now and she shakes her head. “No. Don’t. Don’t look at me like that; don’t feel bad for me about something that you did to me.”
“I want to fix it.”
“You can’t. You broke it. All you can do now is just…” She trails off and drops her eyes to the ground. Fuck me. Her head shakes at her blunt thought and pulls him back onto the bed with her so she can keep kissing him because she doesn’t want to talk to him or look at him or even touch him. That’s why she keeps her dress on. The less skin on skin contact the better she thinks she’ll feel. Like this won’t be pathetic and weak and giving into something she’s so wanted to forget. She’s just a shell anyways. There’s no substance in there so it’s not like she would be able to feel anything that meant anything anyways. Right now all she wants is the fast, sharp, pleasure of him. Just sex. It’s like the way she used to be before she ever even met him. Completely detached and meaningless, something that has to be done so she can move on and get her mind off of it, so she’ll know what it’s like and how it feels. Except now, it comes with about a hundred pounds of emotional baggage that she tries to shut out as he pushes her dress up over her stomach and pulls off his boxers, awkwardly getting off his shoes and pants before he leans in over her and she moans his name by accident, this kind of sex should never include names, as he kisses her chest and rocks into her body.
Her hands curl into the bedspread, trying desperately not to hold onto him because she doesn’t want him to think that he’s needed for anything more than what he’s already doing to her. She never forgot what this was like, it kept her up at night, made her burn that he could be out there doing this with Chloe and that thought makes tears burn her eyes, yet again, for the millionth time and she feels like a joke. She is pathetic and desperate and stupid to think that she could do this with no feelings and she’s completely taken out of the moment and that feeling she was getting so close to slips away from her mind and body and she sobs, tears streaming out of her eyes and he lifts his head from her shoulder, his lips leaving her skin and stops moving.
“Hey?” He whispers into her ear as he brushes her hair away from her face. “Are you okay? Am I hurting you?”
Yeah, for the past ten months.
“Just stop.” She says as she pushes on his shoulders and he groans as he pulls out of her, unsatisfied and frustrated. She throws her forearm over her arm to cover her eyes and when she feels him kiss her cheek gently she moves out of the way to escape his touch.
She pulls her dress down and he gets off the bed and goes into the bathroom to finish himself and when he comes out he picks up his boxers from the floor and pulls them on. She’s curled on the side of the bed with a pillow clutched in her hand half over her face as she cries.
He climbs onto the bed and puts her hand on his back wrinkling the fabric of her dress.
“I want to hate you.” She cries and his hand falls off her back onto the bed. “I’m so tired of crying over you, I want to get over you. I loved you so much and I can’t just stop doing that.” She rolls over so she’s on her back and he fights the urge to brush the tears off her face with his fingertips. “I don’t want to stay away from you but we’ll never be the way we used to be, I can’t ever trust you again, I just can’t. I could try, I wish that I could, it would be so much easier and I wouldn’t feel like shit all the time but you were with her Lee. I can’t get past that.”
He can’t say anything to that.
“I love you.”
“That’s not enough.” She cries. “You still did it. I don’t know if you’re going to do it again.”
“I won’t. I would never.”
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me and you did. I don’t believe you.” She sits up suddenly and he’s left reaching after the spot where she used to be.
“Do you love me?” He asks, honestly scared to know the answer.
She pauses as she balls her panties into the pocket of her dress. Totally classy, she thinks to herself.
“Yeah.” She finally answers and he can tell that it pains her to admit it and say it.
He leans on his elbows to look up at her. “What happens to us?”
She leaves the room right now and never sees him again. Buys a cabin in the woods like the Unabomber with Jake so she doesn’t have to read magazines with him in it or watch television shows updating the country on the state of his certainly rocky love life. But she needs him to take her back to the house. She’s a half an hour from home and cabs and busses exist out here.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She repeats sadly and drops his head into his hands, pushing the heel of his hands into his eyes before he looks back up at her.
He nods slowly then gets off the bed to walk past her so he can get his pants back on and pick up the key card. His shirt’s untucked and his tie is loose and his hair is a mess and he finally looks like the boy she used to know, even though she feels like she doesn’t know him at all.
“I guess I have to take you back.” He says awkwardly, his hand on the door and she shuffles her feet from side to side.
He opens the door and she starts to walk out, the bright sun is harsh on her tired, weepy, eyes. He holds onto her hand at that last second and refuses to let go when she tries to pull away.
“I love you. I want to make this work. There has to be away.”
Her lips form a tight line and she turns away from him, her hand slipping through his as she strides across the parking lot.
Back at the house she mingles though the room, trying to make distracted small talk with her family members but she fails at that and ends up sitting on the couch with a blank look on her face while Jake sits next to her and talks to Tim about something. From that position she can see Lee sitting on the deck, his shoulders slumped in disappointment and hurt as he talks to Andrew, presumably pouring his heart out and trying to make amends for what he did.
It’s been almost a year. Almost a whole year since they did anything close to what they were about to do today. Months since they’ve even touched each other. But she still has all these feelings for him. She has no idea what the appropriate amount of time to get over someone is but she feels like for her, it’s never. She’ll never get over him. He’s her first love. At 23 she found her first love and quite possibly her only love.
Jake puts his hand on her knee absentmindedly and she feels nothing for him. He’s perfect and she feels nothing. Not while Lee is consuming her mind and her heart and right now pretty much the same space. She needs distance that she knows she’ll never get and time that will pass too slowly and a man in her life that will fall tragically short of him but she won’t mind.
That night after the last of the family members and friends leave, she doesn’t know when Lee left, he got up from the deck at some point and she never saw him again, she and Jake start to pack up her room and the tension and silence is so thick it’s difficult to function.
“Jake.” Her voice cuts across the room and he looks up at her and puts a picture frame down into a box.
“You slept with him, didn’t you?”
“How…”
“It’s not really a secret Harper. It’s just…..everyone knew that it was bound to happen at some point. You love him and he is so obviously in love with you.”
“I don’t want…”
“What? You don’t want him? Maybe not but you can’t really help who you fall in love with Harper.” He shrugs and she’s shocked that he doesn’t sound upset. “I wish you could fall for me but that’s not going to happen.”
“You’re a great guy.” She tells him softly and if she was standing next to him she’d touch his arm.
“And so is he Harper. He messed up but…he loves you and he’s apologized over and over again to you right? He has to mean it. I don’t know him but I know you and I know that you don’t just fall in love with just anybody. Give him another chance Harper.”
“I don’t think I can.” She says quietly as she takes a seat on her bed.
“Give it time. Give him another chance. If it’s meant to be it’ll happen.”
When the last of the things are packed up Katie and Harper head back to L.A, Jake goes by himself after a short goodbye by his car.
She calls Lee a few days later while she’s alone in the apartment so Katie can’t talk to her about her choices because she’s not really sure which way Katie would go. She thinks she’s holding out some hope for the two of them, just like the rest of America seems to be doing but Katie did push other men towards her, begging her to get over him.
When he picks up he sounds tired and hollow and a little hesitant to think about the way the conversation is going to go.
“Can we talk somewhere?” She asks him.
“Where? Yes. Where do you want to meet? Now?” He’s suddenly energized and she finds it suddenly exhausting.
“No, not now.” She looks out the window at the night sky. “How about tomorrow? We can get coffee or something?”
“That would be great.” He sounds so hopefully and he should. She’s thinking that she’s willing to give him another shot and she should feel hopeful too. This is their second chance, their last chance to make it work and it could really work out for the best. He loves her and, for better or worse, she loves him. That should be all that they need to be happy but she has this nagging feeling that something is going to go wrong and he’ll leave her crying, begging for a third shot that she just can’t give to him.
They’re both nervous the next morning. It’s still dark out when they decide to meet up because they both hope that paparazzi don’t wake up this early so they can meet discretely. He gets there first and spends ten minutes trying to figure out if he should order or wait for her and he gets up from the table he claimed to stand in line and then sits back down again over and over again, much to the amusement of the barista behind the counter who recognizes him and idly waits for who he’s going to meet, even though she has a pretty good idea.
Harper shows up five minutes late. She took those five minutes that morning while she frantically changed her clothes because shorts were too informal but then she realized that was a stupid thought because she’s just going to see her ex boyfriend, not going on an interview or anything and it’s already so hot out but she doesn’t want to show too much and give him any ideas but it’s not like he doesn’t know it all already and in the end she ends up wearing the very first thing that she put on when she got dressed.
She catches him halfway between one of his indecisive walks from the table to the counter and they both freeze when they see each other. She in the door way, he in the middle of the small room, blocking the path of several people.
“Hi Harper.”
“Hi Lee.”
They must look like idiots because the people that pass them all give them a scathing look as they push their way through the door, making Harper step to the side.
“I got a table.” He says as he points to it and she nods.
“Okay.” She drags the word out and takes a step to the table and he makes a mad dash to get there first to pull out her chair for her and she smiles tightly at his good manners.
“I….I’m glad you wanted you talk to me, I really want to talk to you.”
“I don’t really want to talk. I don’t even want to think.”
“Okay.” He leans forward and puts his forearms on the table before they slide off. “So then what?”
“I don’t know. Can we…” She watches him noticeably perk up at the ‘we’ and she sighs, why can’t she be like that. Because she’s not the one fighting for redemption, she’s the one giving it. “Do you think we can just act?”
“Like what? Together? Do you want to get back together?”
She squirms in her seat. “I guess. I don’t know what else to do Lee.”
“This. We do this. We should be together, I want to make this work, and I’ll do anything to make it work.”
“I know you will.” She just doesn’t know if she will.
He sits back and folds his hands together on the table. “When can I take you out?”
“Do you think we should maybe……go slow for a little while? I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to go out and been seen yet?”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. There’s no point in rushing it. We’ve got nothing but time anyways right?”
She smiles weakly again and he reaches out and covers her hand with his own and she has to force herself not to pull away because she’s been trying to pull away from him for months.
“We’re gonna be okay Harper.” He says it like he believes it, like it’s the only thing he’ll ever believe in. That and her and what he feels for her.
Their ‘relationship’, she cringes at the word because it’s so familiar yet so foreign to her, doesn’t start out slow at all.
She goes over to his place, the place that they picked out together, that was supposed to be their place, the next night and no one knows that she’s going there. She just tells Katie that she’s going out and slips through the door before she could ask a follow up.
He welcomes her in with a shy smile and she feels like she could throw up as she walks in. It’s so weird to be here now. Last time that she was she was decorating the place in her head and completely and undoubtedly in love with him and everything that he represented to her and for her and now she can’t help but think that Chloe was probably all over this place, their place.
“I’m sorry it’s messy.” He tells her, his hand still lingering on her hand.
She looks around and then looks back at him. “It’s not though. It looks exactly as I remember it.” The walls are still white and blank, not even a picture hanging on the wall and the only thing that looks like it’s been changed is that there is now a couch and a TV sitting in the living room. “Why is it the same?”
“I got this place for you Harper. It was meant for you. I was waiting for you to come back.”
“What if I never did?”
“Then….this is what my life would’ve been.” He says with a shrug as his fingers wrap around her hand and he pulls her into his chest. “I missed you so much Harper.” He whispers, his lips close to her ear and her eyes shut on their own and she puts a hand to his back and the other snakes up to his shoulder.
This time when she gets him to the bed she lets him take all her clothes off and she gets his shirt off his body and her hands run across his chest and shoulders and arms and she’s able to get through the whole thing without an aching feeling in her heart because she basically shuts that part down. She acts like she did before she meant him, before she knew that sex could mean something more. He tries to kiss her in a way that will get her heart to open but she’s got it locked down tight and it doesn’t bother him as much as it should. He thinks that he has to keep trying. It won’t be an overnight fix, there was a lot of pain and time that was passed and shared between them it’s going to take time to heal. And time is on his side as long as she doesn’t turn on her heels and run away from him.
She doesn’t like to stay with him for a long time. She doesn’t want to fall asleep in the same bed as him or wake up in his arms or even have his arms around her. As soon as they’re finished she decides that she must leave. She’ll often roll out of bed while his hand is still tracing across her back trying to connect to her.
They fly under the radar a month. She comes in and out of his place with ease with no one noticing and then one day she forgets to throw on a baseball cap and sunglasses and one tourist snaps a picture of her and sells it for god knows how much money to US Weekly and rumors start to spread like wildfire. It’s suddenly breaking news that they’re back together and half of her fans are threatening to jump ship because she’s taking him back after what he did and the other half are jumping up and down because they’re together again and all is right with the world.
People follow them a lot more closely now, just dying to get a picture of them together so they can prove the things that they’re saying with real evidence.
He doesn’t really care that people are talking. She’ll look down at the magazine that he has on his kitchen table with a two page story of them in it and start to bitch the writer out and he’ll shakes his head and listen to her but inside he truly doesn’t mind it. If they’re together then people are going to talk. They’re both famous and well known and they have a fan base that cares about them and how they feel. He kind of even wishes that they could be photographed together. He has nothing to hide and it would mean that she’s starting to accept they he is now in her life for the long haul. Now it feels like he’s just some casual fling that keeps happening over and over again. He wants her to love him the same way she he loves her. He can’t feel that kind of passion when she kisses him. It feels cold and calculated and he wants to fall asleep next to her and wake up with her and make breakfast for her. He’s searching for the way they used to be and it kills him to think they might not ever get there.
Andrew calls him, for the first time in months, and demands to know ‘what the fuck is going on?’”
“People are saying that you’re together and I don’t know what to think because apparently Harper isn’t telling anyone anything, not even Katie and I just want to know the truth. Are you and her together?”
“I don’t know.” He says honestly and Andrew is silent for so long what Lee thinks the line has gone dead. “Andrew?”
“How do you not know? Either you’re sleeping with her or you’re not.”
“Then I am.” He winces because he’s not sure if he was supposed to say that. If she’s not telling anyone then he probably shouldn’t be either. “But I don’t know. It’s…..different. I feel like she doesn’t really love me.”
“Can you blame her?”
“Ouch.”
“I’m sorry Lee.” His voice softens and Lee forgives him. “I’m sorry for everything. I just bailed on you like that when you probably had no friends because no one likes a cheater….”
“You always knew how to make me feel better.” Lee jokes and Andrew laughs.
“I couldn’t believe it man. I couldn’t believe that you would do something like that.”
“I can’t either. It was the stupidest thing that I’ve ever done and now I feel like it’ll haunt me for the rest of my life because she won’t love me anymore.”
“She does love you. It’s so obvious. She’s just……her. It’s the way she deals with things; she’s a little slow emotionally. But if you really want her then you got to stick by her.”
“I do really want her and I would stick by her forever.”
“Then you’ll be alright. You two are amazing; you know I’ve always thought that. Everyone has. It’ll all work out for you. Just give it time.”
Lee’s starting to fucking hate time. It passes slowly but suddenly its two months into this new thing with her and it’s like they’re not together at all. If it wasn’t for her coming over almost every night and dragging him, sometimes he pulls her, into bed he would feel like he wouldn’t be with her at all. It’s like she’s using him and he’s no longer okay with it.
She refuses to acknowledge that they’re something. She changes the subject when his name is brought up in interviews.
“We see that you’ve been starting to hang out with Lee again, anything happening there or are those just rumors.” The interviewer will ask and Harper will get this strange look on her face and pull at her clothes.
“They’re rumors.”
“But what about the pictures of you coming out of his place late at night?”
“We’re….on speaking terms, let’s just call it that.”
Speaking terms? He has to laugh bitterly at that. They don’t speak at all. Unless you could count the words that are passed between them as they move together in bed, telling each other what to do to make the other feel good.
“But you’re not together?” The interviewer will push but Harper will roll her eyes.
“No.”
“Do you think you ever will be?”
She’ll take a long pause and Lee will wait with baited breath, hoping that her answer will be something different from what it was for the last interview.
“I don’t think so.”
It never is.