Page 9 of The Version You Hide

I watch her leave, wondering where she could be going and who would be waiting for her when she got there. And how the hell I’m going to finish the finer details of this drawing now that she’s gone.

“Hey, girl.” I’m pulled from my thoughts in an instant as Harper clicks on the brakes of the pram beside me and drops down onto the grass in a crossed-leg position. “Wow, that’s amazing,” she adds, pointing to the A4 sized sketch book in my lap.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I say modestly, covering the graphite drawing of the woman I’ve just been sketching.

“Seriously!” She reaches forward and snatches the book from my lap and begins flipping through it.

“Hey!” I fling out an arm in an attempt to retrieve it, but she has a firm grip on it, and I’d rather let her have it than rip its pages. Instead, I run a hand through my long hair and try not to seem uncomfortable as she surveys my work.

“These are so good,” she says, her eyes lighting up as she studies each page. “You could sell them, you know?”

“I don’t want to.” I shake my head at her suggestion. “I draw for my own enjoyment, not others.”

Sketching gets me out of my head. It’s always been the one thing that helps me relax. Putting prices and deadlines on doing the things you love only turns them into chores.

“Suit yourself,” she resigns, placing the book back in my lap.

Harper and I became fast friends in my first week of working at the tavern, although I’d seen her around many times before that. She’d served me at the Haven café almost daily, which is situated across the road from Steve’s Tavern.

For three consecutive days, we walked out of our workplaces for lunch at the same time, which somehow lead to us bonding over our hatred of men.

Since then, we’ve shared our lunchbreaks almost every day with Harper even joining me sometimes on her days off, and vice versa, though I wasn’t expecting to see her today. She’d told me she was so tired she wouldn’t leave the house unless absolutely necessary.

“What brings you to the pier today? Is baby Noah having a bad day?” I ask, tucking my sketch book and pencils into my backpack.

“Baby Noah is having a fantastic day,” Harper says with an exhausted sigh that lets me know that her day is less awesome than Noah’s. “In fact. Baby Noah has been calling all the shots. I’ve tried absolutely everything to calm him down but this whole teething thing is a bitch.”

I wince. “I can imagine.”

Except I can’t. I’ve really never given two thoughts as to what it must be like to be a mother. Especially not a single mother like Harper here. But for all the struggle she tells me she experiences I have to give the woman credit. She hasn’t up and left her child yet and that’s a whole lot more than I can say for my own mother.

I peer into the pram. Noah is peacefully sleeping, his cherubic face and long eyelashes so angelic they make a liar out of his mother. “He looks pretty freaking cute to me.”

Harper stares me down with her ‘I’m not impressed’ face. “Of course, he does now!” She blows out a long and dramatic breath. “I’m just thankful he’s finally asleep. All I need is five minutes of quiet.”

“Have you heard from Ryan?” I dare ask.

She sighs again, disappointment brewing in her eyes. “No. And frankly, I’m not holding my breath.”

“He’s an asshole,” I tell her.

I only met Ryan once, when he came into the Haven café a few months ago, but I instantly disliked him. I guess I’ve got “asshole radar” because a week later he was gone, leaving Harper in the lurch and six-month-old Noah without a father.

Hence, our bonding over our hatred of men.

“Yeah,” she mutters. “I guess the lesson here is not to get knocked up at nineteen.”

I shake my head. “You’re doing an amazing job, Harps. Noah is awesome, and that’s because of you.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, a slow smile warming her expression. “Awesome and completely devious.”

This makes me laugh, but I truly meant what I said. I have so much respect for Harper.

When she’d become pregnant, she worried that bringing a child into the world might not be the best idea for someone in her circumstance. Although she and Ryan had been in a committed relationship for years, she was concerned about the toll having a baby at a young age might take on them, not to mention the financial difficulties they may face.

It was Ryan who convinced her that keeping the baby was the right choice. That they could do anything in this world if they did it together.

And it was Ryan who left her when the pressure became too much.

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