Page 149 of Cruel Lies

And if we weren’t meant for her, then what was the point of all this?

I pressed the pedal down to the floor and prayed I wasn’t too late to right the wrong I’d done.

FIFTY-EIGHT

HARPER

Seven years ago,I stood right here and watched my life flash before my eyes.

Seven years ago, everything changed for me.

Seven long fucking years ago, the life I knew was forcibly exchanged for a life I didn’t.

Filled with uncertainties, rife with hurdles I’d never had to face before, and roadblocks I’d never imagined suffering through. Stifling, challenging, and disappointing. Sometimes heartbreaking.

I wouldn’t change that life for the world. The experiences and lessons I learned along the way were invaluable.

But somewhere along the way, I realized it wasn’t me. That life wasn’t mine. It was a loaner, a mask I wore, a costume to keep myself hidden from the world. If I’d opened up, if I’d been myself, someone might’ve found me, and I could have died.

That was no way to live.

I changed everything about myself to survive, but was I living, or was I just going through the motions?

Question upon question I asked myself as my feet dangled over the edge of the old bridge, tiny flecks of old paint and concrete chipping off as I watched in awe plummeting to their drowning death in the cold waters below.

I remembered those waters well.

Even the time I’d spent as someone else couldn’t erase the feel of the frigid depths trying to swallow me whole. The weight of my heavy clothes dragging me down, threatening to drown me before I could break the surface and scream for help.

The sluggishness of my mind as I fought back against the drugs flowing through my veins.

The emotions that refused to be silent, switching in my mind like a roulette wheel. Anger, pain, sadness, betrayal, jealousy, regret, love, defeat. Over, and over, and over, and over, until I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t latch onto one long enoughtofeelit.

But I could feel it now.

Every inch of me could feel it now. The tip of the blade Nash had held onto for all those years, etched with the name of the woman he’d betrayed, in her own handwriting, as a permanent reminder of the bad he’d done. Where was my own reminder? How could I possibly pay homage to the years of my life I’d wasted, all because I was a target of a jealous, selfish man’s aims?

Was I even really Harper Daniels anymore?

Or was she just a ghost of the past, a memory I clung stubbornly to in order to keep from processing her death in the waters below?

If I cut myself open, would I bleed Harper Daniels out, or was she already gone? Had she been gone for a long time? Or was her death a recent one, gone with my innocence and lost to the dregs of time?

I didn’t register the headlights that barely skimmed my body as they passed the entrance of the bridge. Didn’t give them a second thought as they cut off and I was once again bathed in darkness.

My sole focus was on the tip of the dark blade, still caked with the blood of a man I loved.

And my own.

So much blood. Now on my hands. I could never wash that away.

I didn’t even know if he’d recovered enough to wake up yet.

What if they never woke up? What if they died from their wounds?

Would I even deserve to know?

Would I have to seek death on my own, or would Rowan come to finish the job for me as retribution?

---