Page 115 of Harrison's Wedding

I make us coffees and toast while Hayden finishes the eggs, and we take the food and drinks to the dining table to eat.

“So, I didn’t see you after Heather called last night. Everything okay?” he asks after a few minutes.

I sigh. “Yeah, sorry I didn’t come and help clean up after dinner. She wants to have a counseling session with Brendan tomorrow.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” he asks me.

I get a brief spark of hope, but then remember that she didn’t say anything about wanting to do it because she wants to get back together.

“I doubt it. I don’t think she wants to get back together; she just…wants to talk.”

Hayden’s eyebrows knit together in a frown. “She wouldn’t want to talk if she didn’t want to get back together, though.”

“Not necessarily. It was an awkward conversation, and if our session is anything like the other ones we’ve had, I don’t hold much hope of anything good coming from it.” I shrug as nonchalantly as I can manage.

“Well, don’t lose hope. You and Heather will get through this; I know you will,” he assures me.

“I wish I was so sure. Anyway, can we talk about something else, please?” I ask tersely.

“Sure. Sorry.”

I feel bad for snapping at him, and I sigh. “No, it’s fine. What are you up to today?”

“Gabriel’s coming over. You?” he says, then takes a sip of his coffee.

“I have an appointment with a jeweler this afternoon to get a piece, and then I want to go out tonight. Maybe somewhere other than Club Delirium, I feel like we’ve been there a lot lately.”

“We have. You don’t want to stay in tonight, instead?”

Hayden’s given up on trying to convince me not to go out and get drunk. He just makes these half-hearted attempts now, knowing that I’ll reject it.

I shake my head. “No. It’s Friday night. I can’t stay home on a Friday night.”

A strong wave of pain hits me as I remember the many, many Friday nights spent at home with Heather. Back when she was mine, I didn’t need to go out to clubs and get drunk because reality wasn’t this bitter hell that it is now.

“Sure. Gabriel and Ariana might come out with us, I guess,” he says with a tight smile.

“That would be good.”

A pang of hurt hits me as the alternate reality that I crave comes to my mind. The world where Heather and I are together because I didn’t sleep with Maddy. It would’ve been so good to have Heather and Ariana back as friends, and to be planning a night out together.

We finish eating breakfast, and I take our dishes to the kitchen to put them away. I find it comforting to hand wash them, even though I could easily just put them in the dishwasher. When I’m done, I dry them and put them away before leaving the kitchen.

Hayden has disappeared, but he does this sometimes. I assume he’s in his bedroom, and I try as much as I can to give him his space. I should probably get my own place. I hate intruding on Hayden’s privacy, but whenever I suggest it, he shuts me down.

I know that Heather is living in a rented apartment and ours is sitting empty, but I don’t want to go back there because I said that I wouldn’t.

I drift slowly toward the music room and open the door, feeling a calm wash over me as I enter. This is my favorite room in Hayden’s apartment, and I spend a lot of time here. I head over to the side of the room and pick up the guitar, plug it into the amp, and switch it on. I’ve spent so much time in here playing it lately, that it’ll be strange the next time we’re together and Sebastian’s the one playing it.

I grin to myself as I imagine what he’d say if he were here to see me play it this much. Probably something along the lines of, ‘Don’t get any ideas about taking my job, Harrison Fletcher.’

I laugh as I instinctively strum the chords for “If I Were You.” It’s easy, calming, and the first song I play every time. I sing Heather’s song, closing my eyes and allowing myself to think about her. I think about writing the song, performing it for her the first time in a club in Chicago as we were poised on the brink of blowing up, winning a Grammy for this song.

I smile as I finish out the song and move on to one we half-wrote and discarded last October, changing the lyrics to be about Heather. I don’t bother trying to write anything down. I couldn’t count the number of songs I’ve written off the top of my head in this room since I moved into the apartment.

All of them have some aspect to do with Heather. Some are about our love, some are about my love, some are about her love. Others are to do with sex, and some have been so explicit that I get aroused singing them. I sang a whole song once simply about the color of her eyes.

I miss her so much, and today’s song is about the thought of seeing her again. It terrifies and excites me in equal measure. The song trails off because I don’t really have an ending for it, so I move on to “Midnight Rebellion.”

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