Page 131 of Harrison's Wedding

When I’m done, Ariana hands me a bottle of water. “Here. I thought you might need this.”

“Thank you,” I mumble, feeling ashamed of my uncontrollable reaction because everyone is looking at me and waiting to continue the meeting.

I make my way back to my seat and sit down in my chair again. Hayden puts his hand on my back and pats me a couple of times before he takes it away again. I appreciate the gesture as I take a swig of water from the bottle Ariana gave me.

“Who took the photo?” a quiet voice to my left asks.

I know who it is, and I don’t want to look at her right now, nor do I really want to know the answer to Maddy’s question.

Aaron Hamilton sighs again. “From what we know, they had plenty of photos from during the event the night before, no doubt you've seen some of those. They would have sold them for quite a sum, anyway. However, in the early hours of the morning, they sent one of the maids into the room to see if she could get a picture of you in bed together. If she’d been caught, she was going to say that she was just there to clean the room.”

I can barely fight down another wave of nausea. So, it was a maid who came into the room and took pictures of us in our sleep. She came into the room with a camera and a ready excuse, then snapped photographs to sell to the media. I feel utterly violated.

Every piece of my bodily autonomy was stripped away throughout the course of the night, from the time I was drugged through to the time that picture was taken.

For the first time since I woke up that morning, I can’t blame myself. But this is so much worse. I fight back tears at the memories in light of this knowledge. I was a pawn in someone’s sick game of chess, moved about on the board to help them achieve their goal. Completely uncaring of what I wanted and only concerned with cashing in on their payday.

I know that I would never have chosen to cheat with Maddy. They knew that, too. They knew that in order to get themselves a decent scandal, they would have to drug us.

And so they did.

I don’t take in much of the rest of the meeting, which only goes for another few minutes. I’m lost in a mental loop of memories, hatred, pain, and sorrow. I barely notice when everyone else leaves the room and I’m left with nobody else but my friends sitting at the table with me.

“Are you okay, Harrison?” Sebastian asks, sounding concerned.

“Yeah,” I manage to croak, and I take another sip from the water bottle.

“This is insane,” Hayden sighs, “I can’t help wondering if it would’ve been me if I hadn’t just gone upstairs and passed out.”

“I wish it had been me,” Sebastian says.

“A Sebastian Fox four-way is nowhere near as marketable as ‘Harrison Fletcher cheats on Heather York while she hosts Saturday Night Live,’” I look up as Heather says this in a monotone voice. I flinch at her words because the reminder of what happened to me is painful, and Heather says, “Sorry, I didn’t actually say that to try and hurt you, Harrison. I mean that of all the available options, they must have felt like they’d hit the fucking jackpot when they saw you leaving with her.”

“What do we do?” Hayden asks.

“Nothing. We do nothing. The police are handling it, and Cooper is doing the press conference.”

To my surprise, it’s Ariana that answers his question.

“We all have security now, and we make sure that none of us are exposed like that again. We definitely don’t go around calling the press ‘miserable failures of human beings’, even though some of them definitely are,” she gives Sebastian a wry smile, and my eyebrows raise at this.

“You didn’t, Seb!” Hayden laughs aloud.

“Check your phone, dude. There’s probably a video online by now.”

Hayden grins at him. “Do I even want to know what they said to earn that response?”

“Same shit as usual. It was just the wrong day for it.” Sebastian shrugs.

The conversation continues, and Hayden asks where everyone’s going from here. When they answer and begin to give their farewells, it all just seems so normal and usual that the regular longing that I feel for Heather intensifies dramatically.

As we’re leaving the room, I reach out and wrap my fingers around Heather’s wrist to stop her from walking out the door. The feeling of her skin against mine is painfully familiar. I’m not sure if our friends notice, but they leave the room and close the door behind them.

Heather and I are alone for the first time since she came to Hayden’s apartment. I can smell her floral perfume, and now that we’re alone, I’m not sure what to say. She doesn’t want my apologies; do I tell her about my sessions with Brendan? I don’t even know. I’m still trying to process what we were told in the meeting, and now my senses and brain are overwhelmed with her nearness.

“What, Harrison?” Heather asks in a soft voice.

“I don’t know. I just needed to be near you, angel.”

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