Page 152 of Harrison's Wedding

Heather is staring out the window, apparently lost in thought, and I watch her. I don’t think I’ll ever take her presence in my life for granted again. I love her so deeply, and she is a gift that I am lucky to have. She looks at me and gives me a nervous smile.

“Honey, I need to ask you something. I have an idea, we’d need to run it past Cooper, but I really think it’s a good idea.” Heather bites her lip as she looks at me.

“What is it, angel?” I ask.

“I want to give an interview. You and me, Maddy as well, if she’s willing. I want to tell the world what happened.”

My mouth drops open and I stare at her for a second before managing to ask, “Why would you want to do that?”

“Speaking to Maddy last night, it highlighted so many things to me. The press conference that Aaron Hamilton and Cooper gave, it didn’t really clear much up for anyone. She has suffered badly, Harrison. You were both drugged, and, officially, you were poisoned. That’s a lot.”

It is a lot, and it’s something I still struggle with. Being poisoned is something you think about as happening to some movie character. Arsenic, hemlock, nightshade. Not what happened to us.

“I don’t believe for a second that she would have slept with you if she hadn’t been, and I know you wouldn’t have slept with her. In her lowest moment, having woken up and figured out what she had done, she was then confronted with the picture and found out that someone had been in the room and taken a picture of her, naked, while you were sleeping. ‘Violated’ was the word she used to describe how it felt.”

I cringe at the word, because Maddy apparently feels exactly the same as me. I fight against tears because that feeling of violation is a strong one. Being used in someone’s game is awful, and I hate that Maddy got caught up in it.

“After all of that, the world turned on her. You know how the fans can be—they’re very protective of you, of us. In their eyes, she was the horrible person who broke us up. Maddy said that even after the press conference announcing the drugging, it hasn’t gotten any better.”

I hate hearing this. I’ve hated the way Maddy’s been treated in the press as much as I’ve hated the way they’ve treated Heather. Both women were innocent victims, and both were shamed while I was mostly given a pass for what I did.

“I feel like if we gave an interview, told the truth. Hearing it from our mouths and seeing that we have come through this, well, if it can make her life even a tiny bit easier, then we should do it. Maddy didn’t ask for any of this; I know that we didn’t, either, but she just got caught up in our world. She was a visitor, and she got burned by the light we bear every day. Now she has to try and live a normal life wearing a permanent red ‘A’ on her reputation.”

Heather is right, but the thought of talking about it is terrifying. Can I do it? I mean, I know we wouldn’t be giving the dirty details in full, but those memories still make me sick. Can I talk about them to some interviewer?

I think about it for a long time, and Heather squeezes my hand. I look at her, and I know that I owe it to both Maddy and her to do this, no matter how hard it might be for me.

“I love you, angel. I can’t lie; I’m scared by the idea of reliving that in an interview, but your reasoning is sound. I feel terrible for Maddy; I’ve definitely seen the shit online,” I give her a chagrined smile as she pulls a face at the mention of the news articles, “you’re not the only one who sank into the depths of reading internet articles about what happened. Part of my guilt was definitely around the way she was being treated, also feeling guilty to you for feeling guilty to her, if that makes sense.”

Heather laughs, “Believe it or not, it does.”

“Anyway, we should talk to Cooper and see if he’s open to the idea. We’ll almost certainly need legal advice and probably information from the LAPD about what we can and can’t reveal. Once we’ve done that, we can approach Maddy…or have Cooper approach her, maybe. See if she wants to be involved or, at the very least, give her the heads up that it’s happening if she doesn’t.”

Heather looks relieved and nods at me before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

“Okay, that sounds like a plan. So, there’s something else that I wanted to ask you,” she gives me a sweet smile, “you’ve been by my side for almost eleven years now, and I couldn’t ask for a better person to be my life partner. I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

I recognize the speech and am stunned, knowing exactly what she’s going to say next and hardly able to believe it.

“Most importantly, I don’t want to imagine my life without you in it. Harrison James Fletcher, will you marry me?”

I stare at her for a few seconds, then ask, “Angel, are you sure?”

“Well, that’s not the answer I was expecting,” she laughs.

“I mean, yes. Obviously. I just…I don’t want you to do anything you’re not ready to do.”

Heather stands and leans over to press her lips to mine, kissing me passionately before she says, “I’m ready, honey. I wanted to wait until the nightmares stopped, but even if I do have them again, I’d rather have them in bed with you than while I’m alone and miserable.”

“I slept at our apartment last night,” I tell her. “I want to be back in our bed with you by my side. If you want that, too, of course.”

“Yes. I definitely want to sleep at home and in bed with my financé,” she tells me with a grin, and I smile as she sits down again.

I lift her hand to mine and kiss it. I’m calm and happy, but there’s one thing I need to do before I can commit to this. I let go of her hand, then take a deep breath and exhale it slowly. If Heather wants to do this, she needs to know the truth first.

I stare at the blankets in front of me and whisper around a lump that’s forming in my throat, “I remember everything about that night.”

Memories come to my mind, along with the familiar nausea, and I squeeze my eyes shut tight for a second to push them away before I turn to meet Heather’s gaze.

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