Page 24 of Crossing the Line
Lavender nodded thoughtfully. "How personal?"
Harper felt heat creep up her neck. "Very personal."
"I see." Lavender's expression remained carefully neutral. "And this person, she's important to you?"
"I thought she might be. But how can I know if anything was real when I built it all on lies?" Harper's voice carried the frustration she'd been suppressing all day. "I wanted to be someone different, someone free from all the expectations and baggage. So I created this whole other identity, and for one night it was perfect. But now..."
"Now you're facing the consequences of those choices."
"Now she looks at me like I'm a stranger. Worse than a stranger. She looks at me like I'm someone who can't be trusted."
Lavender was quiet for a moment, studying Harper with the kind of attention that felt thorough without being invasive."What did you want from this other identity? What was it giving you that being yourself wasn't?"
The question hit deeper than Harper had expected. She'd been so focused on the practical disaster of her situation that she hadn't examined the emotional motivations underneath.
"Freedom," she said eventually. "The chance to be wanted for who I actually am, not for what I represent or achieve. I've spent my whole life being Dr. Langston's daughter, living up to this legacy of excellence and achievement. I wanted one night where someone might choose me without knowing any of that."
"And did she? Choose you?"
Harper remembered Carmen's hands in her hair, the way she'd looked at 'Hailey' like she was worth taking risks for. "I thought so. But maybe she was just choosing the lie I was telling."
"Maybe," Lavender agreed. "Or maybe she was responding to parts of you that were genuine, even if the details were false."
"How can I know the difference?"
"You can't, unless you're willing to find out, which means being honest about who you really are and what you really want."
Harper leaned back against the couch cushions, feeling the weight of the day settling into her bones. "She's my supervisor for the next eight weeks. Even if I wanted to try to fix this, I can't exactly confess my feelings in the middle of a surgical suite."
"No," Lavender said with a small smile. "That would be poor timing."
"And there's my mother to consider. This woman is my mother's colleague, her friend. If this goes badly, it could damage relationships that have nothing to do with me."
"Lots of complications," Lavender observed. "But complications aren't the same as impossibilities."
Harper studied Lavender's face, looking for guidance in her calm expression. "What would you do?"
"I'd start by figuring out what I actually wanted, separate from what I thought other people expected from me. Then I'd decide if it was worth fighting for." Lavender's voice was gentle but firm. "Relationships built on partial truths have shaky foundations, but that doesn't mean they can't be rebuilt with honesty."
"Even when the lies were as big as mine?"
"Especially then. The bigger the lie, the more important the truth becomes."
Harper felt something shift in her chest, not quite hope but something adjacent to it. "She might not forgive me."
"She might not," Lavender agreed. "But you'll never know if you don't give her the chance. And more importantly, you'll never forgive yourself if you don't try."
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, the distant sounds of the café providing a gentle backdrop. Harper felt some of the isolation she'd been carrying begin to ease, replaced by something that felt like clarity.
"The person I was with her," Harper said slowly, "the confident, direct version of myself—that wasn't entirely fake. It was just...simplified. All the complicated family stuff and professional pressures were stripped away."
"Maybe that's who you really are underneath all the expectations."
"Maybe." Harper looked around the warm office space, taking in the evidence of a life built on authentic connection and community support. "Thank you for listening and not making me feel like a complete disaster."
"We all make mistakes when we're trying to figure out who we are," Lavender said kindly. "The question is what we do with the mess afterward."
Harper stood, feeling steadier than she had all day. "I should let you get back to closing up."
