Page 35 of Harper's Song

It’s a simple enough question but it cuts right to the bone. When she first asked me this a couple of hours ago—when she first told me she thinks my love for her is a lie—it stung but I thought she was saying it out of anger. Now it’s a much colder, much firmer question. One that needs an answer that I don’t know how to give.

“This threat is real and it’s serious,” I say. “But it can be fixed and dealt with. And then we can start over.”

She shakes her head and stands up, even goes so far as to grab the handles of her traveling bag which is sitting packed on the rickety table by the window.

“I’ll take you where you want to go, I’ll give you some money and get you some new clothes,” she says icily. “But we can’t start over. Because there’s nowhere for us to go.”

She’s usually the one on the receiving end of words like these. And I never knew how hurtful they sounded until just now, as they’re piercing my chest and my throat.

But I have a head start on all of this.

I knew we were fucked the moment the Renegades told me they’re planning on grabbing her and it was cemented into fact when I broke out of prison with them.

I’ll take what I can get now.

And if I have to watch over her in secret then that’s what I’ll do.

“Fine,” I say. “Let’s go.”

She’s looking at me with eyes very wide like she can’t believe I agreed to her plan so easily.

But first I keep her safe, then we figure out everything else.

She shakes her head, mutters something under her breath and stalks out of the room, leaving the door wide open.

The stupid prison-issued deck shoes aren’t dry yet, but I put them on anyway. I also take the bloodied uniform to burn somewhere far from here.

She’ll give me a second chance, she’s gotta. Because there’s no way I’m living another day without her. I decided that sometime between my sleepless night and the nap I took this afternoon in her arms.

“I’ll make sure it works out this time,” I tell her as I get in the passenger seat of her car. “I promise.”

She flashes me a sideways glance, shakes her head again and starts the car.

Too little too late, I think she’s thinking.

But she’s wrong.

She’s gotta be.

12

Harper

He slept, I couldn’t. He held me the way he always does when we fall asleep together, gently yet possessively, making me feel like the most precious thing in the world. Another thing that messes with my mind as much as it makes me feel special.

How can he love me this much yet refuse to be with me?

Even focusing on just his even breathing and his strong arms holding me after having made love like nothing else but we matter—one of the things I’ve missed the most during the many months he’s been gone—I couldn’t get the darkness of our actual situation out of my mind.

But even after I extricated myself from his embrace, I just sat there by the window and watched him sleep, fighting the urge to check the news and see exactly how wanted he is. Fighting the urge to wake him and tell him I’ll take him back. Fighting the urge to just leave him here. No note. No goodbye. Just gone.

Like he’s done to me three times in the past nine years since we’ve been together.

But I also wrote the lyrics to a new song while he slept. And the melody for it is already sounding in my head. Loud and clear and complete.

Just like our love when we let ourselves feel it.

I would’ve tried to play the melody, but my guitar is in fact busted from falling on the rocky ground last night.

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