Page 40 of Harper's Song

It’s hard saying these words, because they roll so easily off my tongue and sound so true, yet I left him behind.

“I know you think that, I know he’s your first love and how that is, but… and I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you this—” He stops talking abruptly, which is no surprise since he always gets weird when talking about feelings, but he interrupted me. I wasn’t done talking.

“He is my first love but it’s not new, Dad,” I say. “Jax and I have been together for ten years.”

He actually gasps and I bet his eyes are as wide as they’ll go. He didn’t know. No one except Hunter, Chance and Trixie did and they’ve all kept our secret well.

“Ten years? What are you talking about, Harper?”

He didn’t know so now he thinks I’m making it up. At least that’s what his tone suggests.

“I have been in a relationship with Jax for ten years, Dad,” I say more firmly. “So I’m certain he doesn’t mean me any harm. I wish you’d just believe me.”

“I told him he can’t have you. Told him to stay away from you after you told us you were dating last fall,” he says and I very nearly lose control of the car and go flying into the dark, swaying pine trees lining the road.

“You what?” I meant to yell it, but it comes out a whisper.

“I won’t have him toying with you,” he says. “He’s wild, does what he wants, can’t follow orders worth shit—”

“You’re the reason he left me?”

It makes so much sense. Jax left me just as things were finally falling into place for us. We’d told everyone we were together I was going on my first tour and he was coming with me. I was sure he was going to propose, for Chrissake.

Well, sort of sure.

I had jokingly mentioned that we’d be passing through Vegas on my tour and that weddings are what they do best there. To which he replied,No, Harper. When I marry you it won’t be in some cheesy all-night wedding chapel. It’ll be in a field somewhere, on a sunny spring day with all our friends there. Even if that’s just one or two people.

Then, not much later, he said it was over and he was gone.

It was because Scar told him to stay away from me?

Why didn’t he say anything? I’d deal with my father.

“Wasn’t I right?” Dad says. “He went to prison soon after he left, almost took Chance and Hunter down with him and now he’s a fugitive. How is he the right man for you? Tell me that.”

I could, if he had a year to listen to me.

And it’s a good thing that was the first answer that popped into my mind, because the screaming mess that is my thoughts right now makes no damn sense.

Why didn’t he stand up to my father?

And why didn’t he at least tell me this was the real reason? Why did he fill my head with a bunch of dumb excuses and lies?

But I know all those answers. They’re all the same answer. It’s because he thinks I’m too good for him. And clearly, my father and Jax have that in common. But what am I in all this?

“I gotta go,” I say. “And, no, I’m not coming home.”

Then I hang up before he can say anything more. He calls back right after but I ignore it.

There’s only one person I want to talk to right now. The same person I always want to talk to even if he can’t communicate worth shit.

I wrote down the number of the burner phone I got for him, because even as I planned to leave him behind I knew it wouldn’t be for long.

I just hope he’s turned it on by now. Because he has some explaining to do. However painful he finds that kind of thing.

* * *

Jax

---