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Harper was standing at my graduated shelving unit, picking up trinkets and putting them down. A cascade of long blonde hair spilled down her slender back, ending just above the curve where her ass met her hips. And those hips were shapely, too. So were her legs. So was everything. I’d seen it all firsthand.
Once.
I watched some more as she shifted her weight from one hip to the other. Her dress went tight on that side, sliding snugly over one rounded cheek of her beautiful ass.
“Got that one in Thailand,” I told her, keeping my voice low. “Hand-carved by a hundred-year old man with the warmest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
Very carefully she set down the jade statuette, beside the dozen or so other tchotchkes I’d picked up from around the world. Then she turned to face me. Her empty wine glass still dangled from her delicate fingertips.
“Need another?”
She looked down at it.
“Only if you’re having one.”
“Oh, I’m having one.”
Harper’s smile was so hauntingly familiar, it picked me up and hurtled me through time. I was back on Ridley Street with her again, riding bicycles, having adventures. I could smell my mother’s cooking. I could feel the warm glow of the streetlamps, kicking on just in time for dinner.
I poured us another as she walked in a slow circle, continuing her inventory of my apartment. If I knew Harper, she was picking up every little detail. She could go home right at this very moment, and a whole month from now, still tell you everything I owned.
“You never told me you had a son,” she said, reaching out to accept the glass I offered.
“You weren’t around,” I shrugged. “We lost touch.”
“Still. We were friends.”
“We are friends,” I corrected her.
Harper made her way back to the couch and sighed softly. “Didn’t seem like it for a while.”
“No,” I agreed somberly. “I guess it didn’t.”
I watched her go through the motions of sitting down. Even that seemed so wonderfully nostalgic.
“Erika takes the blame for that, I suppose.”
“No,” I jumped in. “That’s my fault, and mine alone. I was the one who cut out my previous life in order to make her happy.” I sighed into my glass. “Only she was never happy. There was no satisfying that woman, ever, no matter what I gave up for her. No matter how many sacrifices I made.”
“Did you ever end up marrying her?” Harper asked.
“No. Gave her a ring, but we never set a date.”
“How come?”
“Well, you know how couples get closer the longer they’re together? How their lives sort of become one?”
She let out a little laugh. “In theory, sure.”
“Erika and I were the opposite,” I said. “The more time we spent together, the further we drifted apart. We had different goals, different hobbies, different lifestyles. At one point, I was about to break up with her. And then…”
I stopped. Harper nodded. “She got pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“And you tried to make it work.”
“I know it sounds cliché, but I thought it was the right thing to do,” I told her. “I figured this would be common ground for us, that boy or girl, we could build a whole new life around our child. And then Brayden was born, and things only got worse.” I hesitated, before looking down. “Way worse.”
