AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Still, now that she was back, she couldn’t distract herself. Alone for the first time in weeks, she had only one person on her mind. She had missed Mia more intensely on the trip than she had when she was at home, and in quiet moments on empty streets she would wish for Mia beside her.
She was dressed down, in a pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt, and it made her feel less like Huntress and more like… a person. That character was useful, certainly, but it wasn’t her. Huntress was power suits and hats that split a crowd like the Red Sea. Harper… Harper wasn’t totally sure what she was. She was lucky. She was headstrong and had learned to be that way because otherwise women like her weren’t listened to. She had risen to the top of her profession and had more money than she honestly knew what to do with. She was alone on the top of the world and had nobody to share the satisfaction with.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.
Oh, good, the dry cleaning. “You can leave it in the hallway, thank you!” she called. The knocking continued. The concierge staff normally have keys, she thought as she walked down the hall, grabbing her satin robe and putting it on as she went. Reaching for the doorknob, she started with “Thank you, you can leave the bags out here?—”
It wasn’t a member of staff with her laundry at the door. It was Mia, in a leather jacket and ripped jeans… and a shirt with her face on it.
“Hello, Harper,” she said, stepping through the doorway before Harper could invite her in. Her voice was airy. Detached.
“Hello, Mia,” she replied, matching her tone. If this is how we’re doing things, then fine. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here… How have you been?”
“I’ve been busy. Playing shows, getting my photo taken, going to interviews. It’s been fun.”
“Has it really?” Harper asked coldly. “You’ve made lots of new friends?—”
“Most of them were introduced to me by you.”
Shit.
A beat passed where neither woman said anything, standing in the hallway, the door open. Mia, sporting her own merchandise, evidence of her success and power. Harper, dressed down in a way that was comfortable moments before. Now she felt naked.
Mia reached past Harper, grabbing the door and gently swinging it shut. Then, she walked down the hallway into the living room.
This girl... who does she think she is? Harper took a deep breath and followed her. If there was a conversation that needed to happen, it needed to happen then and there. Mia was on the sofa, sitting in the same spot she had sat in that first night when the contract was signed, her jacket over the arm of the chair. Harper stayed standing, looking down at Mia, cat-like and faux-calm. It was faux calm, too, because Harper saw Mia’s freshly-done nails scratching at the fabric of the sofa like morse code, saying more with the sound than she had so far with words. She was obviously and hopelessly scared, masking it with the sensuality and devil-may-care attitude she normally had on stage. This, more than anything else, snapped Harper out of her own fake neutrality.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Harper said, shaking her head slowly, arms crossed. Mia’s breath turned shaky, and her eyes didn’t quite meet Harper’s when she replied.
“You did, Harper. You changed my life.”
“This isn’t your life.”
“Yes, it is, it’s what you have done to me!”
“It’s what you’ve been doing, it’s what you’ve chosen, you’ve worked hard for it and now it’s yours!”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Harper registered that this was upsetting Mia, but she needed to get through to her. She had made a mistake, she knew that now, but she wasn’t the only one at fault here.
“This isn’t what I wanted! I wanted my music to mean something, I wanted to be able to live while doing what I love without having to worry about picking up shifts at strange bars because I want to live somewhere that isn’t an attic. Harper, I’m living out of hotel rooms instead.”
Mia stood so she could look Harper in the eyes, and Harper had never seen her so frustrated.
Harper started slowly. “Mia, you were fully absorbed into that life of partying. I didn’t think I would be able to get you out.”
“One word from you would have convinced me to stop!”
“Except you didn’t respond when I tried, did you? I saw you once, one time, and all you could talk about was yourself and how much fun you were having.”
Harper was trying not to yell, but her facade was slipping and she didn’t care. She needed Mia to know.
“I barely thought of anything but you, I didn’t see you for a fucking week. I was scared, Mia, I was so scared?—”
She took Mia by the shoulders, looking straight into her eyes.
“I was worried something had happened to you.”
Mia’s eyes went wide. This wasn’t something she had considered, Harper thought. Here she had been, anxiously waiting by the phone while Mia was out having fun, Harper not even considering it because she had heard too many horror stories of bright new industry talents being damaged beyond repair at parties exactly like that.
