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So why did the thought of going back to all that make me sick to my stomach? As much as I missed my own bed andthe convenience of DoorDash and UberEats, I didn’t miss those things as much as I thought I would.
It had to be Harlan. Even though I’d successfully kept up the friend-zone boundaries, my plan had backfired on me. I felt closer to him now than I had when we spent our time together having sex and not talking.
Now, I knew that the scar on his abdomen was from emergency surgery after his appendix burst when he was eleven, while he was pitching in the Little League World Series. He waited to go to the hospital until after he won the game. He pitched four innings with a burst appendix.
Now, I knew that his favorite smell was grease because it reminded him of working on cars with his dad.
Now, I knew his favorite actor was Will Ferrell because after his dad died, his movies were the only thing that made him laugh and forget about the pain, even for just a few minutes.
Now, I knew that his first love was a girl who was here on vacation when he was thirteen, named Lucy. They had a two-week whirlwind romance and then wrote each other letters for a year before losing touch. Over a decade later, she showed up at a game he was playing as the starting pitcher of the Waves. She brought her husband and two kids with her. Her husband thanked him for setting the bar so high that she didn’t date assholes in high school or college and waited for a man who treated her with love and respect. I knew that conversation meant the world to Harlan.
Now, I knew that he loved popcorn, but only on an empty stomach, and he had to drink Coke with it, not Pepsi.
Now, I knew that he wore socks to bed, and that his biggest fear was not being there if someone he loved needed him.
Now, I wanted to be there for him if he needed me.
Except, now I couldn’t… because now I was leaving.
Tears began to form in my eyes, but I sniffed them away. I pulled up the schedule for the MFM stand. I’d hired several new employees with the money that I’d gotten from a distribution deal. Even though Aunt Rhonda had agreed and signed off on it—literally, I’d taken the contracts into the hospital to sign with a notary and everything—I worried that as soon as I left, she would just go back to business as usual and try to do everything herself. I was scared that she wouldn’t take her health seriously. She needed help. And if she followed this plan, she’d be able to work from home and only work at the stand on the nights she wanted to, in a supervisory role.
After rubbing my bleary eyes once more, I stared at the computer and made notes for Aunt Rhonda, hoping to ease her transition and ensure that the new system was as easy to follow as possible.
As I did, a message appeared in the corner of the screen. It was an email from Ravi, one of the editors ofPulse. I clicked on it and saw that he’d sent me a link to a rough cut of the dates for the next installment ofDating in the City, except the word “City” was crossed out and beside it was written “Country”. The word Country was written in a rope text.
There were hyperlinks to five segments in total, one for each of the dates I went on. I metaphorically put on my producer hat, and a switch flipped in my brain automatically. I pulled up the program that would allow me to insert timestamped notes into the footage.
I watched as I went on dates with Elias, Mark, Jerry, and Jack. Each of the seven-minute segments had two to three edits that I wanted implemented. The final link was footage of my date with Harlan. For some reason, I found myself hesitating before I clicked on it.
My heart fluttered in my chest, and my palms grew damp as I pressed my finger on the mouse, and the arrow opened the link.I wasn’t sure where my nerves were coming from. I supposed it was because I’d never actually liked any of the men I’d dated, so it never actually felt like an invasion of privacy to have cameras pointed at us.
The scene opened with an aerial drone shot of the Downtown Historic District. Then, it cut to a wide shot of the gazebo that Phil had taken. As I watched us playing with puppies and then us sitting under a blanket eating pizza as we watched the Gilmore Girls on a screen, I saw the way he looked at me and, more importantly, the way I looked at him, and a realization hit me.
I loved him.
I think there was a part of me that knew that before watching this footage, but now all of me knew that. I loved Harlan Mitchell. And I was leaving on Sunday. I was leaving a man I loved.
All the guys I’d been with before, who I’d morphed into being exactly who they wanted, I hadn’t loved. But did that make a difference? What would Tina say? What’s love got to do with it?
Love was just a feeling, right? It didn’t change our circumstances. It didn’t make the fact that he wanted to settle down and have kids and I wanted to…I didn’t even know what I wanted anymore. And that was a problem.
I didn’t know what to do. These were the moments I wished I had a mom that I could call and ask. A best friend to pick up the phone and get advice from. But I didn’t. I glanced over at the picture of my Grammy Moore sitting on a horse and I picked it up.
“What should I do, Grammy?” I asked.
As soon as the question left my mouth, all the lights in the house went out and my computer shut down. It was definitely a sign. I just wasn’t sure what the sign meant.
36
HARLAN
My eyes followedthe blades of my ceiling fan going round and round as faint sounds of raindrops began to fall on the roof. The last time it rained was the night I’d taken Daphne to the pond. The night we’d run for cover in the barn. The night we’d had sex for the first time. That night felt like it was a lot longer than six and a half weeks ago.
“Aunt Rhonda is coming home on Friday. As soon as I get her settled, I’m leaving.I’m going home.”
Daphne’s announcement had been playing in my head on repeat for the past few hours as my fingers grazed over Dini’s tiny head, which was resting on my chest.
I felt sick to my stomach. Anxious. Upset.
