Page 57 of Carte

I glanced at the hall again, and then sat down and put the mug on the far corner of the table to avoid getting the brown liquid on the paper.

I reached over and hesitated for a heartbeat. I knew I shouldn’t do it, knew it was wrong, but I wanted her so badly, needed her so much, I couldn’t resist. This was the only way I could have her, the real her.

And I took my chance.

Tenderly, I opened the pages.

What awaited me on them, blew my battered and empty heart to smithereens.

Words after words of pain were bled on them.

Pages of insecurity, of loneliness.

Whole chapters of Harley saying in a lyric way that there was something wrong with her and she knew she was unlovable.

“Baby,” I croaked, my voice breaking, my eyes drinking in the pain streaked words written in Harley’s handwriting.

How was it possible that after everything she's been through, after demonstrating her strength time after time. After having millions of people chanting her name, she still thought she was unlovable?

Couldn’t she see she was the only light in my life? Couldn’t she feel the love that flowed her way?

“What are you doing?”

I froze. The words were whispered, but I could hear her heart breaking in those three words.

I put everything back where it was and stood slowly.

I turned and looked at her. She stood at the mouth of the hall, her brown hair going in every direction. Her face was soft from sleep, but her gray blue eyes held a disappointment and ache she didn't even try to hide. An ache and disappointment I put there. I looked down to her oversized hoodie she always slept in. She looked fragile. Lost. I fisted my hands to stop from reaching out and grabbing her. I wanted to take her in my arms and promise her she was safe. To tell her she got it all wrong. She wasn’t unlovable, it was impossible not to love her. But the one tear that gilded slowly down her face, kept me locked in place.

“I-” I didn’t know what to say. Didn't know how to justify my actions.

“You what?” She pushed, her grey blue eyes flashing. “You thought you would see what lay in there. How much it's all worth. How much you can get out of my words.”

That familiar fist squeezed my lungs and my heart, “I'm sorry.”

The words felt inadequate for the feeling of regret in me.

Harley walked over to the coffee table and picked up her books. “Don’t worry about it.”

Her words were flat, cold. There was no emotion in them. No trace of my Dynamo.

She went to the kitchen, put them down on the counter and filled her mug with coffee.

I turned in place as she moved through my home, not taking my eyes off her.

“Dynamo, I really am sorry. I had no right, but I couldn’t help myself. I heard you play last night and couldn't get the melody from my mind. I was desperate to figure out the words that belonged to it.”

She turned then, a smile on her face. It was the wrong smile, the one she reserved for the stage, and I knew I was being shut out. “Those are not in there,” she pointed to her songs. “These are for recording, and for other artists.”

She tilted her head before continuing, “See there's a long list of people waiting for me to write the songs for them to record. And that's what you're protecting. Not the Harley Thorne, the person. Not even Harley Thorne, the singer. You're protecting H.T., the prolific song writer.”

Anger surged in me. How could she even think that? How could she believe that I would reduce her to a moneymaking machine?

“No, I’m protecting you,” I argued. “I know I fucked up-”

She moved then, and slammed the cup on the kitchen island sloshing the hot liquid over her hand, but she didn’t even flinch. She was too far gone to feel anything.

“Do you? Do you know how incredibly invasive that was? Do you understand how little that makes me feel? All everyone wants from me is music, songs, melodies, lyrics. No one wants me. No one sees me. Except you. Or so I thought. You were supposed to be the only person who was here for me. You were supposed to be the one person who didn’t use me.”