From Greed...
"She should be in jail," Harper said flatly.
Adam tensed. "You promised you wouldn't say anything--"
"Don't." There was ice in her voice. "Don't defend her to me. Don't try to protect her from me. Just don't."
"Harper, I know you're mad, but if you tell..."
"Shut up!" She smashed her hand against the stoop. "I'm not telling anyone," she said more quietly. "If she goes down, I go down. I was...I was the one behind the wheel."
He reached out a hand, touched her shoulder, but she pushed him away. "I'm not her," she snapped. "I don't need your pity. I don't need anything."
And that was the problem. Harper was strong. Harper didn't need him--not the way Beth did. Adam couldn't just walk away from that. Even if he wanted to.
It couldn't matter what he wanted. Not after--he shut his eyes, seeing it again, as he did almost every day--not after what had happened in Vegas, what she'd almost done.
He couldn't let it happen again.
"You can't have us both, Adam. You get that, right? After what she did to Kaia, to me...you don't get to be okay with that. not if you want--" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I just need you to say it. That's why I came here, I guess. I need you to look at me and say it. You pick her."
"I'm not picking anyone," Adam protested.
"Yeah. You're not." She nodded, but didn't raise her head again. She sat slumped, her chin pressed to her chest a moment, and then looked up, her eyes dry. "So I guess we're done."
"Harper, I wish..."
"Just do me a favor and forget we had this little chat, okay?" she asked. "It's humiliating."
"It's not," he said. "I'm glad you came." It sounded lame. Formal, like he was bidding farewell to a party guest.
"You should probably go inside now." She was covering her mouth with her hands, which muffled her voice. "I'm just going to sit here for a while."
He stood up. "Okay." She didn't watch him walk up the steps and toward the house. She just kept staring out at the street. He paused in the doorway. "Gracie?"
She didn't say anything.
"You look--" He wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked. But he'd already told Beth the same thing. Somehow, it felt like Harper would know. And that would make things worse. "Get home safe, okay?"
"Good night, Adam."
He went inside and, for a long time, watched her through the peephole. But she never turned around, so he never saw her face. She stayed perfectly still. He went upstairs, took off the tuxedo, brushed his teeth, washed his face, and when he came back down, she was still there. He finally went to bed, knowing she might stay for hours.
And knowing that, by morning, she would be gone.
|
