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Harrison sat at his desk and stared at his off-color tomato sandwich. Was it possible that Benji had grown tired with Harrison’s self-obsession over his career? After all, even in their short time together, Harrison had devoted a lot of time to working on his manuscript.
Perhaps it was possible that Benji didn’t appreciate this, that he wanted to be the undisputed priority in Harrison’s life. And following this line of thinking, maybe this was why Benji headed back to the city and was now ignoring Harrison.
‘Does the boy… just not want to be with me?’ Harrison said, running his fingers across his keyboard but not typing a word. ‘Just like Justin, Benji had enough and needed to break away from me…’
Harrison felt an overwhelming sense of devastation come over him.
Maybe Benji had a lucky escape and got out early.
Harrison could now see just how arrogant and cocky he had been in his younger years. No wonder Justin left him in search of something more, and something better too.
At the peak of his career, Harrison had once thought that the good times would never end. It was this arrogance that led to Justin walking out and Harrison blindly assuming that he would come running back. It never happened, and Harrison had allowed that to cast a shadow over him for many years.
If the same thing was happening all over again with Benji, Harrison decided that the only real option he had was to face up to the truth as early as possible and accept it.
Benji was gone.
Benji wasn’t coming back.
The only thing left to do as far as Harrison could see was to accept this and let Benji walk away. Harrison didn’t want to cause Benji any more pain. If Benji truly didn’t want to hear from Harrison, then Harrison decided that it was only right to not attempt to contact Benji again.
‘I think it’s time for one last beer,’ Harrison said, getting up from his chair and walking out of the study and toward the kitchen. ‘One beer. One new chapter on the book. And then bed.’
Harrison decided that rather than one more beer, he would take all three cool beers from the refrigerator and have them on his desk as he worked. In theory, this was fine – but in practice it simply led him to spend more time thinking about Benji, Justin, and pretty much every other person he had met in his whole life.
Why do I screw every relationship up?
I even screwed things up with my father.
Didn’t even resolve things with him before he passed…
Harrison remembered how him and his father had enjoyed a close relationship all the way through childhood until, quite abruptly, his mother and father divorced when Harrison was seventeen.
There was no great drama, no infidelity, no violence – simply two adults who had drifted apart over the years finally deciding that enough was enough. But Harrison had found it hard to handle. He was still a teenager and had the emotions to go alongside it.
The upshot of the divorce was that Harrison decided he no longer had much interest in being around his father on the weekends or during the holidays. Instead, Harrison poured his time into writing. It was time well spent but looking back Harrison could see that he would never get that time with his father back.
Harrison knew that his father had been ill earlier in his life and beaten it, so in the months after Harrison’s novel began to go stratospheric he didn’t think too much when he heard that his father was ill again. Sadly, his father was dead within two weeks. Harrison had to live with the knowledge that he didn’t see his father before he died – there was no turning back the clock and no way of changing things.
It was a regret that Harrison buried deep inside of himself. Looking back with hindsight, all of the partying that came when his book began to sell and win awards was probably a way of holding his emotions over his father at bay.
This tactic worked in one sense. But it was hard to argue that it didn’t negatively affect Harrison in many other aspects of his life. In fact, Harrison sometimes felt that he was still living with the pain of it all.
‘Fuck. Another beer it is,’ Harrison said, reaching over to the final bottle.
But before Harrison could open the drink and hear the comforting fizz of an open bottle, he heard a loud knocking on the door.
‘Who the hell is this?’ Harrison said, angrily getting up from the chair and stomping through toward the front door. ‘If that’s you, Hoffman… God help me!’
Harrison could feel his blood boiling. He was angry, confused, and hurt all in one. Harrison wanted to lash out. He wanted to do something – anything – to take away from the pain of Benji no longer being in his life.
‘You?’ Harrison said, opening the door to Lars. ‘What do you-’
But before Harrison could even finish his sentence or invite Lars in, the Little was already inside the house and ready to talk…
‘OMG… I can’t believe it took me so long to work this out!’ Lars said.
‘Work what out? You’re not making any sense, boy!’ Harrison replied, not in the mood for riddles.
