He’s calm and composed as he sits on my bed, resting his back against the wall at three o’clock to my twelve. The Chinese feast sitting in between us at one and two as he starts to eat.
‘It was only shit becauseIwas. Sorry about that, by the way.’
He looks at me like a white rabbit just hopped out of my mouth and is dancing a jig on the floor.
‘Blimey! Never thought I’d hear that word coming out of Harper James’s mouth.’ He pops off the cap of one beer and hands it to me before doing the same to his.
‘You’re voluntarily drinking a beer. Never thought I’d see the day, either.’ We clink the necks of the bottles and tuck in. I take a sip and then look at the label. Non-alcoholic beer. Some things never change, I guess.
Silence descends again, but with every mouthful I can sense him watching me. There are questions on the tip of his tongue, and queries in the way his eyes have softened at the sight of the tear tracks still there on my face. For once, I kind of want him to ask. Iwanthim to ask so I can tell him. I think I want him to know.
But, until our plates are cleared and the leftovers are packaged back up, we don’t speak. When he leaves the room to put them in the fridge, our empty beer bottles with him, I’m not convinced he’s going to come back. He’s done his good deed of the day; he has no responsibility here. He could go to his own room, call his sister and pretend this never happened; that we didn’t have a civil moment when it felt like we could breathe the same air with fighting or fucking.
Yet he comes back, a second beer each in hand and settles himself back on the end of my bed. The way we’re both sitting makes our feet meet in the middle, and neither of us make a move to pull them away.
‘What happened?’ he finally asks. ‘You’ve held it together all season. Even the harshest critics say you’ve had an amazing first half of the season for a rookie. Tabloid headlines aside, your game on the track has been great.’
‘I’m surprised you don’t already know. Everyone else seems to. On my last chance now, aren’t I?’
‘And you thought throwing away your performance, too, was the way to deal with that?’
I almost growl at him. ‘Of course I fucking didn’t. Couldn’t get my head in the game, could I? This is literally all I’ve ever wanted.’
‘I don’t get why you act like you don’t care, then. All the partying, drinking, and one-night stands … you’re your own worst enemy. It’s almost like you’re self—’ He stops suddenly, as if he only figured it out while he was saying it. ‘It’s self-sabotage, isn’t it? Harper?’
He shoves my shoulder.
‘Messed up, right?’ I shrug because there’s no point trying to hide anything now. It’s not like we’re talking about my future in the sport I love, the only thing I know how to do. ‘I don’t know how to stop.’
‘Why, though? You’ve got the world at your fingertips right now. What are you so scared of?’
That the thing I want more than anything won’t want me back.
Tears sting the backs of my eyes. How is there anything left in my ducts right now?
‘I think it’s called abandonment issues.’
That’s what the therapists said, anyway. I saw several when I was a teenager, but it was always patchy and inconsistent, depending on where I was living at the time. I was never with any one therapist long enough to learn how to open up or be vulnerable, and life taught me not to rely on anyone but myself. ‘Probably some trust issues, too.’ I’ve always managed to skate over the top of team psychologists and performance coaching as part of my professional career, and now here we are.
Here we are, I think to myself. He’s here, and he’s asking, and I want to tell him.
I take a deep breath and launch in.
‘I was an accident. Teen parents, still in college, who definitely didn’t want me, but found out too late to do anything about it. I think they still tried, though. I don’t remember them really, but they kept me till I was almost six and then dumped me on my grandma and disappeared. Or at least, that’s what my file says. Gran was great, but when I turned ten she was diagnosed with stage four cancer and was gone within five months.’
Kian reaches for me and I let him pull me into his side. It can’t be comfortable for him but it feels nice for me. ‘I went into care at that point. No other blood relatives would take me and my parents were long gone.I was just about old enough to understand that nobody cared about me, nobody wanted me, and there wasn’t a single person in the world who loved me.’
Kian tenses against my side. I don’t know what he was expecting, but I’m sure it wasn’t this. He has his arm around me and he’s holding me against him like his life depends on it. Or like mine does.
‘Over the next eight years I bounced around nine different foster families, and none of them wanted me, either – not enough to keep me. Other kids I knew were fostered and never came back. They were adopted, and I wasn’t, and that cemented it for me, I think.’
‘I didn’t know…’ he starts, but I shake my head, cutting him off. Obviously he didn’t know. It’s not something I’ve ever talked about publicly.
‘Don’t get me wrong, most of the families were good to me. The last family really tried – they paid for my karting, tried to get me into therapy, tried to make me feel like I belonged, but I think all my walls were up by that point. The damage was done. It’s easier to be constantly on the defensive. No one can hurt you if you don’t give them a chance.’
‘Christ, Harper! If it didn’t make sense before, it does now. I know you want this because I can see it – everyone can – but you fuck about because you want to make sure that you have plenty of reasons tucked up your sleeve to explain why you got kicked out so it can never be because you aren’t good enough.’
‘Jesus. Maybe you should go into therapy when you retire.’
