None did. At least no good ones, because what Harperwantedto say didn’t suit the first minute of an overdue phone call.
“Is everything okay?” Maya asked, the concern obvious in her voice. “Harper? You there?”
“Yeah, I’m here, I just…”
Harper took the phone away from her ear, groaning into her palm.
This was beyond ridiculous. She’d effectively given Maya the silent treatment, and now she was making it worse by doing it to her face.
Maya had a gift for making her go mute, but this wasn’t like those times. Her voice hadn’t hidden. She was forcing it down a particular path, getting no results for her trouble.
She might as well stop trying. Let her tongue take the reins. It couldn’t exactly make things worse at this point.
“I lied to you,” she blurted out. “When you asked if I wanted you to stay, I lied. I lied because, obviously, I didn’t want you to go anywhere near a place filled with werewolves and who knows what else. And now, I regret it, because this past week has fucking sucked, since I can’t stop thinking that every moment of silence is only there because something terrible has happened.”
Harper leaned back, hugging her knees to her chest. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. If not when you left, then at literally any other time, because… because I don’t know how to function when I can’t be sure you’re okay.”
Maya didn’t speak. A tense silence, made all the heavier by the utter quiet of the apartment. It fell like a cloak, weighing her down so much that Harper doubted she could have stood up. She could just curl in on herself and clutch the phone until her hand shook.
“You miss me?” Maya said, voice so gentle that it hurt more than even the sharpest tone could have accomplished.
She was also wrong. Harper didn’tmissher. This feeling didn’t come from a temporary absence, but from loss. A preliminary grief, constructed by her brain preparing for the worst possible scenario, even though it might never come.
Harper didn’tmissher. It was far worse than that. Far too early, too, both to feel and especially to say.
So she settled on something safer.
“Of course I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” Maya sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me? I asked your opinion for a reason.”
“I don’t know.” Harper scoffed at herself. “No, that’s another lie. I do know. I was being stupid.”
“Don’t call yourself stupid.”
“I was scared, then. That you would hate me for asking you to stay.”
“I could never hate you.”
Harper let out a weak laugh. “That sounds like a challenge.”
“Does it? Really?”
Harper pinched her lips together. This evening had no end of painful questions, mainly because the answers were too unpleasant to consider.
She hadn’t lied when she’d said the only people who could handle her were assholes. People who saw her as a problem that could only be solved by breaking it, and who she only stayed with as long as her excuses lasted.
Maya had never been like that. Even though part of Harper had expected it. Looked for it, even. Maya had a way of maneuvering through the pitfalls littered around this relationship as though she knew exactly where they were and how to avoid them. She did and said all the right things.
When would she get sick of it? When would it be too much? When wouldHarperbe too much?
“I don’t like when you go quiet like that,” Maya said. “Please tell me what you’re thinking.”
Oh, nothing much. Just that you’re way too decent, way too patient, and way too good for me; all of which is really impractical given how hard I’m falling for you.
“I’m thinking that all of this would be a lot easier if you weren’t hundreds of miles away.”
More quiet. A long,longquiet that needled into Harper’s chest like icicles.
