Until it all comes crumbling down.
I looked at Amos and I pictured it, doing as Harper did, grabbing a knife and plunging it in. It was like I was back there, that night, and my stomach was tight, my breath short, and I was either going to have a panic attack or vomit, potentially both, and just like then my fingers itched for something to soothe it all.
Something to stop me thinking when these were the thoughts that crowded in.
“I always wanted to start my own fashion house,” he said. “But it’s so much to organize. I’d need people just to get it up and running. And that’s money, fabric is money, time is money.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How much money?”
“Probably around seventy-five thousand. But let’s say a sweet million just to be safe.”
I laughed. “You’re trying to extort me with some buttons?”
“If you didn’t have something to worry about, Nadine, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
I pressed my lips tight. I worried if I didn’t I might start crying. I wanted Harper. I wanted her by my side. If she were she’d be shutting him down with scathing retorts until, tail between his legs, Amos ran off and never spoke of all this again.
Or she’d be plunging the knife in all over again.
Fuck—okay, I could do this. I could take the out that wasn’t more blood. More horror.
“Fine. But I would have done it anyway,” I said, hating the sadness edging through. “If you told me you wanted to start a fashion label I would have given you the money happily. All you had to do was ask.”
I’ll never forget the way he looked at me: all that festering resentment, dug up and brought to the surface.
“We’re not your friends, Nadine. We just work for you.”
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Harper sent the occasional update through Adrian—that she was fine, keeping her head down, had withdrawn from all upcoming projects. And, finally, that she would be flying back on the first of February.
Ruchi arranged a car. I couldn’t be seen with her, but I couldn’t wait either, so I hid behind its blackout windows and went to collect her from the airport.
And then, finally, the doors slid open and the torrent of questions hurled through, lights shifted and flashed against the wall of the airport—and Harper was before me.
“It’s two p.m.,” she said. “They don’t need to keep the bloody flash on.”
I burst into tears.
She climbed into the seat next to me and wrapped herarms around me as I tried to stifle my sobs. I don’t know why, or what specifically I was upset about, but I think it was the relief, the overwhelming flood of not having to hold it together anymore. Of having someone who could pick up the slack, just for a moment, and give me some brief respite.
“I’m sorry I did this to you,” she said. “I’m sorry I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Just be here.”
I clutched the silk scarf she had draped around her neck like my trembling fist might be enough to cling to her. Like when they came for her, they would bring me too and maybe that might not be unbearable, if they took the both of us.
“Always,” she promised.
“Always,” she lied.
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