Page 104 of The Truth of Us

We kept walking. For once, Theo didn’t immediately fill the silence; that was how I knew things were bad. Then he said quietly, “You really loved her, huh?”

My chest tightened so violently that I almost stumbled. Loved. Past tense. Or was it present tense? A word I had not said. A word I had not let myself think on too directly, because thinking it made everything else fall apart.

“I don’t know.”

Theo looked at me as if I were an idiot.

“I don’t know,” I snapped again, because it felt necessary.

“Okay.”

“I don’t.”

“Sure,” Theo said, holding his hands out in front of him like a peace offering.

“I don’t even know what that means.”

Theo’s mouth twisted. “That is probably part of the problem.”

I opened my mouth to tell him to fuck off, but then I saw her. Across the street. For a moment my brain refused to accept it. Not another almost-Harper. Not a blonde woman with similar posture. Her.

She stepped out of a yoga studio wearing black leggings, a skin-tight bodysuit beneath an open coat, and a knit hat pulled low enough that half her face was shadowed. Her hair was shorter, much shorter. She wasn’t wearing any makeup; the only time I had ever seen that was the last part of our time together when I finally convinced her to stay over. My entire body stopped. She looked different. Not less polished, or less beautiful. Just different. Softer somehow. Freer, maybe? Like someone had reached inside the version of Harper Lane I knew and loosened all the ties that held her together. I could not move, could not breathe.

“Elliot?” I heard Theo, but I didn’t answer.

Because a man stepped toward her. He was tall, with dark hair, broad shoulders, and an expensive coat. He said something to her, and she smiled up at him. My chest cracked, not metaphorically. It felt physical. Sharp and violent. I grabbed at my chest because that smile was not polite. It was real.

He said something, and she laughed. Her head tipped back slightly, and her cheeks flushed pink from the cold or him or whatever the fuck he said, and for a second I forgot where I was. Because I had seen Harper smile, I had seen her amused; I had seen her breathless and undone beneath me. But this was different. This was a version of her that I did not know. The realization cut deeper than jealousy.

Who was she with him? Who had she become while I was calling her old office and humiliating myself in front of Timothy?

The man stepped closer, too fucking close. My hands curled into fists inside my pockets. Harper looked up at him, still smiling, and he brushed something near her cheek with his thumb.

I moved before I decided to. One step, then another. The crosswalk sign was red. A horn blared so loudly it punched through the fog in my head. Something yanked me back by the collar. Hard. I stumbled onto the curb as a cab flew past, close enough that I felt the wind of it against my legs.

“What the fuck?” Theo shouted. I could barely hear him. His hand was still fisted in the back of my coat. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

I pulled free because Harper and the man had started walking across the street. His arm slipped around her shoulders, pulling her to his side, and she let him. She tucked herself against him as if it were natural, as if she belonged there. A sound crawled up my throat that I did not recognize. Theo followed my gaze. For once, he said nothing. Then, quietly, “Oh.”

I turned on him. “Who is he?”

Theo’s expression had changed. The amusement was gone, which should have been my first warning. He stared across the street at the man beside Harper, and something like recognition settled over his face. “Elliot…”

“Who is he?”

Theo exhaled. “Oh, buddy.”

“Do not fucking buddy me.” I all but growled.

“That’s Oliver Hastings.”

Hastings.

The man from Emily’s phone, the tattooed billionaire bad boy. The one with the post about glitter freckles. The one everyone apparently knew. The one Caleb had recognized. My jaw tightened so hard it hurt. “Why is he with her?”

Theo looked at me like I had asked why the sky was up. “Because apparently she likes him.”

“She doesn’t.” The words came out sounding childish.