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Harry Turner.
I can see the sullen looking boy with sharp amber eyes and a shaved head, a constant punishment he had been forced to endure.
How could I not recognize him?
Because he’s filled out. Because the boy I remembered was thin, angry looking and morose while Caleb is strong, fit, wearing confidence like a second skin, making him almost unrecognizable. The flashes of familiarity make sense now. I saw hints of the boy I’d known but everything else has changed.
I close my eyes and I see the harshness in those eyes, along with deep-seated loneliness.
My first friend in the orphanage.
The first man I’d fallen in love with. The only man I’ve ever loved.
And when it had been time to leave, he had left with promises on his lips, promises that he had broken the minute he had left the gates of the house that had been a personal hell to us, taking my heart with him.
Caleb Starr is Harry Turner.
Desperate for any information, not able to comprehend my own raging emotions, my eyes drink in anything this article is offering.
‘Wrongly imprisoned.’
‘Walked away with a hefty compensation.’
‘Rebuilt himself from scratch.’
‘From pauper to prince.’
‘Once at the lower belly of society and now wearing society’s finest on his arms.’
Harry had gone to prison. He had been released three years later and then instead of looking for me, he had chosen to erase his past and me along with it.
And now.
Now, he had chosen to hunt me down and repay me some sort of debt he feels he owes me.
Inside me is a wide gaping chasm of emptiness as I start analyzing every touch, every gesture, every word exchanged between the two of us.
It has all been so calculated.
But I don’t understand why.
He gave me a job and made me financially stable. Why insist on forcing himself into my life? Why play all these games with me when he clearly has other women in his life or can have.
Why not tell me who he was?
I open my palm to gaze at the stone in it.
It’s smoother than I remember which tells me that he’s had it for a long time. And he carries it on himself. Even to this stupid ball.
There’s so much confusion inside of me, so many feelings that I can’t sort out: hurt, anger, happiness, grief, betrayal, loneliness, relief.
What do I apply here? What should I say? How should I react?
A part of me wants to hold him and cry, just hold him so tightly that he never leaves me again. Another part of me wants to hit him, to lash out, make him feel the hurt and betrayal and the staggering sense of loss that I’ve been living with for the past so many years.
I hear the scuffle of feet and then I look up to see Caleb standing in the doorway.
No. Not Caleb, Harry.
