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“I want you to imagine you’re out with Rick. He’s taking you shopping. Your mom’s not supposed to be there. She’s doing something else. At the movies or something. Rick takes you to one of those really nice malls in LA so you can get a brand-new purse. He doesn’t get to go out with you often, but it was important for him to spend this time with you while he could.”
Her brows furrow, and she shifts in her seat. I’d lived with them long enough to know that wasexactlyhow things went. Rick was a state senator. The very limited time he spent with Harper was precious to her.
I just hoped this little experiment worked. The very fact she decided to humor me told me what I needed to know. That she wasn’t as cold as she seemed to be. Part of herwantedto reach out, I just had to find that part and grab it.
“You’re talking and laughing. It’s a beautiful day, and you’re so glad to finally get to spend some time with him. You find a purse, and it’swaytoo expensive, but you bring it over to him anyway. He starts to say no because he’d like for you to be a bit more sensible, but you really want it. He can’t look you in those blue eyes and tell you no, so you smile and hug him. He gives you one of those really tight hugs he’s really good at and kisses you on the top of your head.”
She shifted again, and I noticed her nostrils twitching. I wondered if she was trying not to cry, but she cleared her throat and shook her head a bit, though her eyes remain closed.
“You’re on your way up to the counter when someone screams behind you. You and Rick turn around, and you see your mom run into the store and over to him just as an explosion out in the hall goes off. Glass explodes everywhere; people are screaming. There’s smoke all over, and the three of you hide. Rick tells you to stay down, and you grab onto his arm. You don’t want him to go, but he just smiles and tells you everything’s going to be okay.”
“What the hell is this?” she asks, looking at me sharply. Her eyes are a little glassy, and I realize I’d struck a nerve somewhere, so I kept talking.
“When Rick walks away, someone grabs your mom and pulls her away from your hiding spot. She’s screaming, you’re crying, and your father rushes over to help her, but the man who grabbed her has no patience. He raises a gun. You watch in absolute horror as your father dives in front of your mother, three bullets ringing out, the sounds of each echoing painfully off the close walls as they pierce through Rick’s back. He lands on your mother, taking them both to the floor, but she’s still alive. The man walks over as she’s trying like hell to push his now dead weight off her. The man doesn’t say a word. He just lifts the gun and puts a bullet through your mom’s forehead.”
“Temperance… Stop.”
I didn’t.
I continued.
“When you try to move, you look down and see a massive piece of shattered glass sticking out of your side. You fall from blood loss. The man looks at you, but then he walks away, leaving you to die after either deciding you weren’t worth his time, or that you weren’t worth the effort since you’ll die anyway. The last thing you see as your vision starts to fade away are Rick’s cold, lifeless eyes staring into yours, blood soaking his shirt and your mother below him. Her eyes stare at the ceiling as streaks of blood run down her forehead. That image of them, the last time you wouldeversee or hear from them again, is now burned into your brain. Now, every time you sleep, that’s what you see.
“And then you find out your parents lied to you for yourentirelife. Your parents aren’t even who you thought, and you uncover decades of lies and secrets that leave you scrambling around to find something,anythingto hold on to. Something special to keep you moving forward. Instead, all you’re met with is hate. Torture. No matter what you do, it’s not good enough.Youaren’t good enough.”
I looked over at her, and she wiped her nose on the back of her hand. It wasn’t the most ladylike thing I’d ever seen, but it was certainly the mostnormalthing I’d ever seen Harper do.
“I get it, okay?” Her voice quivered as she spoke. I’d definitely gotten to her. “But you lied to me. Youbetrayedme. Youalmosthad me believing you wanted a relationship with me.Almost. Then we got back home, and I realized it was just a show. You wanted Daddy’s money. You wanted everything he had to offer. Not me. You couldn’t give a fuck less about me.”
I started to argue, but she stopped me. “No. I let you have your say, and now you’re going to listen to me.” I nodded. Fair was fair. “You had the audacity to say all those nice things to me only to stab me in the back less than an hour later. Ifanyoneis the mean girl here, it’s you, Temperance. Not only did you use me that day, but the first day of school—thefirst fucking day!—you went after Damian. I only asked one thing of you, and you couldn’t even do that. You’re a liar, a thief, and you even went out of your way to steal him.”
It would have been a lie if I tried to say I didn’t understand where she was coming from. It made sense. But make sense or not, it was wrong.Shewas wrong.
“Harper, Damian came afterme. I never had sex with him.”
I quickly told her everything that happened the day before. How he’d basically admitted she was the one who set him loose on me, how he’d cornered me in the bathroom, and even how I’d reacted. I was honest.
“I’m not going to sit here and lie to you and say I’m not interested in Damian.Ugh,” I groaned, shaking my head. “I hate him. I hate himsofucking much I can’t stand it. But I underestimated him. He’s fucking with me now. He literally said he found my weakness, and he’s using it against me. I won’t get into why I can’t control myself around him because honestly, I don’t trust you. You’d absolutely use it against me.”
“Wise choice.”
I nodded and sighed. “Exactly what I figured. So, unfortunately,youhave made it so I can’t tell you the whole truth. So, if you want me to stop lying to you, then you need to figure out what you want from me. Because I can tell you’re not nearly as bad as you seem. You can’t be. I have a really good radar—well, usually—and I just can’t convince myself you’re truly terrible. I can’t do it. There issomethingredeemable in yousomewhere, and I won’t stop until I find it.”
She laughed. “Yeah, like a weakness. If you think for an instant I’devertrust you with anything again, you’re full of shit. I don’t love Damian, but he’s mine. We’re supposed to be together. Our families together would be incredibly powerful. Unstoppable even. It just makes sense.”
“Do you hear yourself?” I said as I located a small coffee shop with a drive-thru and pulled in. “God damn it,” I cursed. “I want to tell you all these sisterly things, but I can’t even do that because that asshole has me in his grip, too. I don’t want this, Harper.”
“Yeah, well your slutty ass has a funny way of showing it.”
“Unfortunately, you’re not wrong.” Hell, I even avoided telling her about the hallway. I was glad I did. I pulled around to the menu, and she seemed momentarily stunned that I didn’t fire back at her for that comment. “What do you want?”
Her face scrunched up. “You’re getting me coffee?”
I nodded. “Clearly, we’re not getting anywhere with this today, so at the very least, we can have some caffeine.”
A voice came across the speaker to greet us and ask us for our orders. It took us a minute or so, but we both ordered. We were quiet the rest of the way through the drive-thru until we got our drinks. When I pulled out onto the road, she finally spoke again.
“Look, I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to bring me out here so we can bond, and we’ll drive off into the sunset as besties and sisters forever.” Her voice was very sarcastic and annoying before dropping back down to normal. “But it’ll never happen. The only way you and I willeverget along is if you basically give up any rights to anything.”
