AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 18
Brian paced his office in an angry sweat, though he knew he probably didn’t deserve to be angry. It was Harper that deserved to feel the full extent of that emotion. She hadn’t been wrong. He was cold. He was heartless.
The anger stemmed from not knowing what to do. He had acted out of impulse and fear. Hearing those three words from Harper was the very last thing that he had ever expected. The sheer absurdity of it made no sense to him. How could a girl like her love a man like him? He was filled with the traits that she had accused him of at times. There was no denying it. So, when it came to being heartless, what could she possibly love about that? He had been so cold to her throughout their friendship.
At the very same time, he could not deny his own feelings towards her. But at least his made sense to him. He cared for her deeply and that was because she had a great personality, a stunning smile, and the wit to match. What man wouldn’t have feelings for a woman like Harper?
So, where was he to go from there? He could not give her the love she so desired and it would be the very element that would cause an even bigger rift between them. All he had wanted was for them to live in a decent manner, free of drama or conflict. She would have stayed in London while he was away and there would have been no issues. Of course, that plan had to be foiled and before him was a problem with little to show in the way of solutions.
He stopped pacing for a moment and let one realization wash over him—he was happy when Harper said she loved him. That revelation was at the root of all his emotions. Any feeling that made his feet pace, hearing her say those words was the root cause.
Brian was aware of who he was as a person. He knew that fighting with the sarcastic and bitter disposition that he carried through his life would not lead to true love. Sure, women found him charismatic and attractive but most of his interactions with the opposite sex were highly superficial in that regard. HearingI love youfrom Harper, were words that he shamefully dreamed about but never thought were possible in his life. Yet, there they were from the most perfect woman in the world. He could not wrap his head around it all.
It wasn’t long before Brian started pacing once more. He would only stop to fester at the window, overlooking a town that had no inclination of the drama behind his closed doors. Why was it so hard for him to come to grips with that one truth—he loved Harper back. He loved her more than anything in the town and even in his life.
She had been there when they were children climbing trees and playing games in the garden. She had bid farewell to him when he went on his travels across London when he hit an older age. And she had become his wife, after all of that. Of course, he loved her back. But it went against everything he promised to himself. So, he pushed her way.
Brian shut the curtains to his window and let out a long sigh. He needed to stop thinking about it all. It was only bringing him a great amount of stress. He did not need any more of that. Just as he made a vow to himself to never love in a relationship, he made a vow to himself on that day that he would not stress over Harper any further. How long that would last was unknown to him. But Brian would give it his best shot.
He wound up drinking in his mother’s parlour. After an hour or so, he had lost count of just how much he put away in his belly. But it was more than he had set out to allow himself to have.
The room became a little off centre for him, and it wasn’t as bad to feel as it had been before he took his first sips of wine. He felt good in comparison to the day leading up to that moment. He almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Only he could find himself in a marriage with a woman who wanted him, yet he was not allowed to want her back. His life had never been all that normal to begin with, so it didn’t shock him in the slightest.
When he was out of wine, he perused the mementoes in his mother’s parlour. There was also plenty of baskets of unfinished sewing a servant had tucked away. There was something about being a little drunk and going through old memories that just went perfect together. It took him back to a simpler time where there was far less expectation placed on him.
No one ever expected love or commitment from him when he was younger. No one expected him to be vulnerable and to speak about emotions or the future. The future was instead something that was there to be looked forward to, not planned.
As he rummaged through old trinkets and antiques, Brian found a collection of his mother’s unfinished letters. They had been so weathered by time that they had taken on an old rusty yellow colour and had a few wet stains ingrained in them. He knew what the stains were from, and it wasn’t water or wine, it was his father’s tears. There was nothing that Brian was surer of.
In that moment, it was as if the effects of his wine had fled him. He was unsure if he had wanted to go down the road of memories that involved his mother. Clearly, his father had no qualms with torturing himself in that way. Maybe that was where he and his father differed.
Brian had always been the type to avoid painful memories and feelings whether that meant running from commitment, drowning out old memories with alcohol, or pushing people away that cared about him like Harper. His father on the other hand would run right towards the feelings that hurt him the most out of some sort of misplaced guided notion that it was healing. Brian knew better.
It all started right after his mother died. Life had taken a grim turn for the worst, because his life had become just him and his father who had become a broken man. The death of his mother had transformed his father into a shell of his former self. It was beyond difficult for Brian to witness. Because before his mother’s death, his father had been an indestructible hero of his. He was like an unmovable stone.
And that’s where it all began for Brian. It all started because of the death of his mother. Seeing his father become so wounded, so defeated, it only made sense to Brian—if he never loved, then he would never experience the pain of loss.
On top of that, if he never loved, he would never father a child. And that father in return would never experience the pain either. It was the right thing to do. The pain that Brian experienced growing up was an entity he wanted no one else to ever experience. He could die happy knowing that he prevented it for not only himself at an adult age, but for his hypothetical child as well.
Then Harper came along. She had complicated everything. She had undone years of routine avoidance. Brian had it all down systematically to the point where he’d meet a woman, they’d have fun, and then he would move on. He kept his freedom.
He kept his feelings intact. Then he could move on to the next. But with Harper, that entire system was turned on its head. He officially knew what love felt like. That meant that he would be potentially setting himself for the very same loss that his father experienced, which scared the life out of him.
He chose not to read the letters, sparing himself any more stress for the day. And then the bell rang. He was not in the mood to entertain guests, nor was he in the best physical state to do so, but he went to answer the door anyway.
When he opened the door, in came Marianne who wore a face of surprise after taking a few sniffs. It must have been the drunken appearance that threw her off. But Brian didn’t care. No one had told her to come over at the time that she did. Then Brian realised that it was mid-day, he probably shouldn’t have been drunk. His thoughts were still somewhat jumbled.
“You are drunk while the sun is in the middle of the sky?” Marianne had confirmed his assumptions.
“You are a great detective, have you ever considered taking a job in that line of work?”
Marianne shook her head with a tight jaw. “I do not have time for your quips.”
“Then what have you travelled here for? Because even in my drunken stupor, it seems as though you have not come to state the obvious.”
Marianne laughed, but her laugh was far more over the top than usual. Her eyes also had a glow about them, like she was in a flirty mood. “Fine, you are a little funny, aren’t you?”
“Well, that would mean you are the first one to find me funny in this place as Harper and I have just had an argument. I am quite annoyed.” He smiled a sarcastic smile. “Actually, I am stressed. Yes, that’s the word, stressed. I am stressed and aggravated.” Brian had a habit of rambling when he had alcohol in him. But even though that was the case, he was still wary of Marianne’s odd behaviour.
