Second Chance

I shrug and then take a seat at the vanity. I want to unload everything. It’s like a weight on my chest that won’t get the hell off.

“Did he cheat on you?” she asks.

“No,” I answer as I put my elbow on the edge of the chair and then my chin in my palm.

“Did he hurt you?” she asks and I’m quiet. I almost say no out of instinct, but he did. He made me feel like it was all my fault. Like I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I swallow the lump growing in my throat and let out the breath I’ve been holding.

“Not physically.” I stare at the ceiling and wait for her to say something, but I’m greeted with silence.

I lower my head, balancing the stupid towel and then finally reach up to just take it down, running my hands through my damp hair.

“What did he do?” Lydia asks with a crestfallen expression.

“He tried to save me,” I tell her, remembering that night and how he was my knight in shining armor. But knights come in times of war and their armor doesn’t survive without scratches, or dents. Without blood.

Lydia sits up on the bed with a deep sigh. She hunches forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands on her forehead before looking back at me. “I don’t know if you’re being melodramatic or if something insane happened. I’m lost here, Harlow.”

“He did the right thing. It’s just that the right thing wasn’t good, and it made us …” I can’t finish. It tore us apart. It made us see how foolish we were. It showed how stupid I was and how destructive we were together.

“But that was back then,” Lydia says. “Ten years ago,” she adds, raising her voice.

I understand how ridiculous it is. “Yeah, I just haven’t seen him since.”

“Well, can you put it behind you?” she asks as I stare at the thin carpet on the floor.

“I think he’d like to pretend it never happened,” I tell her honestly. I can’t explain why it hurts my chest so badly to think about just erasing that night.

“And you?” she asks in a voice with such compassion I have to raise my gaze to hers.

“I would do anything to take it back.”

Chapter 11

Nathan

* * *

St. Gerard is a massive skyscraper, equipped with its own restaurants, office buildings, and five-diamond rooms; they call it a hotel, but it’s practically a resort. You could get lost in here if you wanted to. You could live a happy life and never even step foot outside this building. You could also avoid someone else living here for as long as you had to.

If that’s what you wanted to do. Judging by the fact that I’m obsessed with knowing Hally’s room is in the east hall of the fourteenth floor, that’s not what I intend to do. Room 14206. There’s no name on the door, but Mark assures me she’s here. She’d better be.

I haven’t seen her in days. She’s avoiding me again and it kills me. She doesn’t have a choice, and neither do I.

I clear my throat as I walk past a small crowd of people by a cart set up for bagels and coffee. The rich scent fills my lungs as I walk by, ignoring how a few of the people creep forward, one with her hand out as if she’d like to stop me.

I pretend I don’t see her or her attempt to initiate a conversation, keeping my strides even and fairly quick. There are no verbal objections and I guess I’m grateful for that.

A single kiss, and I feel like I’m coming undone. A manufactured one at that. But it felt real. The electricity and tension between us were all too real on my part. If I still know her, if she’s the same girl she was ten years ago, it’s the same for her.

With each step of my sneakers sinking into the luxurious carpet of the fourteenth floor, I know I’m getting closer and closer to doing something stupid.

I don’t give a fuck. I want her. I need to have her again. At all costs. But I need to play this right. Hally’s always been emotional and hard to predict, like wildfire, and I don’t know what it is I do to her that sets her off.

I’ll be careful though, since I know better now. Which is damn good since I’m standing in front of her door.

My knuckles rap against the door three times. They sound even and controlled, unlike my beating heart.

As I shove my hand into my pocket, the door swings open. Hally’s unknowing at first, with a curious look on her face and then it falls. She stands in the doorway, her grip tightening on the door.

“May I come in?” I ask her with feigned politeness. I’m conscious of the fact that people are watching; they’re always watching, which is why we need to talk. Or at least it makes a damn good excuse for me to insist we talk.