A Day of Ruin
I really misread and miscalculated that one.
Another knock on the door sounded and Bryson looked at it suspiciously. I rolled my eyes, crossing the room to open it again.
Finn stepped inside, looking at me with an unpleasant glare, then nodding towards Bryson. “And you are?”
Bryson held out his hand and I watched as they shook hands, a little pissed the same wasn’t offered to me but I guessed that was also my own fault.
I was just knocking it all out of the park today.
“Bryson. Harlow’s work friend. I was just stopping in to check on her.”
Finn looked at me in question and I shook my head. “I’m going to get us beers.”
They looked at me in confusion.
“It’s like 10am,” said Finn.
I held up a hand. “We’re going to need it. I guarantee it.”
The three of us sat on the couch, shock on all our faces as I told them of my findings – both in the bathroom and Harlow’s bedroom.
It was Finn who finally broke the silence.
“So... you’re saying that,” he paused, struggling to find the words. “... you’re saying she’s hurting herself.”
I nodded. “I think so.”
“I don’t think she’s been eating either,” he muttered.
Bryson looked between us, his face torn up with devastation. “And someone is stalking her.”
“Yeah,” I answered sadly.
He ran a hand down his jaw. “Harlow has always swore black and blue that she’s innocent... that she was set up. What if she has been telling the truth all along?”
I noticed Finn turn to look at me out of the corner of my eye but I stayed silent. Bryson was right. Harlow had always maintained that she was innocent. Her story had never changed, she had never given us a reason to doubt her.
But we had.
We were told to believe something and we did. Without question at the expense of Harlow Falls.
Fuck.
Finn crossed his arms as he sat back into the couch. “She’s innocent,” he said, echoing our thoughts. “And you all fucking turned your backs on her.”
Normally, this is where I would have gotten defensive, or even tried to take a swing. But Finn was absolutely correct.
We had failed Harlow.