And now it had planted a seed of doubt that I couldn’t ignore.
What was worse was the sound of my dad’s voice that suddenly infiltrated my head.Get the Tinsley girl to fall for you, then what? Break her heart? Make her look like an idiot?
“Maybe you do love me now,” I said finally. “Maybe somewhere along the way, it became real for you. But it started as a game, didn’t it? Even if you didn’t mean it to, even if you didn’t plan it—it started with you being so confident that I’d never want you that you essentially dared your teammates to prove you wrong.”
He was shaking his head, his eyes pleading. “Harper?—”
“And maybe you didn’t consciously try to win the bet. Maybe you genuinely started to care about me. But when you found out about it, you had a choice. You could have told me the truth and let me decide if I wanted to continue, or you could have kept it secret to protect yourself from losing me. And you chose to keep me in the dark.”
Drew’s face crumpled. “I chose wrong. I know I chose wrong. But Harper, please—what we have is real now. What I feel for you is real. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think their bullshit stupidity mattered. You and I matter.”
“Which is exactlywhyyou should’ve told me.”
I looked at him holding Rory, both of them looking at me with those matching hazel eyes, and felt my heart break all over again.
“You say it’s real,” I said softly. “But how do I ever trust that? How do I ever know if what you’re feeling is real or if you’re just so good at playing the part that you’ve convinced yourself it’s real too?”
“Because you know me,” Drew said desperately. “You’ve seen who I really am. You’ve seen me at my worst and my best. You know I’m not that good of an actor.”
“Do I?” I shook my head. “Because right now I don’t feel like I know who you are at all. I thought you’d changedfrom the guy who used to humiliate me, but I’ve never felt so stupid or humiliated as I did when I found out about the bet.”
Silence stretched between us like a chasm. Even Rory was quiet, watching us both.
“I need to go,” I said quietly.
“Go where?” I didn’t miss the panic in his voice.
“That’s not your problem anymore,” I said, but without the venom I’d intended. I just sounded tired. I turned around to go back to my car, but stopped when he spoke.
“Harper, please. Don’t leave. We can work this out.”
“How?” I turned back to look at him one last time. “How do we work this out, Drew? How do I ever trust you again when this is how we started? When you kept this from me for weeks while I fell in love with you?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, and the honesty in his voice almost broke me. “But I know I love you. And I know what we have is worth fighting for.”
“Maybe it is,” I said quietly. “But I don’t know how to fight for something when I don’t know which parts of it were real.”
We stared at each other for another beat, and I knew if I stayed any longer, my chest would crack open.
“Goodbye, Drew.”
I walked to my car and refused to look back, even when I heard Rory start to cry. Even when I heard Drew say my name like a broken plea.
FORTY-SEVEN
I stood in the doorway holding Rory, staring at the empty driveway like Harper would magically reappear. The summer air was warm, but I felt cold and empty and completely fucked.
Rory twisted in my arms, looking toward the street where she’d last seen Harper. When she didn’t see her, her little face scrunched up and she started fussing.
“I know, sweet girl,” I said, stepping back inside and shutting the door. “She’s not here.”
And it was my fault. I’d fucked everything up, and now Harper was gone, and I had no clue how to fix it.
Or if I even could.
The house felt wrong without her. Too quiet.
It was one thing when I knew she’d be home later. It was something else entirely when I realized she may never come back here except to get her stuff.
