I’m sure each beat of my heart is visible as I remain frozen in place, not certain how to respond or continue.
“Why? Why did you find him?”
“I don’t know exactly … It started as something to do to get my mind off focusing on my own dad, and everything that happened with us. That led me to trying to understand your fears better so I didn’t have to think so much about my own. It somehow became a project, an obsession for me to complete because I couldn’t give you back my dad, or change what had happened, but I could give you something else to show you that—”
Max’s head shakes, and his hand rises to cut my words off, then he turns to Tim. “You didn’t come because you wanted to find us. You came because you were guilted into it.”
“Max, no,” Tim objects. I catch the movement of his head-shake out of the corner of my eye. “I’ve wanted to find you and your brothers for years. I just never had the guts to do it, but she taught me a really important lesson.”
“And what’s that?” Max asks.
“That there are no guarantees in life. I may not have another ten years to wait around and wonder if you guys will accept me back into your lives.”
My eyebrows rise for a second because I hadn’t been insightful at all when I had found Tim. The first few times we spoke I had been purely factual, concerned he was the right Tim Miller and that he deserved to meet Max.
“She’s really something special,” Tim says, and I feel myself cringe because I know Max well enough to know his dad’s encouragement is not going to help me right now.
“When are you leaving?” Max’s words nearly cut off the end of Tim’s, and my fists clench with nerves.
“Monday, I have two days left.” My voice sounds uncertain of my answer, but Max nods a few times and then reaches for the latch on the gate beside us and doesn’t look back as he heads to his truck.
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”
–Carl Bard
“What happened?” Kendall asks as I catch Wes’s keys.
I shake my head in response. I can’t respond to her right now because I’m not sure what in the hell just happened. I don’t know if Max is mad because I found his dad, or that we hadn’t told him, or because my presence may have ended his current relationship, or if it was even anger that he was fighting to conceal, and it’s causing my own feelings to jumble into a tangle that’s difficult for me to sort through.
“Do you want me to come with you?” she asks.
“No, I need to talk to him alone.”
“Call me, okay? If you need anything, just call me,” Kendall says as I turn to the house to leave.
Standing in the street I turn and look for Wes’s truck and find Fitz with his hands in his pockets, standing in the middle of the street, staring at me.
“What are you doing?” His words and face are pained.
“I need to talk to him.”
“Harper, what are you doing?” he repeats.
“I need to talk to him, Fitz!” I continue toward the line of cars, but Fitz’s hand snakes around my arm, stopping me.
“Who in the hell are you?” His words sting, but the accusation in his narrowed eyes is what maims me. “Who’s this alter ego Ace? And since when do you know how to cook anything besides cereal? The girl I knew used to be sad and had some tough times, but you were also fierce, driven, and brave. I never realized it was all from your weaknesses. You’re living in this make believe world, trying to hold all these pieces together, and I don’t think you even know who you are anymore. Are you Ace or are you Harper? Do you love Max or do you love Danny? Are you staying or are you going?”
Fitz’s eyes bore into mine, but I can’t answer him. I don’t know the answer to any of his questions.
“Unrequited love is a fickle bitch, Harper. I know it sucks, but sometimes you need to learn what’s good for you.” His hand slides from my arm and reaches to the back of his neck. “I’m going home. You need to figure your shit out.”
He walks over to a taxi that I hadn’t even noticed, and like Max, he doesn’t look back before he disappears.
I kick off my shoes and leave them in Wes’s truck. I’m not sure what brought me here. I’d stopped by the cemetery first and cried my way through my words and confusion until the sky began to turn gray. Now looking out over the ocean at the familiar stretch of beach that Max and I used to frequent, the clouds reflect my own emotions with varying hues of gray streaking the skies, some so dark they’re nearly black. I understand that darkness.
I head straight into the surf. It laps up to my knees, soaking the hem of my dress, and quickly moving up to the bodice. I’ve always been terrified of the ocean; her strength and unseen secrets have always had me admiring her from afar. Yet I feel mesmerized as I stand here, facing one of my biggest fears, and watching as the waves roll against me, pushing and pulling. My thoughts follow the waves, feeling the familiar pull to stay and the even more familiar push to run.
“What are you doing?” Max’s familiar voice hits me harder than the next wave that meets my waist. “Are you trying to kill yourself?” he shouts from the shore, but doesn’t wait for me to respond as he wades into the water, still wearing his suit.
A breeze blows past, stinging the path of hot tears on my cheeks. I swallow and dip my hands in the cool water to help bring some focus. “I just needed a moment,” I explain, reaching up and wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand. “I just needed to think.”
“About what?”
“About you. About us.”
“There is no us.” He stops beside me and stares out into the ocean.
I nod, though I want to disagree. “I know.”
“Do you? Because I had to work really hard to get you out of my head.”
“It looks like you did a good job of erasing me from your entire life.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted? Wasn’t that the reason you moved across the damn country?”
I swallow again and take a deep breath through my nose to steady my breathing so I can try and explain why I left.
“You need to get on with your life. You did this, this was what you wanted.”
“This isn’t what I wanted, Max!” My anger burns as hot as the tears in my eyes as I face him. “You said you were done! You kicked me out of your house! This wasn’t just my doing!”
“You started pushing me away the day your dad died. You had no intention of sticking around. Don’t you put this back on me!”
“I couldn’t stay because my mom was right. I knew that you’d move on and I couldn’t stand by and watch. It would have killed me. I wouldn’t have been able to survive.”
“Move on?” Max growls. “I was pissed off because you got up and left in the middle of the night without warning. You started separating yourself that day! If you couldn’t see that I was hurt and scared out of my mind, then you never knew me as well as I thought you did.”
“I knew you were scared, but you wouldn’t even talk to me, Max! You made me question everything! I didn’t know if anything we had was real, because you were so content with pushing me out of your life.”
“It was all in your head!” His voice is raised, I can sense that he’s about to lose control as well. “You never let me in far enough to see the fears you had from the very beginning. You never let me know about the things that haunted you! You kept everything from me!”
“I gave you as much as I could. I tried to give you every piece of me.”
“You gave me the pieces that were easy and didn’t scare you.”
“Every piece I gave you scared the hell out of me! Are you kidding me?”