“Believe it or not, I still love you, Coco,” Harrison said in a way that I wholeheartedly believed. “I never stopped. I pulled back because you pulled back. I thought giving you more space would somehow bring you back to me. And when that didn’t work, I thought giving you the career of your dreams – something no other man could ever do – would show you how much I loved you. I meant it when I said I was your biggest fan. I have been since the day we met.”
“Harrison.” I crossed my arms, though not in an angry way. My heart broke for him, because I saw a part of me in his eyes. The desperate longing, the clinging onto something so hard it slipped through your hands like tiny grains of sand. I’d been there. I’d felt it before. “Then why didn’t you speak up at therapy? You just sat there, going along with everything I said and agreeing that you weren’t vested anymore.”
“Do you have any idea what it feels like to look into the eyes of the person you love more than anything in the world and hear them say they don’t feel the same way about you?”
Yes, more than anything.
I knew that feeling like an old friend.
Harrison snapped backward, falling into his easy chair like a rubber band that had been pulled to far. “The morning of that therapy session, I was looking for an old sweater in our closet.” He reached down, retrieving something from under his chair: my box of all things Beau. “Found this.”
He patted the top of the box, running his hand along the smooth mahogany as his lips formed a pained smile.
“I knew,” he said. “I knew when I found this that I could never compete with any of it. I had nothing on this guy.”
So that’s how he knew about Beau. He didn’t talk to my mother. He’d known all along.
Although it felt like a violation of my privacy, his admission was the final puzzle piece I needed to understand what had happened that day we decided to file for divorce. He was angry with me, and the things he’d said in our session had given our therapist the impression that he wasn’t vested in us. She mistook his anger and bitterness for something else entirely, and I interpreted it as the sign that I needed to finally exit the marriage in a graceful way.
My heart sank as I realized he’d probably read every little note in that box and seen every little photograph; including the one I kept in there of my daughter.
“So you know about…”
“The baby. Yes.” His eyes flashed dark. “I don’t know why you felt the need to keep it a secret from me. I was your husband for two years, God damn it. I wouldn’t have judged you.”
“My sister doesn’t even know, Harrison.” I shook my head, not feeling the need to validate my reasons to a crazy person a second longer. “So if you knew about Beau, why didn’t you try to stop me from going?”
“Because you needed the interview to get promoted. Because in spite of the risk of losing you, I wouldn’t do that to you.” Harrison slid his hand down his jaw, clenching and releasing it as he cocked his head to the side. It was as if he was coming back down from his heated high. He stood up and paced the living room, finding a spot by the window and gazing outside at our bustling little neighborhood. “God, this is embarrassing. I’m quite humiliated at my behavior actually.”
My feet stayed frozen to the ground as I struggled to find the right thing to say to the man whose heart I’d just obliterated, albeit unintentionally. “There were a lot of cracks in our marriage.”
He glanced up at me with melancholy sadness in his stare.
“What I mean is, don’t spend the rest of your life wondering what you could’ve done differently to make things work.” I pulled in a deep breath, hoping my words would mean something someday. “We were never meant to last. It would’ve ended eventually, one way or another.”
Harrison slumped back in his chair with the mahogany box of my past still resting in his lap. I imagined him poring over those old love letters and happy photographs as he investigated this side of me he’d never known before.
He was going to be haunted by his time with me for the rest of his life, the same way my time with Beau had haunted me.
“Everything’s going to be okay for you,” I told him. “I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but it will.”
He turned to face the window, staring down at the late April rain that had begun to fall and beat against the glass. “I’m sorry I kissed you that way, Coco. I shouldn’t have done that. You’re a lady, and it was wrong.”
That was his upbringing speaking. The Bissetts of Manhattan were known to be dignified and respectable members of society, though I’d learned over the years that all families had skeletons – some were just better hidden than others.
“I’m going to step out for a bit,” I said, “and go meet up with my sister.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Hey!” Addison said, kissing my cheek as she stood to greet me at our favorite restaurant. Her blue eyes studied me as she puckered her lips to the side. “Something’s different about you. What happened in Darlington?”
I placed my napkin across my lap and took a sip of my still water. “I need you to find me an apartment.”
Addison’s jaw fell. “Can you repeat that again, please? This time, speak right into the mic.”
“Oh, stop.” I swatted her away. “I’m ready to move out of the apartment and get a place of my own.”
“How soon are we talking?”
“Immediately.”
Her eyes widened as she leaned in. Her poppy-red lips spread into an entertained grin. “All right. Back up. Start from the beginning.”
“This isn’t about Beau,” I said, backtracking. “The apartment. It’s not about him.”
“Really?” She cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.
“Harrison,” I said, shaking my head, “apparently found out about my history with Beau. He kind of got all weird on me.” I spared her the details out of the kindness of my heart. Harrison was just a man who had a low moment. I’d been there before. “He started talking like he wanted to get back together, and when I told him no, he kind of lost it. It’s just better that I get out of there as soon as possible. Can you make that happen?”
“Of course,” Addison assured me, reaching her hand across the table and placing it over mine. Her engagement ring glinted in the dim light, throwing fire everywhere. “Wilder just renovated a building in SoHo. Take your pick. We’ll do a month-to-month lease until you find something you love.”
“Thank you.”
“So what happened with Beau? You’re killing me here. I’ve been waiting all week for this.”
“He wants me back,” I said.
“Of course he does.” Addison took a sip of water. “But do you want him?”