After Life

49

"Harry," I finally said, my voice cracking. Quickly, I reached out, taking his hand in mine. I squeezed it tightly, and as his eyes flickered to where I held him, I knew he was remembering when his Nan had done the same. "Stop,"

He looked up to me then, his face lost of all humor. "Why?" he sighed. "You wanted to know. You've hounded me all this time to be honest with you. Don't you want to know the best part?"

His voice was cold, and completely empty. We had started talking about our futures, and somehow ended up in the nightmare of his past.

"Harry,"

He pulled his hand from mine, lifting the edge of his shirt. "Don't you want to know where I got this?"

"I don't need,"

"A piece of metal sliced my liver in two," he continued, ignoring my plea. "It was shot. They had no way of getting one to me quick enough. So here is the kicker. My mother was failing, and they knew she wasn't going to last. In the few hours she had left, they tested the shit out of her. Of course, she was a match. In a sick fucking twist, her death kept me alive."

"Harry, stop," I cried, closing the small space between us to wrap myself around him. I held him tighter than I had ever held anyone before. "Please just stop," I buried my head in his chest, practically crawling into his lap. My arms wrapped around his neck tightly, holding on as if I was trying to pull him back together. To bring him out of the dark place he had returned to, even though he had moved across an ocean to escape it.

He didn't hold me. His arms stayed at his sides, remarkably casual for someone who had just divulged the horrors he guarded to closely. Neither of us moved for a long time, as I clung to him, and he made no motion to push me away.

I didn't know how to feel. My heart was racing, my chest aching as if I had run a marathon. I felt cold, and sweaty, and broken. All this time, I had wanted to know what it was that broke him so badly. Never, did I imagine something so horrific. Never did I consider that the look of loss on his face was rooted in this.

And I hated myself for ever exploiting it.

"Now do you get it?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Reluctantly, I pulled back. Still in his lap, my hands now resting on his shoulders, I looked up to him.

"They were always so careful, but it didn't matter. They died anyway. You are choosing to put yourself at risk. You are consciously going somewhere where you could get killed. And you can't understand why I take issue with that? Why the thought of someone else I care about being taken from me would make me angry?"

"How could I have known?" I finally said, my vision blurred with tears. "Harry, how in the world could I have known that was why you felt this way? Until now, you never told me anything."

He met my gaze, surprisingly calm. I had fully expected the blow out to continue. For someone so volatile, so guarded, I assumed that he wouldn't let me question him.

"Now you know," he said. "Does it change anything?"

The directness of his question surprised me, causing me to pull back from him. My eyes stayed locked on him, and I felt myself go numb.

He was asking if now that I knew his reasons, if it would change my decision. Should it? Yes, I felt in a way, now that I understood the root causes of his hostile reaction, I was better able to understand where he was coming from. He had lost his family by accident, and now I was willingly putting myself at risk. Of course that would be a bone of contention with him.

But what did it really change? In all reality, he was still leaving. He was due in Seattle in less than two weeks. Nothing about his honesty changed that. So what? What did that mean for me? Was I to stay in New York, stay in this safe existence of North American protection, because of his loss? Stay, because of his fears, and not my own reasons? Stay because he asked me to?

But he hadn't asked me to. Nowhere in his honesty and his expression had he actually asked me to stay.

This was something I had to decide on my own. This choice had to be mine. Was I going to be the girl who guided her life on the requests of a man? Harry wasn't my boyfriend. We weren't betrothed to each other in any way. Should I give up on everything I dreamed of, because of him?

My phone vibrated on the table, the first sound made other than our shouting in the last twenty minutes. Neither of us moved for a long while, until finally the sound was too much, and I slid off Harrys lap, plucking the device from the table top.

"Hello?"

"Miss Jennings?" a voice called, thick with professionalism.

"Yes?"

"This is Mike Ward," he announced. "Sorry to be calling you on a Sunday evening, but I wanted to inform you of a change in our plans, on the chance that you were considering our offer."

"Of course,"

"Our departure date has been moved up," he stated. "We would be looking to leave on the fifteenth of May, rather than the twenty ninth as previously discussed."

My eyes widened. That was the beginning of the next week. Nine days, to be exact. The day before Harry was meant to leave for Seattle.

"I'm not sure if you have made your decision, but I felt you should be aware of this change in case it impacted your choice,"

"Of course," I choked. "Thank you,"

"I seriously hope you are considering our offer," he continued. "Like I said, please let us know early this week, so we can move forward."

"I will. Thank you,"

Hanging up, I turned to Harrys expectant eyes.

"That was the guy from NG," I said, setting my phone on the table.

"And?"

"They are moving the departure date up," raising my eyes to his, I tried to steady my voice. "They want to leave the fifteenth."

"That's only just over a week," Harry balked.

I only nodded in response.

His face hardened, his jaw tightening. I could feel him steadying himself, and could almost see his walls rebuilding around him.

"You're going, aren't you?" he finally said, his voice low.

I could tell him I didn't know, and appease him a little longer. I could put his mind to calm, and give him some time to adjust to the emotional night he had just endured. Or I could be completely honest with him, and myself. Because in all reality, I had made my decision two weeks ago when I first heard of the opportunity.

Meeting his eyes steadily, I nodded.