Carter's phone starts ringing obnoxiously around seven in the morning. Harry hadn't called her at all the night before, which was really strange, and she jumps to answer it despite how ungodly of an hour it is.
Her voice is groggy and a little breathy and the corners of her lips lift up in a soft smile as she answers, "Hi."
The smile isn't there for very long. Someone's crying on the other end and it certainly isn't Harry. Confused, Carter pulls her phone from her ear to check the caller ID.
Of course, it's a number that she doesn't have in her contacts and she has no idea who the hell is on the other end.
Carter clears her throat to rid her voice of that scratchy early morning quality and sits up while running a hand through her messy hair. "Um...hello?"
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry, Carter."
The voice is extremely familiar, "Aurora?"
More sniffling, crying, and 'I'm sorry' follow and Carter sighs, her free hand lifting to rub the sleep from her eyes.
"Please calm down. What are you sorry for?" It's too early in the morning for this. How did Aurora even get her number anyway?
A smothering and strange silence follows for much longer than Carter likes before Aurora finally spits it out in a rush of tangled words. "HarrywasdrunkandthoughtIwasyouandIsleptwithhim."
Carter nearly drops her phone, "W-what?"
Whatever she said was said so fast that it was hard to comprehend, but she did manage to catch "Harry," "drunk," and "slept with him" and suddenly she can't breathe. There are tears in her eyes, but she's too busy trying to make sense of things to care or to wipe them away.
In a hardly audible voice, Aurora repeats herself less hysterically. "Harry was drunk last night and he thought I was you and I—I slept with him. I'm so sorry. I know that I shouldn't have and I-"
Carter's heard enough and she hangs up before Aurora can finish whatever excuse it is that she has for sleeping with Harry. She carelessly drops her phone on the bed behind her and stares blankly out the window and at the city that she's admired for weeks.
Suddenly, it's no longer beautiful to look at.
The curtains are closed immediately and Carter heads to the bathroom next. She flicks on the lights and stares at herself in the mirror like she's some kind of science experiment. Everything that she sees disgusts her.
She pokes at her cheeks, pulls on her lips, and messes with her hair. It doesn't matter though because she doesn't feel good about herself anymore, just like the last time this happened. She thinks that it's her fault because she isn't pretty enough to keep a man's eyes from wandering and keep his loyalty.
Carter turns off the lights and picks up the throw blanket that she left on one of the chairs the night before. She climbs into bed and sits directly in the center, wrapping the blanket around herself as tightly as she can manage.
She blankly stares at the white comforter beneath her and, before she knows it, she's crying. She isn't crying for Harry though: she's crying for herself because she actually thought that things would be different this time around and she let her guard down when she shouldn't have.
"I'm so stupid...I should've known..."
Time passes faster than she thinks and there's a knock on her door forty minutes into her self-loathing session. Carter hastily wipes her eyes before weakly calling out, "W-who is it?"
A pause. "Axel. I wanted to see if you were up for a rematch, since you kicked my ass in pool the other night."
Carter forces herself to get up and clean herself up a little bit so that she doesn't look like a complete mess as she answers the door. There's no point in yelling through it, really.
"I...uh...I'm actually trying to deal with something right now. Maybe tomorrow?"
His brown eyes look at her with such concern and she almost laughs because it's funny to think that someone she hardly knows actually cares that she's upset. Harry hasn't even bothered to call her.
Before she knows it, Axel's pulled her into a very comforting hug and she's crying again.
"I'm sorry."
Axel pulls away and shakes his head, a gentle smile on his lips. "You don't have to be sorry for anything. But the offer still stands if you want to get your mind off of things. I'll bring alcohol too, if you really want. Just shoot me a text if you change your mind, okay?"
Despite how shitty she feels, Carter nods and offers him a small smile. "Okay."
She watches him walk about halfway down the hall before she stops debating with herself and calls to him. "Axel?"
He turns on his heel with his hands shoved deep into his pockets as he looks back at her. "Yeah?"
"Thank you."
Her voice was soft in the empty hall, but he heard it nonetheless. "Anytime, Carter."
Once she's back inside, Carter sinks back against the door and takes some deep breaths to clear her head and to calm herself down. She absolutely hates crying, especially now that someone else has seen her cry. And what makes it worse is that she could've spared herself this terrible pain in her chest if she'd only stayed away from Harry.
After a few moments, she decides to call him and find out for herself if what Aurora told her was true. She sounded pretty genuine on the other end, but now that Carter's thought about it some more, it could've easily been an act to make this happen and she needs to make sure.
Ten minutes pass before she actually gathers the courage to call him. She finds it amusing that he answers immediately because she has a strong feeling that Aurora told her the truth.
"Carter, I-"
She doesn't give him a chance to speak. "Is it true?"
"Carter-"
"Is. It. True."
Harry clenches his jaw and his eyes water, but he has to tell her the truth or he'll just make things worse. "Yes, but-"
Carter's livid. "No. There is no 'but.' You son-of-a-bitch. To think that I actually thought you were better than that. Ha! I should've known! Forget about that tattoo and forget about me because we're through, Harry."
She hangs up before he can try to explain again and, this time she throws her phone at the wall and groans when the screen doesn't even crack.
Her eyes start to fill with tears again, but she refuses to cry over him so much and walks across the room to pick up her phone.
"Hey, Axel. You said that offer still stood?"
"Yes. That is, if you want it to, anyway."
Carter nods and hastily wipes her eyes as she ignores the fourth call from Harry. "I do. Can I meet you down in the lounge?"
His tone picks up immediately, "Yeah, of course!"
"Five minutes sound good?"
"Yes."
Carter tells him that she'll see him later and hangs up. She takes a few minutes to change into better clothes and to make herself look more presentable before she heads downstairs to meet Axel in the lounge.
True to his word, he brings alcohol and they drink while they play a few games of pool. Carter drinks way more than she should and Axel doesn't tell her to stop because she can make her own decisions and they don't have a competition tomorrow.
They play three games before Carter decides that she wants to do something else. She's sad and the drinking really didn't seem to help very much at all. All she can think about is Harry and Aurora, Harry and Aurora, Harry and Aurora.
It's driving her crazy and she needs another distraction. A better distraction.
Axel's cleaning up their mess when she decides to act out of impulse and kiss him.
He's taken by surprise and it takes him a moment to realize what she's doing. She's an attractive woman, but he doesn't want to take advantage of her.
Axel gently pushes her back, "Carter...are you sure this is what you want?"
She doesn't even think about the question as she nods. What point is there in giving a fuck anymore? She and Harry are through and that isn't her fault, it's his.
Axel sighs heavily because he knows that she really didn't think before she answered. "You're doing this because you're sad and you've had a few drinks. I don't want to take advantage of you."
Carter frowns and crosses her arms under her chest. "I haven't had that many and, yes, I'm sad, but that's not the only reason. I want to do this. If you don't want to sleep with me, that's fine. I'll just go back to my room and pretend that this didn't happen."
She turns on her heel to leave and Axel catches her wrist and makes her turn around. His dark eyes are looking at her with a look that she can't quite place in her current state of mind.
"You won't be angry with me tomorrow or expect anything else out of this? Just a one night stand?"
Carter nods, "Yes. Just a one night stand, because I'm lonely and I want sex and I want to stop thinking about him."
He kisses her and everything blurs. She finds himself in his hotel room that's identical to hers except that it's on the other side of the hall. She's pulling of her clothes like they're constricting her and the entire time she's thinking about Harry, Harry, Harry.
Axel's kisses don't feel the same. They feel careless and sloppy and cold and all she can think about is how Harry kisses her, how soft and warm his lips are and how she could always feel that he cared through something as simple as a kiss.
Her thoughts only encourage her to continue. He promised her that he wouldn't ever cheat on her and he did. God, she's so fucking stupid.
Yet, even as she tries to rid herself of him with another man, he's still the only thing that she's thinking about as she wraps her legs around Axel's body and squeezes the muscles in his arms as his hips roughly meet with hers.
Originally, she planned on spending the night in his room, but she ends up leaving a short while after they finished and caught their breaths. There's something wrong with her and it's all Harry's fault.
As she falls asleep with her air conditioner set on a low temperature and her blankets wrapped snugly around her, all she can think about his stupid cute face and his dumb jokes that aren't even funny in the first place.
She let him in and he burned the best parts of her because she let her guard down and that thought stuck with her as she fell asleep.
Carter wakes to a loud succession of knocks around two in the morning.
She groans loudly and pulls one of the spare pillows over her head to cancel out the noise and go back to sleep. "Go away."
The knocking doesn't stop and soon it's accompanied by an all too familiar voice. "Carter! I know you're in there! Please, let me explain!"
Her entire body stiffens at the sound of his voice. There's no way in hell that he's really there and, even if there is, she sure as hell isn't getting up to hear him explain why he cheated on her.
She speaks a little louder this time to make sure that he can hear her, "I said go away. I don't want to talk to you."
"I know, okay!? I know! Please, just let me explain. I'm not expecting you to come crawling back to me, or even to forgive me. For Christ's sake! I just want you to listen. Please."
Despite how much she currently hates him, Carter finds herself getting out of bed and slowly walking across the room to answer the door.
Her eyes are hard and unforgiving as she looks at him. His eyes are glossy and overflowing with tears as he looks right back.
"You want to talk? Fine. Talk."
Harry says nothing as he watches her angrily cross her arms under her chest and yawn. She looks awful and so beautiful all at once and here he is trying to explain to her why he's broken her very fragile trust and her heart.
He opens his mouth only to close it again a moment later. He thought about how he would phrase his explanation for the entire plane ride over and it was really just a waste of time because it would be fabricated and a speech and he needs to tell her with his heart.
"There's no excuse. I know, God, I fucking know, but I didn't do it on purpose. I would never, ever, purposely break your beautiful heart. B-"
Carter interrupts him, "But you did."
Harry nods, "I know. Carter...I-" He sighs and closes his eyes for a moment because the look that she's giving him is killing him. "I know that you don't care and that you hate me. You have every reason to. And I know that you probably won't ever take me back because I fucked up in a way that I promised you I would never do. I honest to God thought that it was you the entire time. My friend Carson asked me to be the best man at his wedding and we went out and got hammered, beyond hammered, and I was walking back home and I swear to God I thought I saw you.
"I was so damn happy that you were back and I wasn't in the right mindset at all. You know that I'm the world's worst lightweight in history, you've seen it. I ran to you and hugged you before taking you back to the warehouse. I thought it was weird that you were being so quiet, but I also didn't give you much of a chance to say anything. And then we were having sex...I finally realized it was you when we were done and I've never felt so horrible in my entire life.
"I deserve to go to hell, I really do, but I just wanted you to know the truth and to see you one last time before you avoid me for the rest of your life. There really isn't an excuse and I'm so fucking sorry Carter. I'm so sorry. But if you decide that you want me to stay, for some God given reason that I can't even think of, I'll change my mind about giving up on you because I know that you want me to right now."
Carter doesn't know what to say. Her eyes are glossy because she can tell that he genuinely feels God awful about what he's done. The last man that did this to her didn't try nearly as hard as he's trying right now and he certainly didn't apologize as genuinely as Harry just did.
She casts her eyes to the carpeted floor as she speaks softly, "I slept with Axel. Not while I was with you, but earlier, after I told you that it was over between us."
Carter dares to look up and see his reaction. Harry bites his lip and nods, but he keeps his words to himself.
A small smile creeps its way to Carter's lips as she looks away again. "The worst thing about it was that I thought about you the entire time."
Harry's lips lift up in nearly the same fashion and again he says nothing. He doesn't even bother to wipe his eyes or pretend that he hasn't been crying.
Carter keeps her eyes on his stupid brown boots and her bare feet. "I'm so fucking mad at you right now that it's not even funny. But please, stay."
She realizes that he's the one that's hurt her, but she also realizes that he's the only one that can make her feel better. Hell, the man booked a flight last minute and somehow managed to track her down, just so he could apologize and tell her the truth. Not to mention that he made a fool of himself standing outside her door and begging for her to listen to him and crying because of the mistake that he made.
Each of them lift their eyes at the same time and Carter finds herself getting lost in his pretty, and very sad, green irises.
"Are you sure?"
Carter nods, "I might be the biggest idiot on the planet, but yes, I'm sure."