Page 32 of Not Yet Yours

Is it best to just keep pretending like I feel nothing for Liam and keep the arrangement going? That’s probably the easiest option, but is it the right option or will it end up with us both getting hurt?

The sensible option, the one I know I should be brave enough to go with, is to speak to Liam and explain that whatever is happening between us needs to end. I need to end things with him and put some space between us. But how can I do that now? Liam has given me the one thing I wanted the most in the world. I can’t thank him for that by throwing him aside. And it’s not just the studio. How can I walk away from Liam when the thought of not seeing him again, not being with him again, brings me to my knees? Just the idea of him moving on with someone else makes me feel sick to my stomach and I can’t stand the thought of him not being a part of my life anymore.

Maybe I should take option three. The scariest one. Maybe I should let him in and just be with him. Of course, then he’ll see who I really am, and he won’t want me anymore, but that might be a good way to end things between us without me throwingeverything back in Liam’s face. But I will still lose him. and I just can’t lose him. Not yet. I know in time I will have to let him go, but not yet. I need to have him in my life for just a little bit longer.

But if I let myself be selfish and keep Liam in my life for a bit longer, I risk ruining his life. And that’s what it always comes back to. Being alone is what I deserve because of who I am. Knowing this is nothing new, but this is the first time it’s ever bothered me to have to keep people at arm’s length.

I know that thinking this way will bring another movie to my mind. It won’t be the first time this week it’s happened, but it’s like as soon as I get into bed and switch off the light, these thoughts take over. And I have tried not going to bed, just trying to fall asleep on the couch watching the TV but it doesn’t change anything. It’s as soon as I try to switch my thoughts off and relax, the thoughts are there and it’s not a choice of whether or not the movie in my mind will play, it’s more of a game of how long I can keep it at bay before it happens.

I can feel it closing in on me now. I haven’t done badly tonight. It’s now four twenty-seven and this is the first time I let the memories in. I accept that the movie is about to play. I really should start to bring popcorn to bed with me.

Harriet perched on the edge of the seat on the couch. Her knees were pressed together, her wrists resting on them with her hands pressed together too. She was looking down at the ground, unable to look up at her father as he paced up and down the living room in front of her.

It was clear that Thomas was drunk. Harriet could smell the boozy smell drifting off him as he talked, and his voice sounded slurred. Every now and again, he would lose his footing and totter for a moment before righting himself. Harriet knew that he was at his most dangerous when he was this level of drunk;too drunk to have any level of self-control, but too sober to just pass out.

“Look at you, sitting there, like the lady of the fucking manor. I don’t know who the hell you think you are but let me tell you something, Missy. You’re nothing. Less than nothing. You are lower than the lowest of the low, worse than the worst of the worst, more toxic than…” Thomas trailed off at that point as though he had lost his train of thought, but Harriet knew what came next and she kept her head down, not wanting to risk making eye contact with her father and making things worse.

“You’re poison. That’s what you are,” Thomas slurred, stopping pacing in front of Harriet, and jabbing his finger toward her as he spoke. “Fucking poison. Everything good that you touch just withers away and dies. Every person you touch, you hurt. Why do you think your mom and I split up huh? We were in love until you came along. And then you fucking poisoned us, poisoned our relationship.”

Harriet bit her tongue because if she said what she was thinking, it would only make this worse for her. Her mom had divorced her dad because he used to beat her up. It wasn’t because of her. Was it?

“I know what you’re thinking you insolent little shit,” Thomas went on, the pacing starting up again. “You’re thinking your mom and I split up because she got sick of me, or because she fell out of love with me, or whatever other nonsense she’s been filling your head with. But let me tell you something. That might have been the reason, but what caused it? You fucking did. You caused her to fall out of love with me because your presence is poison. You ruin lives just by fucking breathing.”

Harriet could feel the ball in her throat, the one she had to swallow around to keep herself from crying. It only made it worse if she cried. Then she would get a lecture about how dareshe cry when she was the one who had spoiled everything, who ruined his life.

“I’m sorry,” Harriet said quietly.

“You’re sorry? Oh well, that’s ok then, isn’t it? Fucking hell Harriet. You think sorry brings my wife back? You think sorry gets me my job back? You think sorry undoes the pain you’ve caused in the last fourteen years since you were born?” Thomas demanded. “Well let me make this easy for you. It doesn’t. And now as a parent, it is my responsibility to make sure you don’t get to hurt anyone else.”

Harriet tried to curl in on herself and make herself a smaller target for her father, sure he was about to beat her senseless. She waited for the first of the blows, but none came.

“I don’t really suppose there’s a lot I can do to stop you from ruining anyone else’s life, but I will try. I will say this much. You should be alone. Don’t go looking for a man to marry or start a family with. If you do, that will be another life ruined, and no man deserves that. No man deserves to be filled with your poison,” Thomas said.

“Ok,” Harriet whispered. “Ok. I won’t get married. I won’t ruin another life.”

“Good. It’s too late for me, but at least the pain ends here,” Thomas said.

He walked out of the room and Harriet heard his footsteps go upstairs to his bedroom. The door opened and then closed and within minutes she could hear his loud, wet snores. She finally allowed the tears to come when she knew he was safely passed out for the night.

Harriet tried to remind herself of everything her mom told her, how none of what happened was her fault, but it was hard because her father was louder and more insistent, and he made sure Harriet never ever forgot his opinion of her whereas hermom only really talked about it the odd time she was so upset she brought it up herself.

Plus, Harriet had learned from earlier experiences that when her father got drunk, he was much more likely to speak his truths. And it was also when he got drunk that he would berate her and make her see she was slowly poisoning everyone around her.

I blink the memory away and I’m looking at my current bedroom again instead of my father’s old living room, but the tears are still flowing, and I’m shaking like a leaf. Am I currently ruining Liam’s life? I’ll be honest. It really doesn’t seem that way to me. Liam doesn’t seem unhappy when he’s with me and he often is the one to text me first so it’s not like he hates talking to me. But no, my dad was right. If I could split up the marriage of my parents, then I am definitely poison.

And it’s not like I didn’t test the theory. I believed my father even back then, and I had agreed that I wouldn’t get a boyfriend or get married or have kids or any of that stuff, I was fourteen years old at the time and I made promises pretty lightly. When I was sixteen, I met Jake, and he asked me to go to the school dance with him. I almost said no because of what I had promised my father, but I was a teenager who was ruled by her hormones and Jake was cute.

We went to the dance, and I thought that would be the end of us, but Jake asked to see me again and before I knew it, we were dating. I was so into him, and it seemed like he felt the same way about me. I started to think that my father was wrong about me being poison, but I knew I couldn’t tell him about Jake because then he would know I broke my promise to him. After Jake and I had been dating for around eight months, it was getting pretty serious between us. My mom had met him, and I wanted my father to meet him and see that he had gotten it wrong. I wasn’t cursed. I wasn’t broken. Jake was happy with me.

I really can’t bear the idea of reliving what came next, but I already know it’s going to happen, and I brace myself for it as the bedroom in front of me disappears once more and I see myself at sixteen waiting for my father to come in from work so that I could talk to him before he started drinking.

Harriet smiled as she put the piece of Salisbury steak on a plate with a big scoop full of mashed potatoes and a nice thick gravy. It was her father’s favorite meal, and she knew he was due at any moment. She put herself a plate out and carried both plates to the small dining table where she had set the table with the nice cutlery and even lit a candle. Her father came in as she was putting the plates down and he smiled at her.

“What’s all this for?” he asked.

He rubbed the top of Harriet’s head, something that annoyed her because it messed her hair up and thrilled her because it was the one bit of affection her father ever showed her, in equal measure.

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” she said quietly, and her father took his coat and shoes off and then he sat down in front of his plate. He waved his knife, gesturing for Harriet to speak as he began to eat. “I know we talked about me not thinking of getting a boyfriend and settling down and whatnot because of who I am. But I think I might have outgrown the poison Dad, I really do.”