Page 33 of Not Yet Yours

Her father raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t look angry, and he gestured for her to go on.

“I’ve been seeing a boy. Jake. And nothing bad has happened. We’ve been dating for like eight months and he’s not unhappy, I swear it,” Harriet said.

Her father stayed quiet for a moment and then he slowly put his knife down and slammed his fist down on the table so hard that the plates rattled. Harriet startled almost coming out of her seat at the sudden booming sound.

“Goddamn it, Harriet,” he shouted. “I don’t ask much of you, do I? And the one damned thing I did ask for, and you can’t do it.”

“I… I’m sorry,” Harriet stuttered, once more feeling like she was about to burst into tears and once more fighting to hold them back. “I just thought that maybe it would be ok now.”

“It might be ok for so long,” Thomas said. “But trust me, it will turn back to being bad soon enough. Your mom and I didn’t officially end things until you were six years old, but you had been making us miserable for a long time in the lead-up to that. Maybe Jake is as good at hiding his feelings as we were back then.”

Harriet looked down at the table and when she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper,

“Ok. I’m sorry. I’ll fix it,” she said.

“Good,” Thomas said. “Now eat your dinner before it gets cold.”

Harriet forced the rest of her dinner down past the lump in her throat because she didn’t want to anger her father further by letting him see how upset she was. She knew how that would go. He would accuse her of putting her own happiness before everyone else’s, of being a selfish little bitch like usual and she couldn’t bear to hear anything else about how bad she was. He had made his point. Of course, she was bad. She must be for breaking her word to her father and risking ruining Jake’s life.

As soon as dinner was finished and Harriet had washed the dishes, she asked to be excused and her father agreed. She went upstairs to her bedroom and toyed with her cell phone. She knew she had to end things with Jake, but it was the last thing she wanted to do. Her father was right about that too. She was selfish. Just because things were going well now didn’t mean they couldn’t turn around in a heartbeat and just because she was happy didn’t give her the right to risk ruining Jake’s life.

She sent Jake a text message asking him to meet her out the back of her father’s place in fifteen minutes and she spent that time getting her nerve up to do this. When it was time to go and meet Jake, she went downstairs and told her dad she was going to go and end things with Jake right now before she could do him any harm and her father agreed, telling her once more that it was for the best.

She went to Jake and when she saw him, she got butterflies in her tummy, just like she always did, and she wanted nothing more than to run into his arms and kiss him and ask him to take her away from this place, away from her father and his views on her, but she knew that was selfish and she couldn’t be selfish now, not with Jake. She loved him too much to risk him getting hurt.

She walked to Jake and when she reached him, he tried to kiss her, but she pulled back away from him, shaking her head.

“I’m sorry Jake. I can’t do this anymore,” she said. “We’re over.”

“What?” Jake demanded. “Harriet, what happened? Whatever it is, we can work it out.”

Harriet shook her head sadly.

“No, we can’t. Nothing happened. I just can’t be with you anymore,” she said. She knew he would keep arguing and she also knew she was letting him go so that he could have a happy life and she forced herself to say the words that broke her heart. “I don’t love you anymore, Jake.”

She turned around and walked away from Jake, ignoring the sound of him crying and the sound of him calling after her. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t because if she did, she knew she wasn’t strong enough to resist the pull and she would go back to him and she would never be strong enough to give him this chance at happiness again.

I wish that was the worst part. Father made me end things with my first love and showed me how painful love is. But it wasn’t the worst part. It felt like it at that moment, but honestly, it wasn’t even close to being the worst part. The worst part happened the next day and I don’t want to see it play out again but of course, I know I’m going to, and I steel myself as I stand back and watch teenage Harriet being woken up by her father knocking on her bedroom door the morning after she ended things with Jake.

“Come in,” Harriet croaked, her voice rough from sleep and from the sobbing she had done last night before finally managing to sleep.

Her father came in and sat down on the side of her bed.

“I have something to tell you, Harriet,” he said. She sat up, a sick feeling churning in her stomach at her father’s stoic appearance. “You were too late.”

“Too late for what?” she asked.

“Too late to save that poor boy from your curse. Jake died last night, Harriet. He threw himself off a bridge and onto a four-lane highway. He was dead before the paramedics even reached the scene,” Thomas said. “Maybe now you’ll listen to me and not let things get as far with anyone else as you allowed them to go with Jake.”

He stood up and left the room, leaving Harriet reeling, shock and grief flooding her system until she laid down flat on her face and screamed into her pillow over and over again until she had no voice left to scream with.

I came back to myself again. I wish I could either switch off my mind or just stay in it because coming out of it and remembering everything this way was pure torture. And even without the movie playing I can’t help but think about what came next.

I was the talk of the school. The poor girl whose boyfriend killed himself. I didn’t tell anyone I had ended things with him. I thought if I told them that, I would have to tell them why I had done it, and they would all know it was my fault Jake was dead, that my toxicity had infected him like it had infected my parents. I didn’t even tell Mom the truth to this day, Max doesn’t know about my first love. I am being selfish again, I know that, but I knew if I told Max the truth, she would freak out and she would leave me, and I would be all alone in the world. I am careful not to do anything that could ruin her life, but I can’t risk losing my best friend by letting her see the real me.

Chapter Nineteen

Liam