Page 52 of Not Yet Yours

Liam

My eyes instantly go to Harriet sitting on the couch beside Max. Her face is blotchy from crying, and I hate myself for being the one to make her cry. I want to go to her and wrap her up in my arms and never let her go, but something tells me that if I go to her and try to embrace her now, she will push me away. I force myself to look away from Harriet for a second and I glance at Max and then Cullen, both of whom are watching me. It seems that only Harriet is looking anywhere but at me.

I take a seat in the empty armchair. I’m on Max’s end of the couch and then there’s Harriet beside her and then Cullen in the other armchair. I want to be closer to Harriet, but I’m not about to start this conversation by insisting we all play musical chairs.

“Ok,” Cullen says, looking at me. “Let’s start by you telling Harriet that you’re not married to someone else.”

“I… I can’t do that,” I say. “Because I am married to someone else, and I don’t want to lie to her.”

I look at her as I say this last part, but she’s still refusing to look at me. Max and Cullen are both still staring at me and bothof them have their mouths hanging open by the time I finish dropping that little bombshell.

“But I… I don’t understand,” Cullen says. “How? When? Who?”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Harriet says. She sniffs loudly and stands up, still only looking between Max and Cullen and avoiding looking at me at all. “I don’t need to hear anymore. Max, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She starts for the door, and I jump to my feet.

“Harriet no, please don’t go,” I say. I grab her wrist and she tries to pull it away from me but I keep my grip on her. Normally I would let her go. I don’t like holding her against her will like this, but I need her to stay and listen and if I have to hold her for a second to make that happen then I will do what I need to do. “Please. Just hear me out and if you still want to leave when I’m done then… well I was going to say I won’t try to stop you, but I will always try to stop you from leaving me. But please just hear me out.”

She sighs and she looks at me for the first time since I got here. Her eyes are red rimmed and sore looking, and I hate myself all over again.

“Fine,” she says. “But I can’t think of anything that you can say that will make this ok.”

For the moment I’m just glad she has agreed to stay and hear me out. She goes back to her seat on the couch, and I go back to mine in the armchair. I don’t really know where to start to explain this, but I know that if I don’t start talking soon, Harriet isn’t going to hang around for much longer.

“It was fifteen years ago,” I start, figuring a good start might be to let Harriet know that this isn’t new or fresh, but judging by the way her face falls, I think that might have been the wrong opening line. It hits me then. It’s not just because I haven’t told her I am already married that has Harriet freaked out, althoughthat’s enough to piss her off, I’m sure. She thinks I’m married as in living with my wife and cheating with her. I hurry on so that she can get that idea out of her head right away. “We were both nineteen. I was in Las Vegas at a bachelor party, and she was there at a bachelorette party. We were both horribly drunk and we started chatting in a bar somewhere. We kissed and then somehow, we decided it would be a laugh to get married. We did no more than kiss, even after the so-called wedding, and that night, we both went back to our respective hotels alone, and I haven’t seen nor heard from her since.”

“So, you’re saying you’re not with her now?” Harriet says.

“I’m saying I was never with her,” I clarify. “Honestly, I don’t even know the girl’s last name. Her first name was Becky. That’s about as much as I know about her.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Cullen asks. “I mean I get why you didn’t tell Mom or whatever, but why not me?”

“And why the hell didn’t you get the marriage annulled?” Max adds.

I look at Cullen first.

“I didn’t tell anyone, including you, because I was embarrassed at doing such a stupid, cliché thing,” I say. “You see it all the time in these lame movies that people go off to Vegas and marry a stranger and I didn’t want to be that guy.”

I then look at Max.

“I was nineteen. I didn’t even know an annulment was a thing then. Obviously once I got home, I started to think about a divorce, but like I said, all I knew about the girl was her first name and I didn’t know where to start to try and find her. I gave up and I told myself I would circle back to it later. The years passed and I kind of never did,” I say. “I figured it didn’t matter really because it wasn’t like I ever really wanted to get married back then anyway and then as crazy as it sounds, I kind of… I don’t know how to word this. I want to say I forgot about it,but that’s a stretch. I don’t think you can forget you’re married. It just was a thing that happened a long time ago that I never thought about anymore I suppose you could say.”

Max and Cullen are looking at each other and I can clearly read the look. They are basically saying they believe me, which is good, if Max believes me, that gives me hope that she can help Harriet to see the truth, but the look also says that they are wondering how the hell I could be this stupid. I can’t be offended by that because I’m wondering the same thing myself. Just like I did fifteen years ago after coming back from that trip, but now even more so. Because back then all it meant is if it came out, I would get teased. Now it means I could lose everything that matters to me.

I get up and step past Max and I sit down on the edge of the coffee table in front of Harriet. I reach out and take both of her hands in both of mine, one in each. The fact she lets me and doesn’t try to pull her hands away from me gives me hope that she might be coming around to forgiving me.

“Harriet I am so, so sorry that I didn’t tell you about this. But please believe me when I say that I wasn’t consciously keeping it from you. It’s honestly something that I haven’t thought about in years,” I say. “I am guilty of being stupid. So fucking stupid. But I haven’t cheated on you or hidden a wife from you. I would never do that to you. I love you far too much to risk losing you like that.”

Harriet doesn’t say anything, but she does look me in the eye for the first time since I got here and again, I take that as a good sign.

“Please say you’ll forgive me,” I say.

She looks deep into my eyes for a moment like she’s searching my soul. I hope she is, because if she can do that, all she will find there is herself.

“I do,” Harriet says. “I forgive you. Of course, I do.”

She has tears in her eyes again but she’s smiling, and I’m confident they are happy tears because she’s realized that I am hers and only hers. I cup her face in my hands, lean forward, and kiss her. She kisses me back and wraps her arms around me.