A Brush with Love(50)

Every wall she’d ever built lay in a crumbled heap around them, and Harper was too exhausted to start rebuilding tonight. For once, she didn’t want to guard her words and pluck them carefully from her mind. Harper wanted Dan to know.

“It started when I was twelve,” she told him, cupping his cheeks. “The claustrophobia, I mean. My anxiousness … well, that’s always been there. But I was in a car accident. My mom was driving.”

Harper stared at him, scared that if she looked away, she’d be back in the passenger seat, looking at her mom.

“It was November. I remember it being so dark. I think it was icy—isn’t that always the case? No one’s ever told me it was icy, but my mind has always locked on to that idea … made it the unequivocal truth.” Harper cleared her throat.

“My mom was my whole world—whose mom isn’t at that age?” she continued, her voice coming out in a hoarse whisper. “But what I had with her always felt special … even when I had her, I knew what we had was special. I’m glad I’ll always know that.” Harper’s throat started to burn, and she blinked through the tears pricking at her eyes.

“She raised me herself. I never knew my dad, and I never really cared. Things weren’t perfect—she was a single mom, I was an anxious kid, it never felt like there was enough money, enough security—but things were … happy.” A hot tear slid from the corner of her eye as her mother’s radiant smile beamed in her memory.

“The night we got into the accident … I’ve always thought it was strange, but all I remember are the lights. I don’t remember the sound or the feeling of the impact, just these blinding lights, spinning and circling. The car flipped, I guess. I didn’t realize that at the time. All I knew was that I was suddenly so … so trapped. I couldn’t move my arms, my legs. Everything was dark and I was stuck and I thought I would never be free again. I started to freak out and panic and just—I couldn’t even scream. It was like I couldn’t get any air into my lungs. It was so quiet, so still. I thought maybe I was dead. Dead and alone.”

Dan stared at her, tense and still. She picked up one of his hands that was resting on her thighs and held it in both of hers, tracing his long fingers.

“But then the silence broke. It was the most overwhelming chaos you could imagine. People were shouting and screaming and there were these bright lights that felt like they were burning me. Then these hands started grabbing and pulling at me. It felt like all those hands would rip me apart.”

She took a deep breath, trying to remember it without feeling it. Why did she always have to keep feeling it?

“All I wanted was my mom, but instead I got this huge crush of people. In reality, it was probably only a few medics, but at the time it was so much.

“They put me in an ambulance, and even that felt too small and suffocating. All I wanted was my mom. I didn’t know where she was or where I was or what was happening. But I needed her so badly. I screamed and thrashed to the point that they eventually strapped me down. It was—” Harper shuddered, swallowing down painful sobs that wanted to rip from her chest.

“I found out later they’d taken her to the hospital in a different ambulance. Then she—” The words caught in her throat. There were some things that she’d probably never be able to say, never be able to tell him. She’d said enough. “She passed away that night.”

Harper closed her eyes. She wore her vulnerability now, uncomfortable and tight, and the last thing she wanted to do was look Dan in the eye while it was visible—but she knew she needed to.

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

And he looked back.

She wasn’t still trapped in that car. She wasn’t still screaming and alone.

She was anchored in that tiny bathroom, secured by the strength of his eyes and the weight of his hand on her thigh. She was saying words that felt sharp enough to kill her.

But they didn’t.

His eyes didn’t drown her in pity or ask her more questions, they held her in heartbreaking tenderness—softness for all her jagged, broken edges.

Keeping his eyes locked onto hers, he lifted their joined hands and placed a soft kiss to her knuckles, that single touch thanking her for her words, cherishing her pain.

“Let me take you home,” he whispered against her skin. “You’ve had a long night.”

Something desperate and sharp pierced through her, and she squeezed his hand. “I don’t want to be alone right now. If I’m alone I’ll just lie in bed and think about everything and feel worse and embarrassed and—and—” She threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him.

“Please,” she breathed into his neck. “I feel like I kind of need you right now.” The words were raw and exposed, but she didn’t care.

Dan’s arms wrapped around her waist, fingers dancing up the notches of her spine, his touch stitching her pieces back together. Dan pushed his face into her neck and inhaled deeply.

“Whatever you want. Let’s go.”





CHAPTER 19





HARPER

Harper felt lighter. Freer.

Dan now held a piece of her, and instead of feeling tethered and crushed, she felt something like joy at the release of the burden.

He led her from the bathroom, guiding her along the outskirts of the party toward the door. His warm hand splayed across her back anchored her focus, keeping her calm. The night was a disaster, but maybe it could be salvaged.