Falling for Mr. Wrong(30)
In between soft sobs, Harper prompted him for more answers. “But where did you go? What did you do?”
“I traveled for a long while. Worked on self-discovery at an ashram in India.”
She wrinkled her nose. “And did you find yourself?”
He shrugged. “It’s complicated. I mean yeah, it was one step on a crooked path to figuring my shit out. A really hot step, I might add. It made me appreciate air conditioning, that’s for sure.” A smile curled up one side of his mouth.
She frowned. “Dammit, Noah. Stop with the grinning. That smile always sucker punches me right in the solar plexus. How can a girl resist that thing?”
Did that mean she was finding him irresistible? Could it be possible that she would consider a reconciliation? Did he dare hold out hope?
“So then what happened?”
“Eventually I came back to the States and started law school. It wasn’t long after that when my mother became ill, and I needed to be honest with myself that I hated every minute of law school anyhow, so I withdrew.”
“Do you regret it?”
He lifted his eyebrow. “Hell no. I wasn’t cut out to be a lawyer. I’m too averse to conflict.”
“Is that why you left me? To avoid conflict with me?”
She was avoiding eye contact with him, so he lifted her chin with his pointer finger, fixing his gaze on hers.
“The thing is, Harp, the crazy thing is, it had nothing to do with you. I know that doesn’t help you at all. But it was all about me. I totally get that what I did was about the shittiest thing I could have done to you. It wrecked your self-esteem. At the time, I was too caught up in me to realize that. I needed so badly to get away. To escape my brother’s fate.
“When Katie got pregnant, it scared the crap out of me. All of a sudden I watched my own life flickering by like on one of those movie reels they used to show at the cinema back during World War II. And it was me and you and a passel of kids and me with a lousy job and not being able to afford a wife let alone a kid, let alone a slew of them, and I don’t know why it scared me so much. More than likely because of my father, because of what a complete dick he was, up and leaving my mom the way he did, with her having to support two kids on her lousy salary and how we always struggled and did without.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, exasperated at himself for his lousy explanation. “So what was my response? I did the stupid thing: I ran from you before we got caught up with burden and responsibility and the real world in ways that I wasn’t prepared to contemplate.”
“But you didn’t even include me in that discussion, Noah. You didn’t give me a chance to have a say in things. You took my rights from me. And you took my boyfriend from me.” She shook her head as if she was erasing that comment. “No. You took my world away from me. You and I had been together forever. It was always Harper and Noah. Noah and Harper. But then it was bye-bye Noah and to a certain extent bye-bye Harper. I didn’t even know who I was. I was so lost without you. And heartbroken. And insulted. And truly disrespected. You didn’t have the common decency to include me in your decision-making.”
He leaned forward and tenderly clasped her face between his hands. “In some ways that’s important, Harper. Don’t you see? You and I didn’t have a you and an I. We were a ‘we.’ We’d become one unit. I needed to figure out me. And I think you did as well. Had I stayed here, you never would have detached from me. And it’s not that I didn’t like to be so close to you—I loved it. But I knew in my gut that we needed to be two separate people before we could ever become one in a true sense of the word. And of course I knew leaving was the ultimate risk because the chances were strong that you’d never take me back. It was a risk I believed I had no choice but to take.”
She frowned.
He pulled her close, locking eyes with hers. “I could never have been the man you needed when I was the boy I was. I needed to grow, to learn, to live before I could have understood what it meant to truly be the man you deserve, Harper. I hope you’ll take that into consideration.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Harper was struggling with all of Noah’s revelations. They made so much sense if seen through the prism of his lens. But through hers, she was never able to see that. She only knew the hurt, pain, and rejection she’d experienced. And as much as she knew Noah, there was this internal struggle she didn’t understand: all the things with his dad and his fears that he might be cut from the same cloth. She had no idea.
And the law school. Noah had talked about that for years. It was hard to fathom the change of heart.
“Betty said you left law school because your mother was sick.”
He shook his head. “Not because, but when. The truth was I’d already reached a point where I knew it was time to let it go. I thought it was my dream, but it turns out it wasn’t.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“About Mom? Or law school?”
“Both? But mostly your mom. She was a lovely woman.”
“Yeah, well I’m sorry too about my mom. But don’t lose any sleep over the law school bit. I wasn’t cut out to be a lawyer. So much arguing. So much studying. It wasn’t for me. I wasn’t meant to be the next Clarence Darrow.”