Harper's Rules 1 & 2

Chapter 13: Jake

Harper's silence tore into me.

I knew our relationship had shifted, not from how tenderly we had sex, the way I stared into her eyes like a lovesick sap, held her against me, and whispered soft, unfamiliar words yet they flowed out naturally. The shift wasn't when I angrily blurted out that I loved her and not even the way her hand clung onto her elbows while she walked away from her mom.

Before she walked away from me.

No, it shifted sometime overnight. I woke up the morning we met with her mom and Harper was different, quiet, introverted, and emotionally unhinged. Her bloodshot eyes were dull and lifeless and even though I pinned her down to the coffee house seat, she fought back against every selfish, hurtful word that her toxic mother verbally slapped her with.

She also trembled the entire time, like a leaf before it snapped off a branch.

I knew the exact moment my own restraint snapped, when I threw some money onto the table for our full drink cups. Personally, Harper took her mother's 'news,' if that's what it even counted as, better than I would've.

While we sat there and her mother had the audacity that she flashed Harper's brother like some olive branch, I'd shuffled through every anger coping mechanism my years of therapy had equipped me with. The only redirection that worked was I kept my eye on Harper the entire time. Like a beacon, her presence reminded me that she was all that mattered so I stuffed my personal opinions down deep.

Cold fingers gripped around my wrist when I grabbed Harper's forgotten backpack and heaved it up onto my shoulder. "Please Jake." Her mom stood up and begged quietly, "I'm not asking for myself."

"Not my decision." My only answer was I shook my head and stepped around her.

Her hands tugged gently on Harper's bag. "Please, Jake. She needs to -"

"You really don't know her that well." I tossed the bag over my shoulder and gently shrugged her hands off. "So I don't think you're in a place to judge what she needs."

"But you do, don't you?" Before I exited after Harper, her mom placed one hand on her backpack and cooed from behind me, "I never would've imagined... You two were both adorable kids, and you'll make a beautiful family someday. I can't believe how happy I am for you and my daughter to be together."

My lips pressed tightly together at three words that screamed for release.

Fuck off, bitch.

While violence against women was a hard fuck-no for me, Harper's mom edged me closest to reconsidering that I pushed her hands off me. She obviously had no respect for boundaries. Within six sentences, she flipped a switch inside Harper that turned her off.

Outside the coffee house, I actually hadn't minded that Harper lashed out her displaced anger at me. If that gave her a relief from the emotions that I was sure her mom had burdened her with, then I would've happily stepped in as her punching bag. Fuck, she could have fucked me until my dick went numb if she wanted.

But instead, she wanted... nothing. And, like an idiot, I confessed I loved her.

Fuck, I can't do anything right for her.

I'd picked the worst moment for that admission but she looked so broken, so beaten down, I wanted her to know that she had me with her. She had me more than being in my bed, by her side. Selfishly, I hoped that I was also somewhere inside that broken heart.

While I was concerned for her emotional health, I didn't care if she was crying, angry, even distraught. Fuck, I was glad she'd shown that side of her because it meant she trusted me, at least a little. And I sure as hell didn't care about the shit her mom had said because it sure didn't define who Harper was as a person.