Office Hours |h.s|

eighty two

Harry

"Cassidy-" The door to my office closes harshly as she leaves. "Fuck!"

Throwing a pen across the room, I lean back in my desk chair. Why did I fuck this up so bad?

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Maude was just supposed to hate me and move on. I was supposed to finish this semester and not come back until the case is over. What the fuck did I say to her to mess this up so badly?

She knows me. She knows that I love her. I thought that she would understand that something was off and that she would demand to talk to me. She's always been so headstrong and determined, she always fought for us. Why do I always have to fuck this up?

A part of me wants to break. Needs to break. I need to call her, talk to her, anything to figure out what the fuck happened. Maybe I should have been honest with Cassidy, but there's still this fear that Juliet is lurking around every corner looking for a reason to ruin my life. I don't know who to trust anymore and I'm losing the people around me faster than I can recover.

Maude wants to quit law school? Why? She knows that I'm not going to be teaching here again until after she graduates, so she won't have to see me again. She belongs here, she needs this education and she needs her degree. She can't give up.

I try Will's phone number, hoping that he may pick up. But it goes to voicemail almost immediately, causing me to mumble curses.

The thought of hurting Maude this badly is killing me. To the point where I'm ready to go to the Dean myself, maybe even let Juliet turn me in. How is it that in one week I went from proposing to ruining the girl I love more than anything in this world?

I should've been honest with Maude about it all. About Niall, definitely about Juliet. She deserved to know since it involved her, and yet I just worried more about my career and this false sense that I was protecting her that I completely disregarded her say in our relationship.

At this point, maybe it's better I just leave her alone. She's already hurt, I'll probably just make things worse. Especially since I've been acting like I don't care to her friends. They'll just keep me away from her and think I'm playing her again, which couldn't be further from the truth.

All I want is to go back in time. I want to be able to change my mind, to fix this. To stop myself from making the dumbest decision in the world. And now it feels like there's no going back. There's no slow rekindling, there's no picking things back up where we left off. It's just over. She wants nothing to do with me.

Now her friends hate me, she probably hates me too. I'm sure it'll get back to her dad that I was seeing her for the last few months and he'll just ruin my life anyways. Then what would this all have been for?

I really am just the biggest idiot on the planet.

Since Cassidy was the last meeting I had for the day, I pack up my bag and rush to my car. I just need to talk to someone about this. Someone who will tell me if it's even a good idea to go after her again. I want to fight for her, she's more than worth the battle, but I don't want to make things worse for her either.

The drive to the firm is quick, and before I go in I try to call Will one more time, but it seems he's blocked my number now. I would call Maude but I don't want to make things worse for her. And if I had Cassidy's number I would definitely try to call her, but I don't have that.

Feeling even more defeated, I head inside and march myself straight to Mitch's office. Today was supposed to be my day off to focus on university things and grading, but there is absolutely no way I'm focusing on anything else but Maude today.