Un-Tying the Knot {h.s.}

Chapter 51

The blood rushes to Harry's head. He fully realizes it, but doesn't do anything to rectify the situation. Instead, he continues to let his neck hang off the edge of his hotel bed, keeping his vision on the floor that now serves as his ceiling.

Woke up alone in this hotel room
Played with myself, where were you?
Fell back to sleep, I got drunk by noon
I've never felt less cool

The plush purple rug makes a dark top to his upside-down world, the elegant furniture hanging delicately from his new ceiling in his peripheral. In the distance, he can see the contrast of the New York City skyline in the large wall made entirely of windows that came standard in his luxurious penthouse suite, the lights blinking back at him mockingly. The buildings are tearing jaggedly into the quickly fading sky, the purple and red hues brightening as the day comes to an end.

His vision is starting to go fuzzy from the blood to the brain, blinking back the heavy feeling pooling in his eye sockets. He knows he should sit up before he passes out, but this is the only way to keep his head from spinning out of control like it's been doing since the night he lost everything. Mostly his sanity.

When his alarm woke him up yesterday morning, his chest had been full, dread enveloping him like the winter jacket he had to put on to prepare for the New York chill. When he dressed himself that morning, it was as if he was preparing himself for a funeral. In some ways, it felt like he was.

His own.

He was used to the guilt by now, a full week of forcing smiles to his oblivious fiancé, pretending he was fine after cheating on her had become — oddly normal. A guilty conscious may as well be his middle name by now.

But the guilt he felt for veering from his fiancé was nothing compared to the loss he felt in his chest as it pertained to Olivia. And he couldn't forget the way that she had looked when she slapped him and left him angry, hurt, and desolate — more alone than he had ever felt in his life.

We haven't spoke since you went away
Comfortable silence is so overrated

Which is when he turned to booze — something he always promised himself he would never do. But then again, he was doing a lot of things that he would never in a million years think he would do.

He promised he would never be his father.

But here he was. Cheating. Hurting a woman emotionally. Drinking heavily. Trashing things in fits of rage.

Spitting fucking image.

He couldn't help but think about the complexity of his emotions as he played his life on repeat, mostly his anger the past few days. Anger, mostly at himself for being the colossal fuck up that Eleanor always reminded him he was, to anger directly aimed at his fiancé. For changing? For not being the woman he fell in love with anymore. To anger at Olivia, for — for what, exactly? For being better? Better than him at everything? For knowing how she felt and being able to express it? For loving him when he didn't deserve it?

But what's worse is that the longer he lived with the guilt and the pain, the more he grew accustomed to it. The more he lived with it and through it, the more he had time to analyze it. Of course, he still felt horrible for his betrayal — to the point that every time he saw Eleanor's face, he thought about dropping down to his knees, telling her everything, and begging for her forgiveness. But the guilt for treating Olivia the way he had prevented him, consumed him, really.

In some ways, that angered him more. How could he care more about a woman and a shorter lived relationship than one he spent years building and then keeping from failing? What does that say about him as a person?