Chapter 128 Unrecognizably Better
Harper's POV,
Rose had opinions about the flower girl dress.
This was not surprising. Rose had opinions about everything — her socks, her breakfast, the specific way her hair was parted, the philosophical question of whether shoes were truly necessary indoors. The flower girl dress was simply the latest arena in which these opinions were being expressed.
"Scratchy," she announced, standing in the middle of our bedroom in the dress while I crouched in front of her trying to assess the situation.
"It's not scratchy. It's just different from your regular clothes."
"Scratchy," she said again, with the conviction of someone who had conducted a thorough investigation and reached a firm conclusion.
"Rose, we talked about this. Today is Auntie Maya's special day and you're going to wear the dress and carry the flowers and–"
"Scratchy."
I looked up at Crew who was leaning in the doorway in his suit jacket, already dressed, watching this exchange with the expression of someone who found it deeply entertaining and was wisely staying out of it.
"Don't," I told him.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking something."
"I was thinking you're handling it beautifully."
"Crew."
He pushed off the doorframe and crouched down next to Rose. "Hey. Can I tell you a secret?"
Rose looked at him with immediate interest because Crew's secrets were always good. He'd learned early that the surest way to get her attention was to frame something as classified information.
"What?" she whispered.
"Maya specifically asked for you," he said quietly. "Out of everyone in the whole world, she picked you to carry the flowers. You know why?"
Rose shook her head.
"Because you're the best at it," he said simply. "Nobody throws flowers like you do."
Rose considered this.
"I do throw them good," she said.
"You throw them great," Crew confirmed.
Rose looked down at the dress. Touched the fabric. Made a face that was slightly less committed to the scratchy position than before.
"Okay," she said finally. "But I want the white shoes. Not the other ones."
"Done," I said, before she could change her mind.
Crew caught my eye over her head and I mouthed “thank you” and he smiled the quiet smile he had when something small went right and he didn't need to make a thing of it.
…….
By the time we got Rose into the white shoes and her hair into something that could reasonably be described as intentional and located the flower basket which had been relocated to behind the couch for reasons Rose either couldn't or wouldn't explain, I was running behind.
Crew took Rose downstairs to wait while I finished getting ready.
The apartment went quiet.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror in my maid of honor dress — a soft sage green that Maya had chosen because she said it would photograph well against the venue's exposed brick and also because she knew it suited me — and looked at myself for a moment.
Not with the critical inventory I used to do. The old habit of cataloguing flaws, assessing whether I was enough, measuring myself against some standard that shifted depending on whose approval I was trying to earn.
Just looking.
I thought about the last time I'd stood in front of a mirror getting ready for something that terrified me. Maya finishing my makeup, my hair down in waves, the emerald green dress that had felt like armor. The charity gala. The night everything broke open.
I thought about the time before that — Maya's bathroom, black jeans and a white button-down, the armor-like blazer, getting ready to walk into Joel's press conference and say the things that needed saying.
I thought about further back — Maya's closet, the navy blue sweater, getting ready for a hockey game with a man I'd met for fifteen minutes and signed a contract with and was about to pretend to love in front of cameras and photographers and the entire internet.
All those versions of Harper Sinclair getting ready for something.
And now this one.
Same mirror, essentially. Same hands, same face, same woman underneath all of it. But different in the way that things are different when they've been through something and come out the other side intact.
I thought about the couch.
Maya's couch, specifically. The one I'd lived on for weeks after Joel broke up with me, wearing the oversized Titans hoodie, watching Netflix on autoplay, eating ice cream at eleven AM because the day had no shape anymore and neither did I.
That woman felt very far away.
Not gone — I could still find her if I pressed on the right memories, still feel the specific weight of that particular hopelessness if I looked for it. But far away. Across a distance that had been covered one step at a time without me fully noticing I was covering it.
I picked up my lipstick.
Put it on.
Looked at myself one more time.
“There she is,” I thought. Not the woman from the couch. Not the woman in the armor blazer. Not the woman in the emerald dress or the woman who'd stood outside Marcello's in the cold wondering how ten years had just ended over salmon.
Just this one. The one who'd walked through all of it and ended up here, getting ready for her best friend's wedding, with a husband downstairs and a daughter in white shoes and a life that looked nothing like the one she'd been trying to save when this whole thing started.
Better, I thought.
Unrecognizably better.
I put down the lipstick and went downstairs.
……
Crew was in the living room with Rose on his lap reading her a book, both of them in their wedding clothes, Rose's flower basket sitting neatly beside them because apparently the threat of snacks had made her protective of it.
He looked up when I came down.
Something moved across his face.
Not the exaggerated reaction; the wide eyes, the performative appreciation. Just something quiet and certain, the look of a man seeing something he'd already decided about a long time ago and being glad to keep being right.
"Ready?" he said.
"Ready," I answered.
Rose looked up from the book. Assessed my dress. Looked at her own dress. Then back at mine.
"Pretty," she said, in the tone of someone issuing an official verdict.
"Thank you."
"Mine's scratchy," she added.
"I know, baby."
"But I'm wearing it."
"I know. Thank you."
She nodded with the satisfaction of someone who had made a significant sacrifice and wanted it acknowledged. Then she held up her arms to be carried and Crew picked her up and we headed for the door.
In the elevator, Crew reached over and took my hand without looking at me, the automatic gesture of someone who'd been doing it long enough that it didn't require thought anymore.
Rose held her flower basket with both hands and looked at the elevator buttons with the focused attention she gave to anything mechanical.
The doors opened into the lobby.
Outside, Vancouver waited, grey and soft and perfect, the kind of autumn morning that looked like it had been arranged specifically for a wedding.
We walked out into it together.