Chapter 40 Guess Who's Back...?
Harper's Pov,
I pulled into the parking lot of Serenity Hills Treatment Center at exactly 9 AM, 30 minutes early because I couldn't sit still anymore.
Crew was coming home today.
It's been thirty days.
Thirty days of supervised phone calls where I'd carefully avoided telling him the truth about how bad things had gotten.
Thirty days of fighting battles he didn't know existed while he was locked away getting clean.
And now I had to tell him everything.
I sat there gripping the steering wheel, watching the front doors of the facility like they might reveal some answer about what came next. My stomach was in knots and my hands wouldn't stop shaking and I kept running through different versions of how this conversation would go.
Crew, while you were gone I hired a PI with your money and exposed a conspiracy and almost went to prison but it's fine now because the charges got dropped.
Yeah. That would go over great.
The front doors opened.
Dr. Kim walked out first, holding a clipboard and talking to someone behind her. Then Crew stepped through the doors carrying a duffel bag, wearing jeans and a grey hoodie. He looked so different I almost didn't recognize him.
His face had color in it again and his shoulders weren't hunched forward like he was carrying weight that would crush him. His eyes were clear in a way I hadn't seen in months, maybe years.
When he caught sight of me, he immediately stopped walking.
We stared at each other across the parking lot, and I watched his expression shift from uncertainty to something that looked like relief, fear, and hope all tangled together.
Before I knew it, I was out of the car… my body moved before my mind caught up. Suddenly I was sprinting across the parking lot, and Crew dropped his duffel bag and ran toward me. We collided so hard it nearly knocked us both over.
He lifted me off the ground and I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and buried my face in his shoulder and tried really hard not to cry but failed completely.
"I missed you," I sobbed into his hoodie. "I missed you so much."
"I know. God, I know." His voice was wrecked and his arms were so tight around me I could barely breathe but I didn't care. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I wasn't there."
"No, don't say that. You were exactly where you needed to be."
"I should have been with you. You went through hell and I was locked in there and I couldn't help you and I—"
I kissed him before he could finish. Kissed him hard and desperate and like I was trying to prove to both of us that this was real, he was here, we'd survived.
He kissed me back just as desperately, one hand tangled in my hair and the other arm locked around my waist like he was afraid I'd disappear if he let go.
When we finally pulled apart we were both crying and I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen Crew cry about anything.
"You're really here," I said, touching his face like I needed to confirm he was solid and real and not something I'd imagined.
"I'm really here." He set me down but didn't let go, just kept his arms wrapped around me. "Harper, I need to tell you something."
"Okay."
"I'm terrified." His voice cracked. "I'm absolutely terrified that I'm going to walk out of that facility and be the same person I was when I walked in. That I'm going to mess this up. And that, the second life gets hard again, I'm going to go back to pills and lose everything including you."
"You're not going to lose me."
"You don't know that,” he said.
"Yes I do. Because I love you and I'm not going anywhere." I pulled back just enough to look at him. "Crew, I don't care if you have bad days. I don't care if recovery is hard. I care that you're trying. That's all that matters."
"What if trying isn't enough?"
"Then we figure it out together. But you're not doing this alone anymore. You understand that? Whatever happens next, we're doing it together."
He kissed me again, softer this time, and when he pulled back he was smiling through tears. "I love you. I loved you before I went in there and I love you now and I'm going to love you tomorrow when everything gets complicated again."
"Everything's already complicated."
"I know. Dr. Kim told me some of it. About the charges, about Richard, about the Titans threatening to fire me." He wiped his eyes. "Why didn't you tell me when I called?"
"Because you were in treatment and you needed to focus on getting clean, not on my legal problems."
"They weren't just your legal problems—"
"I know. And I'm sorry. I should have told you the truth but I was scared you'd leave early to help me and then everything would fall apart." I took a shaky breath.
"Dr. Kim probably already told you that lying to protect you was enabling and she's right. I was wrong. But Crew, I need you to understand that every decision I made while you were gone was because I love you and I was trying to protect us."
"I know. And I'm not angry. I'm just—" He looked back at the facility, at Dr. Kim still standing by the entrance giving us space. "I'm scared, Harper. I spent thirty days in there learning how to be a person without pills and now I have to actually be that person in the real world and I don't know if I can do it."
"You can. I know you can."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're right here. You're standing in front of me right now choosing to be scared instead of running away from it." I grabbed his hands. "That's what being brave looks like, Crew. Not pretending you're fine. Actually admitting you're terrified."
"Then I'm the bravest person alive because I'm fucking petrified right now."
I laughed and he laughed and suddenly we were both laughing and crying at the same time in the middle of a parking lot while Dr. Kim watched us like we were the most dramatic patients she'd ever released.
"Come on," I said, grabbing his duffel bag from where he'd dropped it. "Let's get you home."
"Home where? You said you got evicted."
"Home to Maya's apartment where I've been living rent-free for weeks like a charity case." I walked toward my car. "It's not ideal but it's better than nothing."
"Harper." He caught up to me and took the duffel bag. "I don't care where we live as long as we're together. You could be living in a cardboard box and I'd still think it was perfect because you'd be there."
"That's very romantic but also concerning because it suggests you have extremely low standards for housing."
"I have extremely high standards for people. Everything else is just details."
We got in the car and I started driving back toward Seattle. Crew stared out the window like he was seeing the city for the first time, watching everything pass by with this expression that was part wonder and part fear.
"What are you thinking?" I asked.
"I'm thinking that the last time I saw Seattle I was overdosing in a practice rink and now I'm driving through it completely sober for the first time in three years." He looked at me. "It's weird. Everything looks the same but I feel completely different."
"Is that good or bad?"
"I don't know yet. Ask me in a few weeks." He reached over and took my hand. "Harper, what happens now? With the Titans, with the media, with everything?"
"Now we figure it out. Together." I squeezed his hand. "But first you're taking a shower that lasts longer than five minutes, eating real food that isn't cafeteria garbage, and sleeping in an actual bed. Tomorrow we deal with David Morrison and whatever ultimatum he's planning. Tonight we just exist."
"I like that plan."
"Good. Because that's the only plan I have."
We drove the rest of the way in comfortable silence, just holding hands and being in the same space again after thirty days apart.
When we pulled into Maya's building, Crew looked up at it and smiled. "This is nice."
"Wait until you see the inside. Maya actually decorates like a human being instead of just leaving furniture wherever the movers put it."
"Are you implying my house looks like a warehouse?"
"I'm not implying it. I'm stating it directly."
He laughed and grabbed his duffel bag and we took the elevator up to Maya's floor. I unlocked the apartment and we walked in together.
Crew looked around at the throw pillows and the artwork and the plants that Maya somehow kept alive despite working sixty hours a week. "Yeah, this is way better than my place."
"Your place costs three million dollars."
"And it feels like a hotel room. This feels like people actually live here." He dropped his bag and turned to me. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For fighting for us while I was gone. For not giving up even when everything was falling apart. For being here when I walked out those doors." His voice got thick. "I know the past thirty days were hell for you. And you didn't have to stay. You could have walked away and I would have understood."
"I couldn't walk away. I love you too much."
"I love you too. So much." He pulled me close and just held me, his chin resting on top of my head. "And I promise I'm going to try every single day to be the person you deserve."
"You already are."
"Not yet. But I'm working on it."
We stood there in Maya's living room holding each other like we were trying to memorize what this felt like after thirty days of supervised visits and carefully monitored phone calls.
Finally Crew pulled back and smiled. "So. Tomorrow we meet with the Titans and find out if I still have a career."
"Probably."
"And in three weeks we go to Joel's wedding where everyone's going to stare at us and probably expect some kind of dramatic scene."
"Almost definitely."
"Sounds fun."
"Sounds like a complete nightmare."
"Yeah." He kissed my forehead. "But at least it's our nightmare. Together."
"Together," I agreed.
And for the first time in months, I actually believed we were going to be okay.