Chapter 105 HARPER
I wanted the ground to open and swallow me whole.
Not just because Mark was standing there, but because half our classmates were behind him, their faces frozen in shock.
This wasn’t some nightmare I could wake up from. It was real. Fluorescent hallway light. Winter air slipping in through the open door. Mark holding flowers while I stood inches away from one of his best friends.
I could almost hear what they were thinking. Their golden boy, Tyler Mercer, tangled up with the class nerd. Mark’s girlfriend.
My worst fear had come true. I had always been afraid of hurting him, but never like this. Never in front of everyone.
Tyler moved first. “It’s not what it looks like,” he said quickly, stepping slightly in front of me.
Mark’s eyes didn’t leave my face.
He let the flowers fall to the floor.
The sound was soft, yet it felt deafening.
“It’s not what it looks like?” Mark repeated, his voice strangely calm.
“Mark,” I started.
He shook his head once, sharp. “No. Let him finish.”
Tyler swallowed. “We were just talking.”
“Right,” Mark said. “That’s what that was.”
There was no yelling yet. No chaos. Just disbelief stretching thin across his features.
He looked at me again, and that hurt more than anything. Not anger. Not rage.
Confusion.
“I left the cabin because of you,” he said, almost conversationally. “Did you know that?”
I blinked. “What?”
“I told them I was heading back. They weren’t thrilled.” He gestured vaguely behind him. “But once they realized you and Tyler weren’t coming, they figured there wasn’t much point in staying either.”
He pressed his lips together for a second. “I just… I couldn’t sit up there pretending everything was fine. You’d been distant all week, and I kept thinking maybe I was being selfish. Maybe I was too caught up in my own stuff to notice something was wrong.”
My chest tightened.
“I was mad at you,” he admitted, voice rougher now. “For not coming to the hospital. For not being there after the fight. That didn’t feel like you. And I kept thinking the Harper I know wouldn’t just disappear unless something was seriously wrong.”
Tyler tried again. “Mark, I swear, it wasn’t planned. We didn’t mean for this to—”
“Save it,” Mark snapped, louder than I’d ever heard him.
The room flinched.
He turned to Tyler fully then, jaw tight. “I’m not even mad at you.”
Tyler stared at him. “What?”
“I won’t hate you for it,” Mark continued. “You’re my best friend. I get it. Feelings happen.”
His gaze shifted back to me.
“But she’s my girlfriend.”
The word hit like a slap.
“I gave you chances,” he said to me quietly. “I asked you straight up if there was something there. I told you I could handle the truth. I would’ve handled it.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“You let me walk around looking stupid.”
“That’s not fair,” Tyler cut in, anger creeping into his tone.
Mark’s head snapped toward him. “Don’t.”
The single word carried more force than a scream.
“I’m not disappointed in you,” Mark told Tyler again, voice shaking now. “But her? I don’t even know who she is right now.”
He stepped back, like staying any longer might break him.
“I can’t do this.”
He turned and walked out.
The boys in the doorway parted for him silently. No jokes. No laughter. Just heavy, awkward quiet.
I followed without thinking.
“Mark,” I called, my voice cracking. “Mark, wait.”
He reached his car and got inside without looking at me.
I opened the passenger door and slid in before I could second guess myself.
He stared straight ahead, knuckles white around the steering wheel.
“Get out,” he said tightly.
“I need to explain.”
“I said get out, Harper.”
“I’m not leaving it like this.”
His jaw flexed. For a second I thought he would drag me out himself.
Instead, he started the car and pulled out of Tyler’s driveway.
The silence inside the car was suffocating.
“There’s nothing going on,” I said quickly. “It wasn’t planned. I didn’t even realize when it happened. I just… he was going through a lot. I was too. We bonded.”
He let out a harsh laugh and slammed the brakes, pulling over so abruptly my seatbelt locked.
“Bonded?” he repeated. “You bonded?”
He turned to me then, eyes blazing in a way that genuinely scared me.
“Where was that bonding when I was sitting in a hospital bed with stitches in my face?” he demanded. “Where were you when I got my ass beat and needed you there?”
I flinched.
“You didn’t show up,” he continued. “You didn’t call. You didn’t even text more than once. And I kept defending you. I kept telling myself you had your reasons.”
“I did have reasons,” I whispered.
“Bullshit.”
The word landed hard between us.
“I was there for you,” he said, voice breaking. “When Tyler treated you like crap. When he ignored you. When he did nothing but yell at you during the sessions, I comforted and listened to you cry about him, Harper.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“Did you ever even love me?” he asked suddenly.
The question knocked the air out of my lungs.
“Yes,” I said immediately. “I do.”
He got out of the car.
I watched in stunned silence as he walked around to my side and yanked the door open.
“Get out,” he said.
I stepped onto the pavement, legs shaking.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
I forced myself to meet his eyes.
“Say it again,” he said. “Tell me you love me. And don’t say it because you feel guilty. Say it because it’s true. Say it like you love me more than him.”
My throat felt like it was closing.
“I love you,” I whispered.
His expression didn’t change.
“But?” he prompted.
The word trembled in the cold air.
I felt like I was ripping something out of my own chest.
“I love you,” I said again, tears sliding down my cheeks. “I care about you so much. You matter to me. You always will.”
He waited.
“But not in the way you want me to,” I finished, voice breaking. “And I knew it would hurt you. I just didn’t know how to say it without destroying everything.”
He let out a short, humorless laugh and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“So you decided not saying it at all was better?”
“I was scared.”
“Yeah,” he said bitterly. “Me too.”
A cab drove past, and he stepped into the road to flag it down before I understood what he was doing.
It pulled over.
He opened the back door and looked at me.
“Get in,” he said quietly.
“Mark—”
“I can’t do this right now. I don’t trust myself not to say something I’ll regret.”
I hesitated.
“Please,” he added, softer now. “Just… go.”
I got into the cab.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
Mark met my eyes one last time.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I hope you’re happy. I really do. Don’t let this stop you from following your heart.”
His voice cracked at the end.
“And tell him I wish you both the best.”
He closed the door before I could respond and walked back to his car.
“Where to?” the driver repeated.
I swallowed. “Follow that car.”
The ride felt endless.
I pressed my forehead against the window and cursed myself over and over. I should have told him sooner. I should have ended it the moment I knew. I should have been braver.
I hadn’t wanted to lose his friendship.
And now I’d lost so much more.
When the cab stopped outside his house, I paid quickly and ran up to the door.
I knocked.
It swung open almost immediately.
Megan stood there.
She didn’t look surprised to see me.
She looked furious.
“You have a lot of nerve,” she said.
“I need to talk to him.”
“You don’t get to.”
Her eyes raked over my face, taking in the tears.
“I’m disappointed in you,” she said flatly.
“I never meant for this to happen.”
“Everyone knew,” she snapped. “Everyone knew you and Tyler had something going on. We just didn’t want to believe it because you both refused to admit it.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is,” she insisted. “And I warned you. I told you not to get involved with my brother if you weren’t sure. I don’t joke about someone hurting him.”
“I didn’t want to hurt him,” I said desperately. “Tyler was confusing. I didn’t know where I stood. I didn’t know what he wanted.”
“And that’s Mark’s fault?” she shot back. “You could’ve told him the second you realized your feelings were changing.”
Tears spilled faster.
“I didn’t know how.”
“That’s the difference between you and him,” Megan said coldly. “If Mark had been dating someone else and you finally told him you wanted him, he would’ve ended it that day. He wouldn’t have waited for you to find out like this.”
Her words sliced deeper than she probably intended, but right now I felt like I deserved every single one of them.
“Can you please just help me talk to him?” I begged. “He listens to you.”
She shook her head slowly.
“Our friendship is done,” she said. “You’re dead to me right now.”
My breath caught.
She turned to go in, then paused, glancing back at me.
“He asked me to tell you something,” she added.
I braced myself.
“He said he might hate you for a while. He might not be able to look at you again. But he genuinely hopes you’re happy. And he hopes you and Tyler don’t screw this up the way you screwed him over.”
The finality in her voice was unbearable.
“Please leave,” she hissed. “Before I come back out again and I’m not as nice.”
The door slammed in my face.
I stood there for a long moment, staring at the wood grain, hoping it would open again.
It didn’t.
The cold seeped into my bones, but I barely felt it.
This time it hit me—there was no Tyler. No Mark. No friend waiting to soften the blow.
Just me.
Alone on a darkening porch, realizing that sometimes following your heart meant breaking someone else’s.
And sometimes it meant breaking yourself too.