Let Her Go

Dapple

                 

Dapple: [noun] a patch or spot of colour or light

Bobby cleared his throat, straightening his collar. "And here I was thinking you were going to ask me what my intentions were towards Remi."

Harlow didn't smile, didn't break eye contact. "We'll get to that."

With a slow nod and a sideways glance out the restaurant window to where Jude was pacing on the sidewalk, engrossed in his phone call, Bobby shifted in his seat. "All right then."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

At least he didn't pretend not to know what she was talking about. That might very well have pushed her over the edge. "Harlow...honestly, I don't know. I don't know what to say."

She'd thought it was strange enough when she'd discovered that this man had known all her deepest, darkest secrets from the moment they'd met, but it was nothing compared to how completely bizarre it was hearing him say her name. It felt like both a homecoming and a kick in the teeth, a bittersweet turning point in a story that had begun ten years earlier.

For some reason, those two familiar syllables, spoken in his unfamiliar voice, made the wind drop out of her sails and her simmering anger melt into something that felt a lot like resignation. Despite the sense of betrayal, she wasn't the kind of person who could rip strips off someone else and not feel disappointed in herself afterwards. That was Bea's specialty. Harlow was a far milder breed of human.

She took a breath and her eyes drifted to Jude. He was still pacing, but his movements had become agitated, his lips pressed tightly together whenever he paused to listen the person on the other end. He went to run his hands through his hair, but the dark blonde curls had been tamed and neatly styled, which he seemed to remember just in time as he jerked his hand back down and stuck it in his trouser pocket.

Harlow had always thought he was handsome, but the last three years had put a hardness in his features and a purpose in his shoulders that lured her in despite her best efforts to resist. She'd been so focussed on her hurt and anger last night that she'd forgotten how he affected her, how he'd always affected her. Faced with him now, in the light of day, with her emotions scattered and complex, she was reminded all over again. "Can I tell you something I've never told anyone else?"

A furrow appeared between Bobby's dark eyebrows and he studied her warily, as though afraid she might abruptly lose all sense and go through the restaurant, flipping tables and emptying water jugs over the heads of the other patrons. Harlow could just imagine what her PR manager would have to say about that. "I, ah...okay."

Harlow pulled her napkin into her lap and twisted it between her fingers where Bobby couldn't see. "He didn't tell me about you," she said, and she finally looked away. "Not for ages, even though he told me all about his degree and his professors. I never found out why, but I always thought it was because he didn't trust people easily. He was always waiting for them to let him down in some way." She had to press her lips together and steady herself before she could go on. "I used to think it was you, but now I know it was me he wasn't sure about."

"Harlow-" She shot him a look, not sharp, but expressive enough for Bobby to cut himself off.

"Just...listen," she said. "Please." He hesitated, but when she refused to back down, he nodded gingerly.

"Two years into his course," Harlow continued, "he came home for Christmas and he told me all about his friend Bobby who'd gotten it into his head that he wanted to start a record label. He said it like you were crazy, but for the first time since I'd known him something other than that fucking violin put a light in his eyes. Suddenly he had this sense of purpose, and even though it seems crazy now, until that moment I'd never even realised that he had a whole other life that I'd never even known about, filled with people I'd never even known existed. Somehow I'd fooled myself into thinking that his world began and ended with me, just because mine did with him." Harlow smiled wryly. "But I was fourteen years old and absolutely head over heels for him. So when he started telling me about you I felt like I could be a part of it as well, like he wasn't leaving me behind. I thought I could hoard those stories and somehow I wouldn't just be a spectator anymore.