redamancy (a sequel) // c.b

vii. apologies

a month had passed since colby laid out his feelings for harlow. a few hours after the disastrous phone call, colby had texted a lengthy apology to her, and although her instincts told her to delete the message without even reading it, she couldn't go through with that.

it was a strange apology. because while he did apologize for how he said it, he made it very clear that he wasn't sorry harlow heard it. harlow, on the other hand, wasn't upset with how he said it because after talking to her friends about it, she realized that this was likely something colby had been sitting on for a while, and it was probably difficult for him to express how he actually felt because of that. she was sorry that she heard it, though.

the rest of that day harlow wished she hadn't called him, that she had just kept his contact blocked. the more she thought about what he admitted the more guilty she felt, even though there was no reason for her to feel guilty. it's not like she asked colby to say anything, anyway.

although, she did have a reason to feel guilty after she neglected to tell carter about the call. there was just no way for her to explain colby's admissions without carter going into protection mode. it felt like a safer bet to pretend like the call just didn't happen at all. and as far as the numerous interactions with colby during her drunken state went, carter didn't need to know about those, either. frankly, harlow didn't remember any of it, so it wasn't a complete lie.

to appease the guilt she felt in the pit of her stomach, she blocked colby again the next morning. since then, she hadn't heard anything from him or about him, and her friends went along with it, pretending like that night hadn't happened.

unfortunately though, there wasn't a button she could press to block him in her day-to-day life. the month after the engagement party, harlow had successfully gone back to avoiding colby, that is, until harlow decided she couldn't wait to use the bathroom when picking tara up for lunch, and choose to run into tara's house instead.

harlow was generally unsure when it came to hanging out at tara's house, simply because she lived with jake, and where there was jake, there was colby. but frankly, if it came down to peeing her pants and then going for lunch in public versus possibly running into colby, she'd roll the dice.

the odds weren't in her favor, though.

harlow barged through the door, shouting, "tara, i'm using your bathroom because i'm about to piss my pants!"

as she began to make her way down the hall, she heard jake loudly laugh, followed by two other familiar ones. she tried to will herself not to peek over her shoulder, because even without looking she knew who the laughs belonged to.

"harley, would you kill me if i kept that in?" jake jokingly asked just as harlow had peered over her shoulder.

jake was sat on their couch between sam and colby, a camera positioned on a tripod in front of them, probably catching harlow from where she was standing in the hallway.

she felt colby's eyes boring into her from where he was sat, which temporarily hindered her ability to answer jake's question. she didn't trust her voice, not wanting to sound weak or shocked by colby's presence, so she simply held up her middle finger while quickly making her way down the hall to the bathroom.

once the door was closed behind her and safely locked, harlow pulled out her phone to text tara.

CARTER'S GIRLFRIEND

TARA WHAT THE FUCK

WHY DIDN'T U TELL ME COLBY
WAS HERE

HOW EMBARASSING

I JUST SHOUTED ABOUT HOW
I WAS ABOUT TO PISS MY PANTS