Being Harrison Bloom’s Girl

Emily shrugged.

“I won’t flunk. I’m keeping my grades up. I can get a doctor’s note.”

“Not from your parents, you can’t. They won’t do anything of the sort.”

Leigh glared at Emily.

“No, but remember the quack who prescribed me sleeping pills for a cold? I bet he would.”

Emily grinned.

“So, Roger, I hear you’re the most interesting man on campus.”

To Emily’s delight, Roger blushed like a ripe tomato.

“I wouldn’t say so. There are many interesting people on campus. Everybody’s interesting in their own right. It’s a very subjective matter of opinion, frankly.”

“And yet, it seems that I might share Leigh’s opinion in this instance. Would you like to join us, professor? It looks like you’re bunking class, too. Let’s all be very bad together.”

Leigh looked on with bemusement as Emily charmed Roger into staying, insisting on buying him a pint and perhaps some food, too.

In about half an hour, it looked like Emily and Roger were as thick as thieves – bonding over Leigh.

“Yes, she does have a problem with her attention wandering when she should be firmer with herself. But that is also how she asks all those interesting questions, so if we curb that instinct of hers…”

“Excuse me, but nobody here shall be curbing any instinct of mine, thank you very much,” interjected Leigh, amused.

Emily glanced at her watch and made a face of shock that Leigh recognized immediately as blatantly fake.

“Will you look at the time! I have got to run. I’ve got a few meetings set up with potential employers – ones that might actually appreciate me, this time. I’ve got to run. Please, no, don’t get up, Leigh. Stay, have fun. But turn your damn phone back on, and this time, if you try to duck my calls, I’ll come down again and I’ll kick your ass.”

Leigh nodded seriously.

“I don’t doubt that you will. Thank you, Emily.”

Leigh hugged her, tight, and Emily smiled against Leigh’s hair.

“I like him. Even if he turns out to be just a rebound, I think you could do a hell of a lot worse. But don’t live in denial too long, Leigh. You have to call him sometime. Take your time. Don’t avoid the truth. Don’t run away from it. But live your life.”

“You make it all sound so easy.”

“I know it’s not. But you have to do it anyway, so you might as well do it as soon as you can and get it over with. Now, I really do have to run. Tell Hana I’ll come down on a weekend and we can all hang out. I like her, too. I don’t know why Harrison can’t see it, but this world suits you. It’s doing you good. Don’t feel guilty about it. It’s your life, honey. Remember that.”

Leigh nodded, and kept her eyes on Emily as she walked away.

Finally, she sank onto the stool again, and shrugged.

“Emily tends to take charge.”

“I noticed,” said Roger, and he looked a little dazed.

“But she loves you. The two of you are very close.”

Leigh smiled and nodded.

“We are. I don’t get to see her nearly as much as I want to nowadays. Her work keeps her very busy, and she travels so much with it.”

“Do you wish you’d chosen a life like that?”

Leigh shook her head.

“No, I really don’t. It suits Emily, but such rootlessness wouldn’t work for me. I need to know that there’s a place where I belong, where I can always curl up and just be myself when I need to be. Emily is far more footloose than that, and I mean that in the best way. When she believes something’s right, she can bulldoze her way through all objections and get there.”

Roger nodded, seriously.

“She kept looking at my feet. Does she have an objection to feet?”

Leigh chuckled.

“I’m afraid I told her about the odd socks. She found that quite funny.”

“Well, I suppose the pair I’m wearing must’ve disappointed her today. They’re brown and boring.”

Leigh grinned.

“Sometimes, plain is a better description than boring, and plain is exactly what you need at times. So, Professor, what are you doing in the pub during school hours?”

Roger smiled.

“Looking for you. You seemed to have gone missing for a couple of days. I was concerned, and I didn’t want you to get into trouble, so I came looking for you.”

Leigh smiled back at him, charmed.

“You’re one of the people I could get in trouble with,” she pointed out.

“I hope you don’t see me that way.”

Leigh looked away for a moment before meeting his eyes steadily. She liked his eyes – they looked frank and steady.

“I don’t want to get you in trouble, either, Roger.”

Roger smiled.

“I realize that. And this is very inappropriate. I realize that. But would you like to go to dinner with me?”

Leigh frowned.

“I’ve already gone to dinner with you.”

“No, to an actual restaurant, where we can sit down, have a glass of wine, and talk like adults, without any rules to worry about. What do you think?”

Leigh considered.

What did she think? She thought that she should take Emily’s advice and just go for it, that’s what she thought. What did she have to lose, after all?

She had already lost everything she’d been trying to hold on to for so long. So, now she might as well throw caution to the wind and just do what she felt like doing.

“I think that might be nice,” she said, slowly.

“I was hoping you would think so. It might be a bit inappropriate for me to pick you up.”

Leigh smiled understandingly.

“I know. I wouldn’t have either of us risking too much that way. How about you give me the address and I’ll meet you there?”

“Excellent idea,” agreed Roger, and gave her the address.

Leigh recognized it, of course. She recognized it immediately.

How could she not? It was where Harrison had proposed to her – that first time. It was where she had left him, running away from him like she needed to get away from him. Leigh wanted to scream, say she couldn’t do it, and run away again, just like she had done to Harrison.

But she saw those photos.

Harrison and Diane, looking so cozy and intimate, with that smile on Harrison’s face. Harrison and Diane, looking like they knew each other’s taste, how they liked to be touched, how they liked to be teased. Those lips, so eager and willing to kiss him and pleasure him – Leigh knew they would be. Why wouldn’t they? Hers had been, for so long.

She saw them in her mind’s eye, and imprinted on the back of her eyelids. So, she conjured up a bright smile and nodded.

“Oh yes, I know where it is. Though if we’re going to order that bottle of wine, I’d better get a cab instead of driving there. Wouldn’t want to leave my car there overnight, would I?”

Roger nodded.

“Excellent idea. Maybe I should get a cab there, too. That would be one way to make sure I don’t get lost. I have a terrible habit of getting lost,” said Roger, launching into an undoubtedly amusing story about a time he had gotten terribly lost.

Leigh was glad to let him keep talking because she seemed to have lost her ability to contribute anything meaningful to the conversation.

She was going on a date with Roger.

This time, there were no games she could play to avoid that truth. This time, it was a date – a tangible, real sign that she was trying to move on.

Leigh kept smiling, even when her cheeks hurt with the effort it took.