This Was Meant To Be

Chapter 9

“Harrison, I’m so sorry, but I can’t make it tonight.”

Leigh sounded frustrated. There was a simple reason for that. She was frustrated.

She knew that this was the third time she’d canceled on Harrison in three weeks, and understanding though he was, she thought even his patience might run out soon.

Really, what was wrong with her? She kept pushing men away by prioritizing her career, and then she wondered what was wrong with her.

Well, what was wrong with her was obvious. She couldn’t do anything right.

She couldn’t be a good daughter, a good sister, a good girlfriend, or, apparently, a good paralegal.

Or so she’d been told by Coleman, leaving her shocked and almost near tears.

The threat of tears had horrified Leigh. She didn’t go around crying at the drop of a hat.

She really was tired and had been working too much. What she needed was a break, but she couldn’t take one. The case was almost on top of them, and the trial was about to start.

Even sleep seemed like asking too much. Even a coffee break was stretching it.

She’d been eating her meals at work, and she’d barely even made it back home.

At least it was beginning to feel like home again, properly, thought Leigh wryly. Nothing like not being able to get to bed to realize just how much of a home it really is.

“Leigh, you need to eat, and sleep. You’re pushing yourself far too hard.”

Leigh tried to bite back an impatient sigh, but couldn’t really manage it.

Oh dear, there she went with the sighing again. She thought she’d handled that.

“I will, Harrison, next week. Right now, there’s so much to do. I’m young and healthy, you know. I can take the punishment right now. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll make it up to you, all right? Tomorrow night, everybody’s got a few hours off. We’ll meet. Promise.”

She hung up as her boss walked in, trying not to feel guilty.

But there was just no room to feel guilty. She had too much work to do, and now she had to triple check every single detail.

That gut feeling hadn’t gone away. Coleman’s startlingly negative evaluation had shocked her. She’d had no warning of it.

Had Slimy Willie done something, and left her holding the sack? Had she been too distracted by Harrison to pay attention to something?

That couldn’t be allowed. She couldn’t let that happen.

“I’ve got the prep ready here. I found more precedents, and a few more case files. I don’t think we’ll need them, but it’s nice to have the back up.”

She was babbling. Leigh ordered herself to stop.

“Let’s hope you don’t mess that up. Really, Ms. Wells, I’m quite disappointed. That last brief was not done well, not at all. I had to rework the phrasing.”

Leigh felt heat rising in her cheeks. She didn’t know which brief he was talking about.

Had she really dropped the ball so badly?

As the days went on, things didn’t seem to be getting better. The trial seemed to be going well, but Coleman seemed to make it sound like it was despite her, not because in part of her hard work, when he did bother to acknowledge her at all.

Leigh hadn’t seen Harrison in days, and when she had talked to him, she had been distracted and worried. But somehow, she hadn’t felt comfortable talking about what was going on at work.

It didn’t even occur to her that she was shutting him out. Carl had seemed so uninterested in her little problems and little triumphs at work that she had tried to focus on him, all the time. When she and Harrison had become close, they had talked about everything.

But now that things were different, Leigh found herself falling back into the old trap of shutting herself off, and trying to deal with her problems herself.

After all, they were her problems, weren’t they? What was the point of bothering Harrison with all of them?

She had to deal with them. She had to prove that she could.

If Leigh didn’t realize what it looked like from the other side, it was more because she was so used to being in a relationship with somebody who didn’t want to know, who was so wrapped up in himself that he didn’t care all that much.

But Harrison was not Carl. Harrison was nothing like Carl.

And Harrison felt her pulling away from him.

He didn’t know what he could do. He had tried everything without being pushy or demanding that Leigh pay attention to his needs over her own.

He knew that her ex had done that. He never wanted to make that mistake. It wasn’t a part of who he was, anyway.

But knowing that she was drawing away from him was beginning to tear at him. He didn’t know what he could do.

The worst part was how she refused to open up to him. Whatever it was, he would much rather hear it from her than keep wondering what was wrong. He was sure about that. But she…

Well, she’d rather avoid conversations altogether.

Was spending time with him becoming so distasteful?

Harrison looked at his phone eagerly when it rang, hoping that it was Leigh. His enthusiasm disturbed him a bit.

But it wasn’t. It was just work.

If work was becoming ‘just’ work, mused Harrison, then things were definitely wrong.

He needed to figure out how he could reach Leigh. If he couldn’t, well, he needed to move on.

Even as his heart sank at the thought, he told himself that now, at least, he no longer had to keep wondering about ‘what if’. If Leigh was drawing away from him as it felt like she was, then at least he knew that they had tried. If he had to live with unrequited love, then so be it.

He paused, mid thought.

He had thought it, and now it felt like there was no going back. He had thought those words – unrequited love.

He hated how it made him sound like a tragic hero of some sort. Harrison had absolutely no desire to style himself an obsessed Heathcliff, or even a patient Mr. Darcy. He would move on if Leigh had changed her mind.

But she needed to tell him.

He would give her some more time, decided Harrison. He wouldn’t push her. But if she wanted to dump him, he decided grimly, she would have to do the dirty work.

He was not going to fade away into the night quietly, as if what they had found together had never been at all.