Page 98 of Antagonist

“No…I don’t know.” I straighten to look into his eyes, now filled with hurt. “You followed Stella here because of Megan.”

“They moved three hours away, not three thousand miles.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Would you consider moving to Europe if you hadn’t met me?”

“I don’t know. Yes? Sorry, I don’t know.”

Harrison puts his hands on either side of my face. He looks heartbroken. All I wanted was some comfort and to talk things through, but the look in his eyes.

“Please, Harrison.” I don’t know what I’m begging for, but it feels like something’s breaking right now.

“Fletcher, I would never ask you to pick me instead of your son. Your heart will break if you’re apart from George. I know because that’s what I’d feel about Megan.” He places a kiss on my lips that feels too final. “You should go to Europe.”

I want to shout and say I haven’t decided. That he can’t decide for me. That this isn’t fair. I want to shout at Fran for making me choose when she’s been having her own way forever.

But I can’t because that wouldn’t be fair to Harrison.

“Please don’t leave. Can I have this one thing? You?”

He pulls me into his arms again.

“You can have me, Fletcher. This is going to fucking hurt, but I don’t know how to turn away from you.”

I kiss him with all my pent-up anger, frustration, and emotion.Allthe emotion. The ones I can name and the ones I don’t dare.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I say.

“I thought you were hungry.”

“There is nothing I want more right now than you, Harrison. Dinner can wait.”

28

HARRISON

“Harrison,”John calls as he circles his desk. He never calls me by my first name, so I’m immediately on alert when he does.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s a protest at Megan’s school. Stella called. She’s on her way there.”

I grab my phone from my desk drawer and see a few missed calls from Stella.

“Shit. I need to get there. Hold down the fort for me?”

“Sure, boss.”

I run out of the office and get to the school in record time. The kids should be let out soon, so whatever is happening, it needs to end before the bell rings.

There’s a crowd of people holding signs and chanting, “Protect our children. Give us our school back. Our values are family values.”

I run over to where Stella, Melodie, and the other parents are trying to keep the people holding signs from entering the school.

“You’re ruining our children’s education,” a woman shouts.

“We’re not the ones holding up signs and protesting against an event being heldforthe children of this school,” Stella says in her nurse voice, trying to keep things calm. “What exactly are you trying to achieve? This event is going ahead.”

“I don’t know where the hell you came from, lady. We have no business with you,” another woman says.

“My daughter goes to this school, and you’re holding a protest right outside. I’d say this is very much my business.”