Harper POV
I should have knocked.
That's the thought that keeps circling my mind as I sit in my car outside Marcus's apartment building, hands shaking so badly I can barely grip the steering wheel. I should have knocked like a normal person instead of using the spare key he gave me six months ago, back when giving each other keys felt like the most natural thing in the world.
But I didn't knock. I walked right in with Chinese takeout and a bottle of wine, ready to surprise him after his "guys' night" that had supposedly run late. I was going to tell him about the promotion I'd landed today. I wanted to celebrate with the person who mattered most.
Instead, I found him celebrating with someone else.
The image is burned into my retinas: Marcus, my boyfriend of three years, naked and moving above a blonde I'd never seen before in the bed we'd picked out together at IKEA. The same bed where he'd whispered "I love you" just last week. The same bed where we'd talked about moving in together, about maybe getting a dog, about all those small forever plans that apparently meant nothing.
The takeout containers hit the floor with a wet splat. The wine bottle somehow stayed intact, though I'm not sure how since everything else in my world had just shattered.
"Harper, Jesus, Harper, wait!" Marcus scrambled for a sheet while the blonde—young, probably twenty-two, with the kind of effortless beauty I'd never possessed—grabbed her clothes and bolted for the bathroom.
But I was already running.
That was four days ago, and I haven't stopped running since.
"You need to eat something," Mona says for the third time today, pushing a sandwich across my kitchen island. She's been camping out at my apartment since the incident, as we've started calling it. Like it's some kind of natural disaster instead of my life imploding.
I take a dutiful bite of turkey and avocado, though it tastes like cardboard. Everything tastes like cardboard now. "I'm eating."
"You're picking." She settles onto the stool across from me, her dark hair pulled back in the efficient ponytail she wears for her marketing job. Mona has always been the practical one between us, the one who plans ahead and reads the fine print. She's also the one who never trusted Marcus, though she was too good a friend to say "I told you so" when I called her sobbing from my car.
"Harper, you can't just sit here forever. You got that promotion. You should be celebrating, not..." She gestures vaguely at my rumpled pajamas and the tissues scattered across my coffee table.
"I can't go to work looking like this." I catch my reflection in the black screen of my phone. My usually sleek brown hair is a mess, my green eyes are puffy and bloodshot, and I'm pretty sure this is the same shirt I put on yesterday. Or maybe the day before.
"So don't look like this." Mona's voice is gentle but firm. "Take a shower. Put on real clothes. Show Marcus and that little blonde home-wrecker that you're not broken."
But I am broken. That's the thing Mona doesn't understand. It's not just about Marcus cheating—though that feels like someone reached into my chest and rearranged my organs. It's about how stupid I feel. How naive. I believed him when he said he was working late, when he said he needed space, when he said he wasn't ready to move in together yet. I believed him when he said he loved me.
I believed him when he said I was enough.
"I trusted him completely," I whisper, finally voicing the thought that's been eating at me. "I never even questioned it. Not once."
Mona reaches across and squeezes my hand. "That's not stupidity, Harp. That's love. And it's not your fault he didn't deserve it."
But it feels like my fault. It feels like I should have seen the signs, should have been more interesting, more exciting, more whatever it was that blonde girl had that I didn't.
My phone buzzes again, another text from Marcus. I've been ignoring them all, but I can see the preview: Harper, please. We need to talk. I can explain—
I turn the phone face down. There's nothing to explain. I saw everything I needed to see.
"You know what?" I say suddenly, surprising myself. "You're right. I'm not going to sit here anymore."
Mona's face lights up. "Good! We can go out tonight, get dressed up, remind you how amazing you are—"
"No." I stand up, pacing to the window that overlooks the busy Los Angeles street below. "I need to get out of here. Really out. Like, far away."
"A girls' trip?" Mona's already reaching for her phone. "I can probably take Monday off, we could go to San Francisco or maybe—"
"Alone." The word comes out sharper than I intended, and I see Mona flinch. "I'm sorry, I just... I need to do something by myself. Something that's just mine."
For three years, everything in my life had Marcus's fingerprints on it. The restaurants we went to, the movies we watched, the friends we hung out with. Even my apartment felt invaded by his presence—his coffee cup still in my sink, his book still on my nightstand, his stupid protein powder still taking up half my kitchen counter.
I need to remember who I am when I'm not half of a couple. I need to prove to myself that I can be happy alone, that I don't need someone else to feel complete.
"Vegas," I say suddenly.
"What?"
"Las Vegas. I'm going to Vegas."
Mona looks at me like I've announced I'm joining the circus. "Harper, you hate Vegas. You said it was tacky and overpriced and..."
"Exactly." I'm already pulling out my laptop, fingers flying over the keys. "It's everything I would never choose. Everything we would never choose."
The "we" hangs in the air like a ghost. There is no "we" anymore.
"This is crazy," Mona says, but she's moved to look over my shoulder as I scroll through hotel options. "You don't do impulsive. You plan everything months in advance."
She's right. I'm the person who has spreadsheets for grocery shopping and color-coded calendars. I research restaurants for weeks before making reservations. I've never done anything truly spontaneous in my life.
Maybe that's the problem.
"Penthouse suite at the Aria," I announce, clicking before I can change my mind. "Leaving tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Mona's voice pitches higher. "Harper, this is insane. You're grieving, you're not thinking clearly..."
"I'm thinking more clearly than I have in years." And it's true. For the first time since I walked into Marcus's apartment, the fog in my head is lifting. "I'm twenty-seven years old, Mona. When was the last time I did something just for me? Something that had nothing to do with what anyone else wanted?"
She opens her mouth to argue, then closes it. Because we both know the answer is never.
I book the suite, then a first-class ticket, then a dinner reservation at a restaurant Marcus would hate. With every click, I feel a little more like myself. Not the self I was with Marcus, not the self I thought I should be, but someone new. Someone who takes chances.
"If you're really doing this," Mona says finally, "at least text me every few hours so I know you're alive."
"Deal." I hug her, breathing in her familiar vanilla perfume. "Thank you. For everything. For sitting with me, for not judging me, for being exactly what I needed."
"Just... be careful, okay? Vegas is full of sharks."
I laugh for the first time in four days. "Maybe I need some sharks in my life."
Twenty-four hours later, I'm standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows of my penthouse suite, thirty floors above the Las Vegas Strip. The city spreads out below me in a riot of neon and possibility, more beautiful and overwhelming than I'd expected. People move like ants along the sidewalks, all of them strangers, none of them caring about my broken heart or my shattered plans.
I'm wearing a black dress I bought at the airport—something sleek and expensive that I never would have chosen before. My hair is down and straight, my makeup bold enough to hide the evidence of my tears. I look like someone who belongs in this suite, someone who can handle whatever comes next.
My phone buzzes with another text from Marcus, but I don't even look at it. Instead, I turn it off completely and drop it into my purse.
The city lights blur and shimmer through the glass, and for the first time in days, I feel something other than pain. I feel possibility.
"Just for me," I whisper to my reflection in the window. "No one else."
The woman looking back at me is a stranger, but she's beautiful in her solitude. She's ready for whatever happens next.
I smile at her, grab my purse, and head for the door.