So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) (36 page)

Harrison was about to say something, but at
that point, his parents—or the man and woman I assumed to be his
parents—sauntered into the room. The woman was in her mid- to late
forties and was beautiful in a cool and composed sort of way. Her
eyes were the same blue as Harrison’s, and her dark brown hair was
swept into a fashionable coif. She was wearing a thin cashmere
sweater and black pencil pants. The man next to her was slightly
older, with a bald head and a slight paunch, but his expensive suit
and affable smile made it clear where Harrison got his charm.

“Harrison, you were gone for so long that we
wanted to see who was at the front door,” the woman said. When she
spotted me, she smiled so that I could see the perfect pearls that
were her teeth. She came forward and kissed me on both cheeks. Her
perfume smelled like lilies of the valley.

“You must be Annie. Oh, darling, we’ve heard
so much about you!” she cooed, stepping back to appraise me.
“You’re just as beautiful as Harrison said you are. You know, this
is a special occasion. It's not every day we get to meet Harrison’s
girlfriends, so I knew right off the bat you had to be pretty
extraordinary.”

I gave her a forced smile. “Thanks, Mrs.
Waters,” I said quietly.

She waved a diamond ring–clad hand. “Please,
call me Sharon.” She gave me the once-over. “My dear, you aren’t
dressed for dinner! Should we head back to your place beforehand so
you can put on something a little more apropos?”

“Mom . . . ,” Harrison said. “I don’t think
the plans I had for tonight are going to happen as I’d hoped.”

“Why not?” His mother looked completely
baffled, but all I could do was stand there mutely. This had to be
the most awkward moment of my life, and I figured the best thing
for me to do was to say nothing that would intensify that
awkwardness.

Harrison’s father looked at me, then at
Harrison, and in those moments, something seemed to register for
him. “Sharon, why don’t we head back into the living room? I could
use another martini before dinner.” He pulled her shoulder gently
toward the back of the house.

Sharon began to protest, but when she looked
at Harrison and me again, the scales seemed to drop. “Oh . . . ,”
she breathed, sucking in her cheeks. “I suppose I could use another
drink myself.” She nodded somewhat stiffly at me and took her
husband’s arm, hurrying off to the living room without a backward
glance.

Harrison and I were left in silence together.
“You have no idea what it took for my parents to change their plans
and come home . . . and they did it just for me, for you. Now I
look like a complete jackass.” He glared at me. “I can’t believe
you’d do this, throw everything we have away, for Chase Adams?” He
scratched his head in disbelief.

I looked at the ground, unable to meet his
eyes. “I am
so
sorry for hurting you, Harrison. And I feel
like being here is just making things worse, so I’m going to leave
now.”

I slipped out the door before he could stop
me, and I could feel the tears burning my eyes as I rushed down the
steps of the Sigma Phi Kappa house.

“You’re making an enormous mistake, Annie!” I
heard him bellow behind me. “You’re going to realize it soon, and
then you’ll come crawling back to me!”

I ignored him and practically ran all the way
down Bleecker Street. When I stopped, I was panting and struggling
to catch my breath. I was rattled by how ungracious Harrison had
been, but the relief of ending things far outweighed the regret I’d
been holding for too long.

Besides, nobody ever said breakups were
easy.

I wasn’t in the mood to go right back to my dorm after my
altercation with Harrison. Kendra and Yannis had decided to go back
to the Hamptons (“Did you know NYU classes get live-streamed? This
means we can catch up on our schoolwork right alongside our
foreplay!” she’d told me excitedly), so I texted Chase and asked
him if he’d be willing to come by. He didn’t hesitate. We ended up
taking a walk along the East River, since I had a lot of nervous
energy I wanted to burn off.

“Don’t worry about that guy, Annie,” Chase
consoled me. “He’s barely even a real person. He wears enough hair
gel for me to make another Harrison. And I bet the gel homunculus
would be a lot more fun.”

“He’s a nice guy, Chase,” I insisted. “I
don’t expect you to agree with me, but I still wish I could’ve
ended things in a better way.” I breathed, and a puff of white
frost came out of my mouth. “I wish I hadn’t screwed up everything
so royally.”

He shrugged. “Bridges burn, babe.” He started
to say something else, but at that moment, a sleek black SUV
screeched up next to us. Another car was right behind it.

“What the . . . ,” Chase started.

A group of burly men, about five or six
total, lumbered out of each of the cars. It was dark, but the
headlights were blinding, and I had to shade my eyes with one
gloved hand. For a moment, all I could see were their silhouettes,
massive and ominous. My first instinct was to run, but Chase’s body
against mine was warm and reassuring, and I could feel him holding
me in place. “Let’s not get all fight-and-flight, Annie,” he
whispered, rubbing my hand gently.

That was when I recognized one of the men who
was approaching us. It was Harrison. But it was a Harrison unlike
the one I’d known and dated. He was wearing a long leather coat,
and his eyes were blazing with fury, his lips twisted into a
grimace that almost reminded me of Elsie. I could feel my gut
churning and contracting.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”
Harrison said. Even his voice sounded different.

Chase stood in front of me, presumably to
shield me from imminent danger. I could tell that Harrison and his
buddies weren’t simply out and about for a late-night stroll. They
had probably been tracking us for a while. I glanced around
quickly. There weren’t any other people in sight; otherwise I might
have been tempted to scream for help. Despite the fact that nothing
had happened yet, I had a bad feeling about this. Harrison didn’t
look like his normal, down-to-earth, happy-go-lucky self. His face
was hard and cruel, and the fact that he had five friends in tow
made this feel almost like a scene in a mobster movie. I’d heard of
people getting tossed into the East River by crooks and hoodlums .
. . but frat boys? I told myself there was nothing to fear, but my
heart was racing.

“We could be asking you the same thing,”
Chase shot back. “But I guess circus acts always travel in
numbers.”

I groaned at Chase’s audacity. We were
clearly outnumbered, and I wanted us to get out of this in one
piece. As Harrison’s friends took swigs out of paper bags and
closed in on us, I could tell that Harrison had probably rallied
the troops after a couple hours of steady chugging, from the looks
of it. I knew what stupid drunk boys were capable of, and I didn’t
want Chase and me to be there when shit got real.

Harrison sauntered over to us, until he was
close enough for me to smell the liquor on his breath. But his
voice was steady when he spoke. “I don’t like the way you talk,
man,” he said, getting up in Chase’s face.

“And I don’t like sore losers, so why don’t
you just back the fuck off and call off your bitches while you’re
at it?”

I tried to intervene. I could tell Harrison
was just moments away from clocking Chase, but perhaps reason would
work on him. “Harrison, I don’t want any trouble here,” I said. “I
thought I made it very clear—”

He looked at me, and the expression on his
face made my blood feel like ice in my veins. “Shut the fuck up,
Annie! Just shut up!” he shouted.

“Don’t you talk to my girl that way!” Chase
growled.

“Now he’s calling that
skank
his
girl,” someone said, as if it were the most hysterical thing in the
world. I recognized the obnoxious nasal twang of Chip’s voice.

I could see Chase getting angrier and
angrier, so I grabbed his arm and whispered, “Let’s not let them
get the better of us, okay? I mean, if something happens, I don’t
want you to be taken back down to the station.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about this,
Annie?” he whispered back, then turned to Harrison, opening his
arms as if to ask what he was waiting for. “Seriously, man, if you
wanna do something, do it. But leave Annie out of this.”

But Harrison’s next words were for me and me
alone. “I thought I saw something special in you when we met. I
thought you were a good woman. I had no idea you were just like all
the rest—just another fucking tramp. But you’re worse than the
others.” He laughed. “You’re just a pretty face with some grandiose
ideas, but I should have listened to my cousin. You’re beneath me.
Because you’re nothing. You’re literally
nobody
. When I stop
to think about it, Annie, I’m glad I never fucked you. Who knows
what kind of diseases you two carry?”

His brothers began to laugh and shout out
nasty remarks, and I could see Chase’s face contorted with rage. I
could barely believe Harrison was talking to me this way. I knew he
had every right to be angry, but I had never thought he could be so
malicious. Nobody had ever spoken to me in such a degrading manner.
As Harrison looked at me, pure hatred in his bloodshot eyes, I was
reluctant to think of what he and his friends were capable of in
that moment.

“That’s it, man—you’ve gone too far,” Chase
said, and threw a punch that caught Harrison on his left cheek. He
staggered back momentarily, and everything felt like it was
happening in slow motion, like time was being stretched out into
one horrifying tableau of words and waiting. But then those moments
compressed and all I could see was a blur of fists and feet,
pummeling and kicking at Chase, who was now down on the ground.

“Stop it, Harrison!” I screamed, attempting
to barrel through the thick wall of bodies. “Can’t you see you’re
hurting him?”

But he just pushed me away. “That’s the idea,
you whore!”

“Five guys on one?” I screamed. “That’s so
fucking courageous, Harrison.”

He turned to me. “Courageous? You’re one to
talk, bitch! I gave you everything; I gave you my heart. And you
repaid me by screwing around on me. What did you think—that I was a
nice enough guy I’d just lie down and take it? That you could come
to me with big eyes and a sorry face and I would be cool?” He
actually cracked his knuckles. “I expect a certain level of
respect, Annie. Nobody takes my girl and makes me look like some
kind of chump.”

“Oh yeah? ’Cause from where I’m standing,
someone’s doing a pretty good job of it, fucknuts.”

I whirled around, and, amazingly, there was
Kyle, an impish grin on his face, skateboard in hand. And with him
were at least a dozen other skateboarders. Most of them were
teenagers, but they had the worn looks, hard gazes, and
preternaturally glittering eyes of kids who’d been through the
school of hard knocks with flying colors. Unbelievably, I was
relieved to see them.

Kyle looked at me and grinned. “Hey,
Annie.”

Harrison’s friends stopped pummeling Chase
when they noticed the fleet of skateboarders, who were tightening
around us. I quickly ran over to Chase, who was groaning and
clutching his belly. He had several cuts on his face, as well as
puffy red spots that I knew were going to become ugly bruises. I
winced as I touched him lightly. “Are you okay?” I was close to
tears.

He nodded. “These guys are pussies. Not even
wearing steel-toed shoes. Believe me, I’ve seen worse,” he
grumbled.

Chase didn’t seem surprised to see Kyle, who
was circling Harrison with his skateboard.

“Yo, man, what are you and your frat-boy
party doing out here after dark? Shouldn’t you be shoving roofies
into drinks right about now or something?” Kyle said, almost
good-naturedly.

“Look, we don’t want any trouble,” Harrison
replied, putting his hands up. “We were just about to leave.”

“What the fuck, man?” Chip shouted. “They’re
just a bunch of kids. We’re not going anywhere!”

“A bunch of kids? I’m offended, gentlemen,”
Kyle said, putting his palm on his chest mockingly. Before Harrison
could say anything, Kyle took his skateboard and ran over to
Harrison’s car. His friends followed suit and started to jump on
both cars. I could hear the crash of glass as windows shattered,
and the crunch from the force of skateboards slamming into
metal.

Harrison gave out a tortured shriek. “No, no!
Stop it!”

But Kyle and his friends were on a
destruction spree. “Nobody fucks with my brother, yo!” he yelled,
raising his skateboard above his head and bringing it down on the
roof of Harrison’s car.

Harrison’s friends began to lunge for the
skaters, but they quickly backed off, seeing that they were
outnumbered and that Kyle and his friends were clearly not afraid
to get a little dirty.

“Chase, is Kyle going to be okay? Should we
call the cops?” I said.

Chase shook his head, a glint of mischief in
his eyes. “Nah, I wouldn’t worry. These kids are fucking
feral.”

I frowned. “They’re not going to hurt
Harrison and his friends too bad, are they?” At this point, I had
little sympathy for Harrison, but all the same, the idea of a
bloody rumble made my stomach curdle.

“No, it’s not about the fight. It’s more
about intimidating these entitled dickwads,” Chase said, throwing
his arm around me in a gesture of protection and nearly doubling
over in the process. Given his state, I felt like I should be the
one protecting him.

“Let’s get out of here. I’ll call us a cab,”
I said.

Harrison seemed to sense our presence and
turned away from the pandemonium to look at me. Our eyes met, and I
forced myself to meet his gaze without blinking. A complex mixture
of emotions bled into his anger: regret, humiliation, and the
unmistakable acknowledgment of his own failure. I almost felt sorry
for him, and a pang of conscience pierced my heart. But after the
way he’d reacted, I wasn’t going to be extending olive branches
anytime soon.