Before I have the chance to process what’s happening, she storms over to our table with an angry look on her face. My heart is beating nearly out of my chest by this point.
“What the hell are you doing, Harry?” The girl is beyond pissed and I’m actually a little scared of her right now. “You think you can just cancel our plans without giving me a reason why and take this little… this… this ugly slut out to dinner? That’s not how relationships work!”
I sit with my mouth shut, afraid to say something. I’m not sure what’s going on but if I had to guess, this girl likes Harry.
“Ellie, I told you I had plans! If you trusted me, you would have just let it go!” He says in a low voice.
“Obviously I was right not to trust you,” she spits. “How could you?”
I’m extremely uncomfortable to be in this situation right now. I’m in the middle of a fight between this girl I’ve never met and the guy I’m on a date with. Come to think of it, the argument seems like it’s my fault. If I weren’t here with Harry he wouldn’t be in trouble with this girl.
“I’m sorry, Ellie. I wanted to see how it would go with her,” he tells her. “I barely even know her. She’s only here on vacation.”
Ouch.
“So, what? You didn’t think I would find out? Is that it? You could just lead this girl on and make her think you like her and never talk to her again once she goes home?”
“No,” he says, “well, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know what I was going to do yet. You know I love you, Ellie.”
His words hit me like a ton of bricks. I feel like I’m going to throw up but I can’t move.
“If you love me, then what the hell are you doing here? You shouldn’t be playing with other girls,” she tells him.
“I know, baby. I’m sorry.”
“How did you even meet her, anyway?”
I was hoping she wouldn’t ask that question. Harry could either tell her the truth or make up a lie.
He looks like he’s at a loss for words and I’m glad. Maybe he’s trying to think of something to tell her besides my Pathfinder being the reason we met.
“Her Pathfinder,” he tells her. I feel all the color drain from my cheeks.
“Her what?” Now Ellie turns to look at me. She has a smirk on my face that nearly makes me lose the little bit of food I ate tonight.
She looks as if she’s waiting for me to say something but I don’t know what to tell her.
“Yeah,” Harry says.
“Well, did yours light up?” She asks harshly.
“I don’t know if it would have, I wasn’t wearing it,” he admits.
“Well let’s find out. Come on, whatever your name is, we’re going to Harry’s place,” Ellie demands.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m up out of my seat and running out of the restaurant. I didn’t have time to think, I just knew I wanted out of there. I was humiliated enough when Ellie walked into the restaurant and now she’s questioning the accuracy of my necklace. What if it was just a glitch? What if Ellie’s necklace lit up, too?
No, that wouldn’t make any sense. Why would Harry have been wearing his at the restaurant the other day if he’d already found his girl?
With all of the thoughts running through my head, I forget that Harry was my ride to the restaurant. I don’t have any cash on me so I can’t pay for a cab to go home. I don’t have my cell phone either. I knew I should have gone back to get it. I can’t pay for a phone call because I don’t have any change. I’m basically stranded in the middle of a city I don’t know without any way of getting back to my hotel.
By now there are tears falling down my face. I’m not quite sure why, I wasn’t emotionally attached to Harry yet. Maybe it’s from the embarrassment of being played, maybe it’s from being lost in New York. Maybe it’s from believing I actually found a nice guy I was destined to be with.
“Piper!” I hear Harry calling my name back from the restaurant so I look around and try to find an escape. I don’t want to face him right now, not yet. I’m not ready to hear him tell me I was just an excuse to get out.
I run around the corner and hide behind a building until I see Harry run past, Ellie hot on his heels. She’s still mad at him, I can tell, but I don’t care. He brought this upon himself.
I wish he would have just told me in the beginning that he had a girlfriend instead of leading me on.
Why does he have a girlfriend anyway? He knows the Pathfinder is supposed to do that and 99 times out of 100 it’s right and you fall madly in love with the person it pairs you with. Why would he go and date someone if he knew he hadn’t found me yet?
My emotions are all over the place right now and I don’t know what to do. I’m still lost and it’s dark outside. I have no idea how to get back to the hotel so even if I got a ride, I would have to hope the driver knew where the hotel is and I don’t want to take that chance.
I slide down to the ground, my back rubbing against the bricks on the building. I have no idea what I’m going to do. Going back to Harry and getting a ride home would be humiliating and I don’t want to do that.
I think back to when Laurel and I went shopping earlier. Ellie gave me a disgusting look for no reason. She didn’t even know me then. Why was she giving me that look? What could she possibly have against me already?
Everything is just so confusing.
*Harry’s POV*
Running the streets of New York looking for a girl I’ve only know a couple of days is not my idea of a fun night. Why did Ellie have to show up? I told her I had plans but of course she couldn’t just leave it at that. That’s typical Ellie. She never trusts me. This time, I suppose, she was right in not trusting me but that’s still no excuse. What if I was just out to dinner with my mother? How did she even find me? I’ll have to ask her when we find Piper.
Ellie keeps trying to yell at me for being out with another girl but I’m not having it. Now is not the time to worry about that. We need to find her before someone else does.
“Piper!” I yell, hoping she’ll answer this time. Of course there’s no answer.
She can’t have gone very far, she doesn’t have any money or a cell phone, she has no way of getting back. Maybe she ducked into a shop to avoid us.
I send Ellie to look in the shops and restaurants along the street while I double back and look in the alleys. The whole time I feel like a piece of shit. How could I be so stupid?
I shouldn’t even have a girlfriend right now, I know that’s what those dumb necklaces are for. I knew when I asked Ellie out that I would find Piper soon, I had a feeling. Of course I knew it wasn’t going to be Piper, I just knew it was going to be my girl. The one I would marry. But now Ellie loves me and I can’t get rid of her.
Truthfully, I don’t love her back. She thinks I do but I don’t. She’s stuck up and judgmental and I can’t stand it. She’s pretty, I’ll give her that, but that’s about as much as I can stand.
After I met Piper I knew I really wanted to get to know her, even before I found out about her Pathfinder lighting up when she was near me. I felt this instant connection to her unlike anything I’ve ever felt before in my life.
“Piper!” I yell again. No answer. Go figure.
I pass a dark alley and don’t see anything until I turn to walk away. There’s movement in the corner of my eye and I turn back around. I look a little closer and there’s Piper, curled up next to a dumpster.
“Piper, what are you doing?”
She looks up at me with tear stained eyes and my heart melts. I never knew I was capable of feeling so bad.
“Just leave me alone, Harry. You’ve done enough,” she says, pain evident in her voice.
“Give me a chance to explain,” I plead.
“No, that’s okay. I heard everything I need to know.”
I run my fingers through my hair and turn around. I don’t know what I’m going to do about this. I really want her to like me, I want her to listen to me explain. I want her to give me the opportunity to make her happy.
“Please, Piper.”
“Can you just take me home?”
At least she’s not planning on staying here all night.
“Sure, let’s go.”
I help her up off the ground but as soon as she’s standing, she pushes me away. She walks ahead of me to my car and waits by the door. I unlock the car and make my way to the passenger side to open the door for her but she’s in before I have the chance.
I climb into the driver’s seat and turn the car on. The drive back to her hotel is silent aside from the occasional sniffle from Piper. I feel really bad about doing this to her, it’s an awful first impression.
I wanted to take her to dinner and then maybe back home to watch a movie or something but I guess that plan is garbage.
“Piper, I’m sorry,” I try again.
“I don’t care.”
She’s going to be a challenge, I can tell.
“I’ve known you only 3 days and you already hate me. That’s got to be some kind of record,” I joke. I was hoping for a laugh but it doesn’t come.
“Please, Piper. I want to be friends with you, hopefully even more than that at some point. You just have to let me explain what’s going on between me and Ellie.”
“I already told you, Harry, I don’t want to hear it,” she protests.
It’s silent a while longer and we finally reach the hotel. I put my car in park and turn to Piper, who is still sitting with the seatbelt across her lap.
“You know, I always hoped I was one of those people who met their partner and instantly had a connection. Who knew right off the bat that they were perfect for each other. No problems, no questions, just happiness. But I always had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was part of the 1% who never meets their partner or meets them but finds out they’re nothing like what they need. Tonight you showed me which one of those categories I fall into.” She doesn’t make eye contact with me at all while she talks and it just breaks my heart. When she’s finished, she unbuckles herself and steps out of the car.
I watch her walk into the hotel and regret everything about tonight. Maybe she’ll change her mind about letting me explain. I hope she does, she really needs to hear what I have to say.
When she’s out of sight, I put my car back into drive and pull away. The whole ride home, I curse myself for being such an idiot.