AN: Finlay and Harrison are ALMOST out of the dramarama (haha!), I promise. :3 Just a few more things thrown at them...

I really like Joel. Originally (I have a livejournal, HybridHyacinth, for this now, but I'll go ahead and talk about Joel here), JoJo was made as the "perfect guy." My friend (the one Leah is based on, and named after) longs for a man to sweep her off her feet (don't we all?), so I kinda made Joel for Watoria. :D As a lovely little printed present. (Damn, my alliteration is amazing today!)

Oh, and I don't use fictionpress to argue with stupid sixteen year old girls. Psht. Don't waste my time. XD

I've changed the summary to this story, too. Better? Y/N?

PS: patsylooj, I fucking love you! If you didn't know that already. XD

--

“15:67”

Chapter Nineteen

I walked home in a stupor. My head buzzed with how and what I’d tell Finlay. I thought about how he would react. How pissed off he would get. Just where he would go if he decided to leave. But… dear god, I didn’t want to think about him leaving me. I couldn’t take it if he did.

Even though, I deserved it. I knew I deserved it. I couldn’t keep myself under control. He was right. He was always right.

I couldn’t be trusted.

But… we had grown apart these last few days. I knew it. He had to. Hell if I wanted to admit that Finlay and I weren’t as close as we had been. But it was true. No longer did we just kiss each other for the hell of it. No longer did we wake up tangled together, then smile to each other. No longer did we make coffee and snuggle up on the couch in the mornings.

We were still planning the wedding, sure. But now it seemed as if we were doing it to keep up appearances rather than doing it for ourselves.

Sighing, I flipped open my phone, dialing Odette’s number. It was so different. The whole situation. This entire chapter of my life. Before Finlay, everything had a rhyme and reason. Everything was the same. Repetitiveness wasn’t bad.

“Hello?” Odette’s chipper voice erupted from the phone. It almost made me cry. I hadn’t heard her voice in what felt like an eternity.

“’Dette, hey,” I whispered back. “How are you?”

I heard another (female) voice in the background ask who Odette was on the phone with. I heard her answer with “an old friend.” Not “my best friend.” Not “the only person besides Katja that I truly had a connection with.”

No. Now I was just “an old friend.”

My heart dropped into my stomach, and I closed the phone, too pissed to say anything. Everyone was turning on me, it felt like. I didn’t know anyone I could go to. I didn’t know where I fit in the world anymore.

And that frightened me.

“Hey, stranger.”

I looked up, expecting to see someone I didn’t give a shit about. Or someone that didn’t give a shit about me.

But I saw Joel. His long blonde hair was lifted in the warm spring night breeze. He just… appeared.

“Hey,” I half-heartedly answered back. Part of me just wanted to go home and drown my thoughts in something that burned as I swallowed. Something that would make me sleep forever. Something that, when I woke up, I’d have no recollection of drinking.

“You don’t look so good,” Joel stated the obvious, holding out his hand. “Let me help you.”

I didn’t want help. I wanted to die.

Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but it was true.

“I don’t need you,” I stated. It was as if, all of a sudden, I just didn’t want anything to do with anyone.

“I beg to differ,” Joel was beside me in a second, linking arms with me. I started to pull away, but he held me tight. “Harrison, whatever’s going on, we can make it, okay?”

Those words broke me, and I spilled everything. “I cheated on Finlay again. With Mark. With a kid I just met a few days ago. In a church! On the stupid, motherfucking pew.”

Joel’s blue eyes widened, “Hare…”

I choked on the words I had been ready to say. No one had called me “Hare” since Katja died… Emotions I didn’t even know I had been hiding erupted out of me, and I sobbed. Joel had to stop as I crumbled to the sidewalk. His arms held me close as I cried like the baby I was.

“Shhh,” he cooed, running his long fingers through my fringe to comfort me. “It’s okay. You’ll get through this. I won’t let you go at it alone. We’ll make it. I promise.”

He talked to me for a little bit more before he finally convinced me to stand. I could tell that he was just promising me these things so I would go with him. If he meant them, I missed that part. But, whatever he meant, I went with him. I knew I could trust him. He made me feel safe.

And, I knew that he would be one of the best friends I would ever have.

--

Joel took me back to my apartment. He stayed with me while I just let everything out. Whatever I had been keeping in, for however long, just spewed out. But I knew that he didn’t mind. He would smile when I did, or when I needed reassuring. He even had to wipe away his tears (along with mine) a few times.

And he never talked. He just listened to me the entire time. He never told me that what I was thinking was true or false. He just listened.

That was exactly what I needed, too.

When I couldn’t cry anymore, and when my voice was so hoarse that I couldn’t speak, Joel finally spoke. We went through an entire tissue box together, but, finally, it stopped.

“Will you be okay?” His voice was tentative. Almost as if he was afraid to speak.

I nodded, although I wasn’t entirely sure. And I sure as hell didn’t want him to leave. Joel smiled, obviously knowing what I wanted.

He stood, and I was afraid that he was going to leave. He looked down at me, smiling softly, “I’m going to make you some coffee.”

Joel brought me back the coffee (in my Christmas cup, no less!), setting it in my lap. I wrapped my hands around it, smiling into the chocolate colour. Oh, he knew me too well. He made my coffee the exact colour that I liked it.

“Thanks,” I whispered to him.

“You don’t have to thank me.”

I looked up at him, smiling sheepishly, “Yes, I do. You have excellent timing. I needed someone and… there you were. I owe you.”

Joel sat down beside me, his hands clasping mine around the cup, “You don’t owe me anything, Harrison. I’m just glad that I could help you. It means a lot to me, your friendship. And your happiness. I’d do anything to keep you happy.”

My smile widened as I began to cry again.

“Oh, you big baby,” Joel playfully scolded, running the pads of his thumbs under my eyes. “Stop this crying nonsense. You’ll make me cry again.”

“Where’s Finlay?” I finally got up the courage to ask. “He said that he was going to meet you.”

Joel nodded, “He’s preparing something. He needed my help, and I told him to meet me after Mathilda’s services. But…”

I didn’t like that but. “But what?”

“You two are going to have to talk about this, Hare,” he sighed. My heartstrings were tugged again as he called me “Hare.” I loved it. He seemed to have graciously stepped into Katja’s and Odette’s places, and it was comforting.

“I know.” I mirrored his sigh. I wanted to put off talking to Finlay for as long as I could. Part of me didn’t think that I could go through with telling him that I cheated again. I didn’t want to drive another nail through our fragile structure.

“So, do you want me to send him over here later?” Joel stood up to leave. I still didn’t want him to go, but I think that his need to fix things made him want to.

I placed my coffee cup on the coffee table (that’s rather repetitive), and looked up at him. His blue eyes were shadowed by his bangs.

“Actually, I’d like it if you stayed?” The statement I was trying to make came out as more of a question.

Joel sat back down, leaning back and letting me rest on him. Our affection wasn’t sexual in any way. It was comforting, which was what I needed the most. “I’d stay forever if you asked me, Hare.”

--

“What the fuck is this?!”

I jumped up, awakened by the shrill voice. Joel stirred under me as my eyes focused on just who in the seven levels of hell was screaming.

It was Finlay.

“Are you cheating on me again, Harrison?!” Finlay stalked around the coffee table, his eyes alight with anger.

“What…?” Joel sat up as I tried to tell Finlay that we were just sleeping. But, as always, Joel came to my defense. “We were sleeping, Finlay”

“Cuddled up?!” Obviously, he wasn’t buying it.

“You place too little faith in Harrison,” Joel said calmly, stretching out his cramped muscles. “Chill out, Finlay. Nothing happened. I give you my word.”

Finlay shut up, but still didn’t look satisfied.

“Look at the time,” Joel’s eyebrows shot upwards. “Leah’s going to wonder where I’m at.” He walked to the door, rubbing at his eyes. “Harrison, Finlay, take care. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

And, just like that, he was gone.

I glared at the floor as Finlay walked around the table and sat next to me.

“I’m sorry,” he offered. But, for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t good enough. He jumped to conclusions way too often. I wasn’t particularly fond of it, either. I mean, I had mentioned that we haven’t been close, and this was just what I meant.

“Don’t worry about it,” I shot back. I didn’t mean to sound as harsh as I did (or did I?), but I couldn’t help it.

Finlay turned to me, his eyebrows furrowed, “But I want to. I know I haven’t been the best fiancé in the world, but… you haven’t exactly made this relationship easy on me, if you want to know the truth.”

But, oh, I already know.

“I don’t see where you get the idea of blaming me,” I didn’t meet his gaze.

“Well,” Finlay sardonically rolled his eyes. “I wonder.”

I didn’t respond. If he was just going to start a fight, I didn’t even want to be in the same vicinity as he was.

“Who cheated on whom?” He asked rhetorically.

That was it. He brought it up. He was asking for it.

I turned to him, “And who hit whom?”

“That’s in the past.”

“You are such a hypocrite!” I yelled, standing. “If you’re going to preach to me about how much I fucked up, again, then you can just leave.”

“I’ve seen the looks you’ve been giving Mark!”

That caught me off guard.

“What made you say that?” I asked, deflated. All anger was gone now, replaced with befuddlement and confusion. How dare he bring that up, too.

“Because I know how you are, Harrison.” Finlay was calm, but I knew that it wasn’t going to last long.

I stared at him. “How I am?! What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m asking you if you kissed him!”

“Where is this coming from?! You have no right to ask me these things, Finlay!”

He glared at me, his voice dangerously low. “None of those sentences were ‘no, Finlay, Mark and I didn’t kiss.’”

I just stared at him.

“You did.” Finlay’s eyes widened when I didn’t answer. “You fucking kissed him! You kissed Mark!”

I didn’t answer. Obviously, Finlay knew already, so whatever I said (or would say) didn’t (or wouldn’t) matter.

“He told me that you did, but I didn’t believe him,” Finlay shook his head. “Now I know that I can’t trust you around anyone.”

He stood, but I didn’t try to stop him. I knew that I fucked up. I knew that Finlay was probably going to leave me. There was nothing I could do.

“I can’t believe this,” Finlay grabbed his keys (I had made him a copy about four weeks ago) and made his way to the door. “When you decide to stop letting your dick think for you, let me know. Other than that, don’t bother. We’re done.”