She’s Like the Wind

Smiling briefly, Harriet feels the nauseating sensation in her stomach building. Desperately, she looks for an immediate exit. There are two. Using the pretence of visiting the ladies, she stands and quickly escapes out the back door. Standing on the other side of the door, she becomes stuck against its hard surface. Scanning the yard, her breathing labours as she is comforted by familiarity. Noticing that nothing much has changed to the backyard apart from her parents having extended the patio and built a large wooden pergola in the middle of the yard, now covered in a lilac-coloured wisteria. It isn’t until she peels herself off the door and steps down off the patio that she finds what she’s looking for. Hidden at the very back of the yard, still standing upright and left untouched as if it were stuck in time, is the trampoline. Her trampoline. Reaching it, she places her hands on its side railings. The cold steel, cooling her shaking nerves as she climbs into the middle of the aged black mesh, lying flat across its width and bury her face in her hands. Overwhelmed with thoughts and plans of the engagement, her mind overrun with her thoughts from the drive back to Hartford. She theorised her mother’s reaction and truly wanted to believe that her mother would be happy for her. What a fool she’d been. Her need to review the events of the day so far in quiet is interrupted by the sound of familiar voice, a voice from her past, yelling at his dog for chewing up his work shoes. “You god dam lousy good for nothing waste of space!!! You’ve chewed up my work boots again!!! That’s it, I’m giving you away!!!” Leaning up from the trampoline, she looks over the fence to watch as Nate searches his backyard for his shoes. His odd behaviour comes of no surprise to Harriet, still after all these years so his talking to a dog wouldn’t be any stranger than usual. Nate, on the other hand, in the hope of making a quick exit back inside, is stopped from returning inside by the sight of someone lying on the trampoline in his neighbour’s yard. Feeling a deep burn cut across his chest as he fights with his better judgement to find out who it is or to just go back inside, he finds his heart compelling his mind, drawing him closer to the fence to take a closer look. Standing on his tippy toes, his gut assumptions are proved right as to who it is as he gets a real glimpse of her. The one and only Harriet Lancer. The girl who stole his heart when he was eleven and still after all these years, he has never really been to escape everything that is her. She will always be the girl that no other will ever compare to. They hadn’t really spoken in years. Ten in fact. If you don’t count the moments in which they’ve been forced to speak briefly with each other over the years, make that argued; most recently being at Will’s wedding but the memory of why they aren’t on friendly terms, continues to elude them. Stepping away from the fence, the cold reminder of their history gives him the momentum to move back inside. His attempts to disappear unnoticed are thwarted when Harriet sees his shadow near the fence and causes her to stand up on the trampoline. “Nate???” Turning around slowly, he faces her. “Oh Harriet. Hello?! I . . . uh. Sorry but I’m running late for work . . . so ah,” Watching his escape, she sighs a sigh of relief. Relieved, she mumbles. “Oh well okay.” Stopping at his door, the reason as to why she is home bothers him. She never comes home unless she has to. “How long are you back for?” “Ah . . . just for the weekend. I have to be back in New York on Monday. I have a lot of work to do!!!” “Really?” “Yes actually, well for the next year at least.” As she stands on her trampoline, she scrutinises his every action so intently. Desperately; she wants to draw out the moment, in the hope that his curiosity will peak and get the better of him so that she can tell him her news. “Well that’s great Harriet. I’m happy to hear that you’re doing so well. I . . . well I better get going.” As he makes to walk inside to leave for walk, he is stopped by Harriet’s sweet but soft voice once more. He missed her voice. Especially when she was calling his name. For the longest time, he felt that when she called his voice it was like being called home. It made him feel safe and it made him feel loved. For the longest time, she was his heart’s home. “Nate. Don’t you at least want to know why I’ll be so busy?” He already had guessed. He knew probably before she did. On the occasion when Will came back to Hartford to visit or the Lancer’s invited him over for dinner, they would always openly talk about Harriet and how well she is doing. Well, Frank and Will did at least. But in the last couple of years, their conversations shifted and came to include Damon. Sitting around the barbecue next door or watching Friday night football alongside Will, they all talked about how all they though that it wouldn’t too long before they talked marriage. Feeling helpless and irrelevant, the more they talked about them the more Nate felt like his heart was going to shrivel up and die. It had been happening more frequently than often lately, a deep burn around his heart and when he saw Damon’s BMW in the Lancer’s driveway a couple of weekends ago or better yet forget Mr Lancer’s cheery disposition later that night when Will invited him over the fence for dinner, he knew the possibility of ever having her tied to him had finally slipped from his reach. Disinclined to show his pain from her happy news in front of her, he plasters on a fake jaunty smile before facing her to ask the question to what his heart will never be ready to hear. “Why will you be so busy, Harriet?” “I’m getting married.” And just as he had predicted, in her clearest yet concise voice, it struck him like a knife right into the middle of his heart. “Is it Damon Bennet that you’re marrying?” “Yes. His name is Damon Bennett. Why?” “He’s the brother of the girl whose wedding you were planning when you came home for Will’s wedding, right?” “Yes!!! That’s right!” “When you stopped speaking to me???” Hastily jumping down from the trampoline, an irritated Harriet shakes her head at him. Having hit a nerve, she moves towards the fence to meet him. “I stopped speaking to you for a reason. Besides, you stopped speaking to me a lot longer before Will’s wedding remember!!!” Stepping back, she begins to make a move back inside the house. She is stopped midway by his now ragged voice. “Do you love him?” Infuriated, she snaps as she turns to meet him. But her anger immediately diminishes at the sight of a lost Nate looking to the ground, unwilling to meet her eyes with his hand raking through his dark chocolate brown hair. “Yes, Nate. I do. I love him. Very much!!!” Turning she returns inside whilst he remains watching the space as it dissipates from something to nothing. And like Harriet, he too returns inside his home to finish getting ready for work. Stopping in his kitchen, he makes himself a cup of coffee. Standing at the window, his coffee pursed between his fingers and his lower lip, his attention is taken by the sight of the trampoline in the Lancer’s backyard. The now empty trampoline. Closing his eyes, his mind cruelly plays with him and causes him to think back on when his infatuation with Harriet began and if it had ever ended. The one thing that he has always been sure of is this. What started out as a seemingly innocent, sweet and youthful love turned out to be his greatest undoing. An undoing that will undoubtedly haunt him for the rest of his life.