Part 10 - Bad Desire: New Generation

When Lottie woke this morning, she was surprised to not see Harvey sound asleep beside her. At first, she fell into panic, wondering if he’d even come home last night or if he’d gotten so drunk that he’d ended up passed out somewhere else. However, it wasn’t until she’d headed into the kitchen, that some of that panic subsided.

Harvey was stood at the kitchen counter, staring out of the window while waiting for some toast to pop up. It was 8am, so it was incredibly early for him to be awake considering he’d been out until late last night. It was likely he hadn’t even slept.

“Hey…” Lottie trailed off, cautious of making him jump if he hadn’t heard her come in.

It was clear he hadn’t, as his body very quickly spun around in a state of shock. It wasn’t until his eyes landed on Lottie, that he seemed to relax again and presented her with a tired looking smile.

“Morning babe.”

“Did you have a good night?”

Nodding his head, Harvey was consumed with guilt as the memories of the night before came flooding back. He had made out with Grace countless times last night and now he was stood opposite his fiancée, unsure how to approach the whole situation.

“You look exhausted.” Lottie said as she made her way over to him.

Lifting her hand up to run over his face, her thumb soothed the skin under Harvey’s tired eyes.

“Did you even sleep?”

“A little bit.” He muttered, closing his eyes at Lottie’s soft touch. “I got up so I wouldn’t wake you. I’d been tossing and turning all night.”

“That’s what a lot of alcohol does to you. I thought you’d learn by now.”

“Learning… it’s never been something I’ve been that great at.”

Harvey’s comment was made with a small grin over his face, one that Lottie was relieved to see. Things between them had been tough; they had been on edge for weeks, so small moments like this were appreciated.

She never understood what was going through his mind however, Lottie was desperate to figure it out before their whole relationship collapsed.

“Did you get up to much?” Harvey asked, wanting to move the conversation away from his night as quickly as possible.

Until he could figure out how he was going to tell Lottie about what happened, he wanted to divert any conversations surrounding it.

“Not really. Your mum came over, so we sat and chatted for a while.”

“She did? Why?”

“She came over to see us. She said she doesn’t get to see that much of you at the moment…”

Lottie’s words caused even more guilt to fill Harvey’s body. He hadn’t only been vacant from Lottie these past few weeks, he’d been that way with his family too. He saw his dad daily at work, but he hadn’t made any effort to go and see his mum. He’d always had every intention to but ended up coming up with an excuse why he couldn’t go over.

He wanted to see her. He wanted to spend time with his whole family. However, he knew that they’d instantly be able to tell that something was up. Harvey wasn’t ready for the questions or the lectures, so right now it was just much easier to avoid them.

“Shit, I should really call her.” Harvey muttered, as Lottie was now watching him with concern.

“She is worried about you.”

“She is? Why?”

“Because it’s not like you to avoid everyone. We’ve missed so many family dinners, Harvey. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but we can’t keep making excuses. That’s your family.”

Nodding his head, Harvey knew that Lottie was right. There was only so many excuses he could come up with and he had most definitely exhausted them all.

“We’ll go to the next one, I promise.”

“Really?” Lottie looked at him as though she didn’t believe that for a second.

“Promise.” He responded while reaching out to cup her chin in his hand. Gently urging Lottie’s face towards his own, Harvey then placed a gentle kiss to her lips before just as quickly pulling away.

It didn’t feel right. He felt guilty for kissing her when she was clueless to who he had been kissing the night before.

“You okay?” Lottie asked, immediately sensing that something was up.

Their whole relationship was a mess right now but small moments like this continued to highlight the current problems they were having.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t seem it.”

“I’m just tired… I might go back to bed.”

As Harvey began to edge himself around Lottie, she reacted by clinging onto his hand and bringing him to a stop.

“Harvey…”

“What?”

“We need to talk about this. We can’t keep acting like everything isn’t a mess.”

Pausing on the spot, yet not turning around to look at Lottie, Harvey let out a long sigh.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Me neither but there is clearly something wrong. Nothing is the same anymore.”

Finally turning around, Harvey reluctantly looked Lottie in the eyes and instantly regretted it the moment he did. He could see the pain behind them. He could see how lost she felt and he could sense the loneliness she was feeling.

They weren’t acting like a couple anymore. They weren’t acting like those loved up individuals who had been the best thing that ever happened to one another anymore… and that was all because of Harvey.

Lottie had tried to hold onto what they had. She had been the one continually making effort, but she hadn’t been receiving any in return.

 “Do you even love me anymore?” Lottie exasperated, sounding breathless and that question hit Harvey hard.

He felt like his heart had just stopped. He felt like someone had taken away his voice and ability to form some kind of sentence. Instead, he just looked back at Lottie with a blank expression across his face.

“Do you? Because it really doesn’t feel like it!”

Lottie was close to tears. She was doing everything to fight them back. She didn’t want to cave in. She didn’t want to cry in front of him right now.

“Things used to be so good. I thought we’d be forever but lately you’ve been so zoned out. I don’t feel like you want to even be with me, little lone marry me.”

“Lottie…” Harvey breathed, finally finding his words. “Of course I love you.”

“Really? Because it really doesn’t feel like it anymore.” Lottie bit, agitated that he just said those words as though it was going to fix everything.

“I do, I just… I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck is going through my head. I just can’t think straight.”

“It doesn’t make any sense! You either love me or you don’t. You either want to be with me or you don’t!”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Of course it’s that simple Harvey. If you even have to think about it, then this is clearly not what you want anymore.”

Lottie saying those words out loud hurt. They hit Harvey with a sinking pain he hadn’t felt before. He’d been able to avoid announcing any feelings out loud for so long, that he’d learned to mask them. He couldn’t do that anymore and facing up to them was the most uncomfortable thing he’d ever had to experience.

“I just don’t know. But I love you, of course I do but sometimes I wonder what we’re doing. I can’t help but think we want different things and we’re not on the same page anymore.”

“Different things?” Lottie questioned, clearly confused where he was going with this. “I don’t want anything from you other than love, Harvey. I don’t expect anything. I just want to be happy with you.”

“You also want marriage.”

“And you don’t? You were the one who proposed to me! Why did you do it, if that’s not what you want?”

Sighing, Harvey ran his hands over his face in aggravation. He didn’t know where he was going with this, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was just making matters worse.

“I do want it, I did, I don’t know. I wanted to propose but I didn’t think it meant we’d jump into wedding planning. I wanted to just chill and take each day as it came without the pressure.”

“I never said we had to rush into marriage.”

“But you want to plan a wedding.”

Lottie was looking at Harvey in complete bewilderment at this point. She didn’t understand any of this. She didn’t understand what Harvey was trying to say or why he had never communicated any of this to her before now.

“Of course I want to plan a wedding, like every other person out there who is proposed to. But if you didn’t ever want to get married, then what is the point in proposing? It doesn’t make any sense to me. You’re just giving out false hope.”

“I just don’t know if I’m ready. We’re still young. I feel like we both need to live life a bit more first.”

“Alone?” Lottie asked, feeling the need to be upfront, considering Harvey was dancing around the subject.

“No… but, I don’t know. We’ve been together since we were 17. That’s 9 years without being single. We haven’t been single through the most important years when we should be figuring ourselves out. You know? We don’t know what it’s like to be without each other.”

“If you wanted to be alone to figure yourself out, then why did you propose to me? What changed you mind in a matter of 6 months?”

Harvey didn’t know what to say at this point, because he honestly didn’t know. He loved Lottie but he also loved the idea of living life for himself, rather than a relationship.

He knew that his mum and dad had met when they were teenagers. He knew that from that point onwards, they had always been a part of one another’s lives. They had committed themselves to each other and although that had worked out for them, it terrified Harvey.

He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life questioning if he should have lived for himself for a while. He didn’t want to end up looking back at his 20’s with complete regret as he knew it would only turn into resentment for the woman he was supposed to love.

He wanted to be certain of himself before he committed to a relationship. Yet he also didn’t know if he’d regret losing Lottie in the process.

She had been a huge part of his life. He didn’t know life without her.

Harvey’s mum and dad had always told him stories of times when they had almost lost each other. They had always described it as though it had been the end of their world, like losing each other was like losing apart of them. Harvey didn’t want to feel that sort of pain, but he also wasn’t his mum and dad. This was his relationship and unless he was 100% sure of what he was doing in it, then should he really be wasting his or Lottie’s time by remaining in it?

Last night with Grace had opened Harvey’s eyes to something, but it had also produced many more questions that he wasn’t ready to confront.

He didn’t understand how it was possible to love Lottie while also easily being unfaithful and hurting her. None of it made sense, yet Harvey knew for a fact that unless he figured it out soon, this was all going to come back and bite him in the arse soon enough.

“Come here.” Harvey insisted, as he held his arms open, in hope of getting Lottie to co-operate.

She held back for a moment, reluctant to give in considering they were shutting this conversation down once again.

“Please.”

Seeing the exhaustion on Harvey’s face and feeling her own need for some comfort right now, Lottie finally gave in. Giving herself over to him, she relaxed into Harvey’s warm embrace and made every effort to fully appreciate this moment. She didn’t know what was going to happen, so she wanted to make the most of this. She wanted to be able to remember what it felt like to be safely in his arms, as if her whole world wasn’t tearing down around her.