Chapter 6 – Harrison Confesses

"So how did the job interview go?" asked Tru when she finally caught up with Harrison at the park later that morning. This was not good she thought to herself, she was stalling again.

"Not bad," he answered.

"So how are things with you and Cassie?" Tru asked, determined to stop stalling and to get this over and done with.

"Great, couldn't be better," Harrison replied with a wide grin.

"So no problems between you two then?" Tru subtly questioned.

"Nah, we're good," he answered.

Okay, thought Tru with a frown, subtle wasn't going to do it. Time to just come out with it and ask.

"So when were you going to tell me you aren't really dating?" There, she thought, straight to the point.

"Huh?" Harrison stopped walking and turned to Tru, his mouth hanging open. "Aren't you going to tell me about her two-timing me?" he blurted when he finally found his voice.

"I did that yesterday," Tru answered with a roll of her eyes. "You were heartbroken, or at least you played the part to perfection. I should've known at the time you were faking but I guess either I'm slipping or you're getting better at lying."

"Oh," Harrison said, at a loss for words for the moment. "I guess you're a bit upset?" he tentatively asked.

"A bit?" Tru exclaimed. "I threw a bowl of soup over her!"

"Yeah, so I heard," Harrison laughed. "She's not mad at you, you know."

"I know," Tru sighed. "But really. What possessed you to pretend to date someone?"

"Does it matter?" Harrison mumbled.

"Yes, it does," Tru countered. "I want to know why you felt you had to lie to me. Why you thought you had to invent a girlfriend."

Harrison remained silent. Tru waited a moment before pressing on. "Come on Harry, you know you can tell me anything. What made you do this?"

Harrison walked over to the bench at the side of the path and sank down onto it. Tru sat down beside him and gave him a quick one armed hug. He drew in a deep breath and launched into the explanation of how he had wound up with a fake girlfriend.

"You remember the party you held when Lindsay and her husband came back for the visit?"

"Sure," answered Tru. "That was the first time you introduced us to Cassie."

"It was also our first 'date'." Harrison paused and waited for the inevitable.

"But you said you had been dating for a few weeks?" Tru questioned.

Harrison shrugged in response. "I wanted Lindsay to think I was over her. I wanted to show her she was replaceable. I don't know..." he faltered. "I wanted her to be jealous."

"So you decided to ask Cassie to the party and made everything else up for Lindsay's benefit?" Things were starting to become clearer.

"Actually it wasn't my idea," Harrison insisted. "Beth at the diner was the one who came up with the plan."

"Cassie's friend." Tru nodded.

"You know her?" Harrison asked in surprise.

"Not exactly," Tru waved a hand. "Carry on."

"Well, I'd told Beth what the problem was and she suggested getting a date for the party. When I told her I didn't want to get tied up in another relationship just yet, that's when she suggested taking Cassie. She was new in town, just finished design school out of the State and didn't know anyone round here. Said she'd just got out of another relationship herself and we could go as friends."

"If that's the case why did you lie to us?" Tru asked, getting more and more exasperated by the minute.

"Because of what you said before the party. About being worried about me." Harrison looked across at Tru and waited for her reaction.

"I never told you I was worried about you," said Tru. "I told Lindsay when we were getting things ready, and...you heard?"

Harrison nodded. "I'm your brother, I'm supposed to look out for you. Instead you're worrying about me and I didn't want to be an additional problem for you. You've got enough of your own to deal with. It was just that hearing you talk like that I realised that if I had a new girlfriend then you wouldn't be worrying about me so much. So I talked Cassie into pretending to be a real date for the night. Then you invited us to that function at the hospital, and then there was Meredith's birthday party, and after that things kind of got out of hand." He finished in a rush and stood up and started to pace a little.

"Oh Harry," Tru sighed. "How is it that I can catch you in a complete web of lies and you can still make me feel like it is all my fault?" She gave a small laugh.

"I didn't mean it to go this far." Harrison sounded as sincere as Tru had ever known him to be.

"Well at least now I know and next time I see Cassie on a date I'll know not to thrown things over her." Tru laughed and stood up. Hooking her arm through Harrison's they carried on walking along the path.

"She'll be pleased about that," Harrison laughed. "She has been pestering me to tell you the truth for weeks. I bet that yesterday... when I spoke to her after you told me about her date...I'll bet that she just told me to use it as an excuse to bring things to an end."

"I think perhaps she might have," Tru agreed, remembering her conversation over the phone with Harrison. She remembered him sounding far more down after speaking with Cassie. It made her wonder if perhaps Cassie was wrong, and that Harrison might be stopping by the diner again after all.

"Tru?" Harrison asked in a very casual sounding voice. Tru frowned for an instant; did he sound just a shade too casual? "Did Cassie look happy last night?"

"I'd just thrown a bowl of soup over her," Tru reminded him. "She was hardly ecstatic."

"I meant before then?" Harrison asked. "On her date?"

Interesting, Tru thought. "She looked happy enough," she answered cautiously.

"What was he like?" Harrison questioned, again in the same overly casual tone.

Tru turned away to hide her smile before replying. "He looked quite pleasant, a businessman from the look of him. Not very happy after I'd interfered though."

"You don't think she'll be seeing him again then?" asked Harrison hopefully.

"I doubt it." Tru shook her head. For someone who was not actually dating the woman her brother was showing a remarkably jealous interest in her date the previous evening. "He's not her type," she added with another hidden smile.

"Why didn't you get the details from her this morning?" she asked curiously. Better steer the subject away from Cassie's type before she said too much.

"I don't know," Harrison admitted. "I wanted to, but..."

"You didn't want to sound jealous?" Tru guessed.

Harrison nodded. "It's not like we're actually dating," he pointed out. "Hey wait a minute!" He suddenly stopped walking. "How did you know I saw her this morning?"

"I was there," Tru confessed, realising that in hearing about the tangled mess of her brother's love life she had actually forgotten the reason she was there at all.

"You were at the diner? How did you know she worked there? Did she say anything about her date after I left? Did she mention me?"

"Yes I was at the diner," Tru answered. "No she didn't mention her date, yes she did mention you." She paused unsure how to break the news about how she knew to go there.

"What did she say about me?" Harrison asked.

"You'll have to ask her yourself," Tru replied with a shake of her head. "Do you want to know how I know she worked there?" she asked in a small voice, half hoping he would say no, knowing that he would say yes.

"Sure," Harrison grinned. "How did you figure us out?"

"I didn't," Tru said guiding Harrison over to another bench and sitting down. "You know what today is?"

"Yeah, a rewind day." Harrison shrugged. "So you figured it out yesterday?"

"Not exactly," Tru hesitated. "Cassie asked me for help."

"What sort of help?" Harrison asked before realisation dawned. He paled slightly. "You mean Cassie is the reason you're re-living the day?"

Tru nodded. Harrison leapt up from the bench. "Well come on Tru, what're you sitting here for? We have to go find her. We won't let her out of our sight."

Tru watched her brother hurry down the path and jumped up to follow after him. Any doubts in her mind about how Harrison felt about his fake girlfriend vanished at the look of horror on his face as he realised that it was her life that was at stake that day.