Nothing about the escape from the woman's apartment was easy. Every step he took, he wanted to back peddle. She was right there in his arms the whole night they were together. After he had tried to leave the bar that evening, Harry's nerves got to him. His heart ached to leave the woman after she kissed him.

When Gerald found the box of mementos, and after the last meeting they had together. Harold ventured back down the road, left untaken.

His fiancé had no idea what he had done, knowing Tanya was seeking him out. It made everything flood back into his senses, everything he thought he had forgotten.

The journal was his first step, reading the short entries about how they were sneaking out together.

11/20

"She called me tonight, and all I could think about was her hands in my hair the last time we were together. Nothing she said felt like a lasting moment. Tanya wants me to come over with her husband away on business, and I keep picturing the moment he finds out about it all. I'll never have those subtle moments again if he does."

Harry sets the leather book down as he goes after a picture in the old shoe box. The image was of the brunette in a red evening gown at a party he had never been to. Tanya had given it to him one evening they were together; he stared at the image of the woman and could remember exactly why he wanted the picture.

"That's the look you give me.."

"Hm, what are you talking about, Harry?"

"When you are clear on the verge of giving into us, that's the look. It's how you look when.." The man didn't know how to explain it; he just turned to look over at Tanya. "It's the look."

Tanya comes over and takes the picture frame that the man is holding. She stares at it was a good minute before she frowns. "This was the night of my birthday; I was standing next to Alan when I thought I saw someone in the crowd." Bright looks at the woman with slight concern.

"Who did you believe you saw?"

She smiles weakly before her eyes come up to the taller man. "You."

When Harry turned back to the bar, everything told him not to go back inside. His body still rushes back as he finds the woman near the barkeep she had been flirting with the moment before she went to his table. "Scotch, double." He says, standing; right beside her as she was onto her next martini of the evening.

"You know why I'm here, and you know why I can't leave you here...and I am, to be very honest, I want nothing more than for you to tell me that you want me now more than ever."

Tanya's brow arched as her head turned to the Englishman. "You're a bit more forthcoming than normal, Harry."

"Well, it's either me or William here...but I can just have my drink and go home." When the bartender sets the glass in front of Harold Bright, he grabs the item and downs the brown liquid without question. "Another." He says, tapping the bar before huffing only in the slightest.

"Do you need to drink to be with me?"

"No, I need you to make up your mind."

"I'm not leaving with you if you're going to drink like this."

When the next glass is poured, Harry doesn't take it.

Instead, his eyes turn to Tanya before he shifts to face her. "You're the only thing stopping me from marrying Gerald, even before you came back into my life." The woman stares at him, contemplating the next thing out of her mouth.

"My apartment is a few blocks from here." She says to him, and he nods at first in response. "So is mine." They wouldn't be going back to his apartment, not with Gerald being home. Tanya taps the wood near Harry's glass to give him the signal he can drink it. As she finishes her drink, the man does the same as she turns to leave.

If he knows anything about the woman, the blonde has a tab, and he follows her after the glass is empty.

The rest of the night was an intense blur of emotions. As soon as they got outside, the couple was on each other.

Aware, of very little around them at first as they made their way across the city streets. Every so often, they would stop and kiss, hug, and feel each other in ways they hadn't in far too long. People were staring as they passed them by in a crosswalk. It was enough to make Tanya feel self-conscious and worried.

"Slow down.." She whispers but doesn't let him go as she's leaned against him. "Someone might see us."

They were very near the woman's apartment when she said these words. "You've had your tongue down my throat several times these last few blocks, but now we have to slow down?" He was teasing.

Harry stopped kissing her neck and just kept an arm around her as they went. In his mind, he keeps thinking about Tanya's husband and Gerald. They were both gay; both desired marriage and hoped to be with the right one. If only they were to trade lives, Harry could have married the woman and Gerald with her husband.

"Harry?"

Bright was so lost; in his thoughts, he hadn't realized they had made it. "We're here; you're not second-guessing this, are you?" His head shakes before he gives the woman a soft smile.

"Not in the slightest."

Harry could remember the anxious look on Tanya's face before they ended up in bed. They both shared a glass of scotch and reminisced in her living room. She brought up the night that they; were prepared to leave on a plane to London. He retorted with the time he sang 'Crazy World' to her in just a bed sheet on her couch.

It was clear they both always had one another in the back of their mind. So much so that the scotch they shared was one of Harry's favorites. One that Tanya had told him she hated for the longest time.

That's what hurts the most about leaving that morning, having been so close yet still so far apart.

"Gerald.."

Harry arrived at his apartment at about 5:15 am. He had taken a cab back home that morning though he hadn't thought much about being so late home.

As Bright called out, he didn't hear a response, but he did hear something of feet shifting in his bedroom. Something about that seemed off, Gerald had to be home, but he wasn't speaking to him. "Gerry?" A loud thump is heard before someone shouts.

"Fuck!"

Harold rushed to the bedroom door to open it and flip on the light switch. Gerald was there in bed naked under their sheets while a man attempted to open and leave out a window. It took a moment for reality to set in before Harry sighed.

"The fire escape is in the living room, you twat."

It was the only thing Bright said before making his way across the room to leave into the bathroom. The door slammed behind him for dramatic effect on Harry's part. As much as he wanted to admit it, he was relieved. Bright wasn't the only one who had fucked up, which meant he was hurting on all sides.

Now knew eventually he was going to lose Tanya again down the line, and now he would also lose Gerry.

The next step he was taking wouldn't be the easiest one. Even if it meant he might be alone for the rest of his life, or married to someone he didn't love.