After Ever Happy (After #4) (12 page)

“You two know each other?” my party host asks.

I don’t respond. Rather, my eyes narrow in on the woman whose legs are still wrapped around Hardin’s waist. He still hasn’t made any move to remove her from him. She’s wearing only panties and a T-shirt. A plain black T-shirt.

Hardin is wearing his black sweatshirt, but I don’t see the familiar peek of a faded T-shirt collar underneath. This random girl is oblivious of the tension, focused only on the joint she just pulled from Hardin’s mouth. She even smiles at me, a clueless, obviously intoxicated smile.

I have been rendered silent. Stunned to even imagine that I know this person now before me. I don’t think I could speak even if I wanted to. I know Hardin is in a dark place right now, but seeing him like this, high and drunk and with another woman, is too much for me. It’s too fucking much, and all I can think of doing is getting as far away as possible.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Mark laughs and pulls the bottle of liquor from Hardin’s hand.

Hardin still hasn’t spoken either. He’s just staring at me like I’m a ghost, like I’m an already-forgotten memory that he never expected to have to revisit.

I turn on my heel and push through anyone who gets in my path on my way out of hell. When I make it down one flight of stairs, I lean against the wall and slide down it, out of breath. My ears are ringing and the weight of the last five minutes is crashing down on me—I don’t know how I will make it out of this building.

I listen in vain for the sound of boots slamming against the steel stairs, and each silent minute cuts deeper than the last. He didn’t even come after me. He let me see him that way and didn’t bother to chase after me with an explanation.

I don’t have any more tears to give him, not today; but it turns out that crying without tears is much more painful than with, and impossible to control. After all this, all the fights, all the laughs, all the time spent together, this is how he chooses to end it? This is how he tosses me to the side? He has so little respect for me that he’s getting high and letting that other woman touch him and wear his clothing after doing God knows what with her?

I can’t even allow myself to indulge that thought—it will cripple me. I know what I saw, but knowing and accepting are two different things.

I am good at making excuses for his behavior. I have mastered that talent in the long months of our relationship, and I have been loyal to those excuses to a fault. But now there is no excuse. Even the pain he feels from the betrayal of his mother and Christian doesn’t give him a pass to hurt me this way. I have done nothing to him to warrant what he’s doing right now. My only mistake was trying to be there for him and putting up with his displaced anger for far too long.

The humiliation and pain is transforming into anger the longer I sit in this empty staircase. It’s a heavy, thick, overbearing fucking anger—and I’m done making excuses for him. I’m done letting him do this shit and letting it go with just a simple apology and promise to change.

No. Hell no.

I’m not going out without a fight. I refuse to walk away and let him think it’s okay to treat people this way. He obviously has no regard for himself, or for me right now, and as the angry thoughts fill my head, I can’t stop my feet from pounding back up those shitty stairs and back into that hellhole of an apartment.

Pushing open the door so that it slams into someone, I make my way back to the kitchen. My anger surges further when I find Hardin still in the same exact spot, the exact same whore still attached to his back.

“No one, man. She’s just some random . . .” he’s saying to Mark.

I can barely see straight I’m so angry. Before he can register me, I grab the bottle of vodka from Hardin’s hand and throw it against the wall. It shatters, and the room falls silent. I feel detached from my body; I’m watching an angry, outrageous version of myself losing her mind, and I can’t stop her.

“What the
fuck
, Bambi?” Mark shouts.

I turn to him. “My name is Tessa!” I yell.

Hardin’s eyes close, and I watch, waiting for him to speak up, to say anything.

“Well,
Tessa.
You didn’t have to break the vodka!” Mark sarcastically replies. He’s too high to even care about the mess I made; apparently his only issue is the liquor spilt.

“I learned how to smash bottles against walls from the best.” I glare at Hardin.

“You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend now,” the skank latched onto Hardin says.

I look back and forth between Mark and the woman. There is an obvious resemblance . . . and I’ve read that letter too many damn times to not know who she is.

“Leave it to Scott to bring a crazy-ass American chick into my flat, throwing bottles and shit,” Mark says, clearly amused.

“Don’t,” Hardin says, stepping toward us.

I give him my best poker face. My chest is rising and falling with deep, panicked breaths, but my face is a mask, a front devoid of any emotion. Just like his.

“Who is this chick?” Mark asks Hardin as if I were not standing there.

Hardin dismisses me again by saying, “I already told you,” not even having the balls to look at me while degrading me in front of a room full of people.

But I’ve had enough. “What the hell is
wrong with you
?” I scream. “You think you can slum it here and smoke pot all day long to forget about your problems?”

I know how crazy I’m acting, but, for once, I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of me. I don’t give him a chance to answer before I continue. “You are so selfish! You think pushing me away and closing yourself off is good for me? You know damn well how this goes by now! You can’t last without me—you’ll just be miserable, and so will I. You aren’t doing me any good by hurting me, yet I find you like
this
?”

“You don’t know what you’re even talking about,” Hardin says, his voice low and intimidating.

“I don’t?” I throw my hands up. “She’s wearing your fucking shirt!” I scream, and point at the fucking whore, who hops down from the counter, tugging at the hem of Hardin’s shirt to cover her thighs. She’s much smaller than me and the shirt looks gigantic on her. The image will be burned into my memory until my last day, I know it will. I can feel it burning into me now, my entire body is burning, on fire with rage, and in this moment of pure, raw, fucking anger . . . it all clicks.

Everything makes sense to me now. My earlier thoughts regarding love and not giving up on the one you love couldn’t be further from the truth. I was wrong this entire time. When you love people, you don’t let them destroy you along with themselves, you don’t allow them to drag you through the mud. You try to help them, try to save them, but the moment that your love is one-sided or selfish, if you keep trying, you are a fool.

If I loved him, I wouldn’t let him ruin me, too.

I have tried and tried with Hardin. I have given him chance after chance after chance, and this time I thought everything would be fine. I actually thought this would work. I thought if I loved him enough, if I only tried harder, it could work and we could be happy.

“Why are you even here?” he asks, interrupting my epiphany.

“What? You thought I would let you get away with being a coward?” Behind the pain, the anger begins to sizzle. I’m terrified for its departure, but I almost welcome the resolve as it settles over me. For the last seven months, I have been weakened by Hardin’s words and this cycle of rejection, but now I see our volatile relationship for what it is.

Inevitable.

It’s always been inevitable, and I can’t believe that it took me all this time to see that, to accept it.

“I’ll give you one last chance to leave with me now and go back home, but if I walk out of this door without you, that will be it.”

His silence and the smug look in his impaired eyes pushes me further over the edge.

“Thought so.” I’m not even yelling anymore. There is no point. He isn’t listening. He never has. “You know what? You can have all of this, you can drink and smoke your fucking life away”—I step closer, stopping only a few feet from him—“but this is all you will ever have. So I hope you enjoy it while it lasts.”

“I will,” he responds, cutting through me. Again.

“So, if she isn’t your girlfriend . . .” Mark says to Hardin, reminding me that we aren’t alone in the room.

“I am
no one’s
girlfriend,” I snap.

My attitude seems to spur Mark further; his smile grows, and his hand moves to my back in an attempt to lead me back into the living room. “Good, it’s settled, then.”

“Get off of her!” Hardin’s hands push against Mark’s back, not hard enough to knock him down, but with enough force to push him away from me. “Outside, now!” Hardin snaps while walking past me through the living room and out the door. I follow him out into the hallway and slam the door behind me.

He tugs at his hair, his temper rising. “What the fuck was that?”

“What was
what
? Me calling you out on your shit? You think you can just shove a plane ticket and a key chain into a suitcase and I’ll go away?” I shove at his chest, pushing him against the wall. I almost apologize, I almost feel guilty for pushing him, but when I look up into his dilated eyes, every trace of remorse dissolves. He reeks of pot and liquor; there’s no hint of the Hardin I love.

“I’m so fucking lost in my own head right now that I can’t think straight, let alone give you a fucking explanation for the thousandth goddamn time!” he yells, slamming a fist into the cheap drywall, cracking it.

I have witnessed this scene one too many times. This one will be the last. “You didn’t even try! I did nothing wrong!”

“What more do you need, Tessa? Do you need me to fucking spell it for you? Get out of here—go back where you belong! You have no business in this place, you don’t fit in.” By the time he gets to the last word, his voice is neutral—soft, even. Disinterested, almost.

I don’t have any fight left in me. “Are you happy now? You win, Hardin. You win yet again. You always do, though, don’t you?”

He turns, looking me straight in the eyes. “You know that better than anyone, wouldn’t you say?”

I
don’t know how I manage to make it to Heathrow on time, but I do.

Kimberly gives me a goodbye hug when she drops me off, I think. I do remember Smith just watching me, calculating something unknowable.

And here I sit on the plane, next to an empty seat, with an empty mind, and an empty heart. I couldn’t have been more wrong about Hardin, and that really does just go to show that people can only change themselves, no matter how hard you try. They have to want it as bad as you do or there is no hope.

It’s impossible to change people who have their mind set on who they are. You can’t support them enough to make up for their low expectations, and you can’t love them enough to make up for the hate they feel for themselves.

It’s a losing battle, and finally after all this time, I am ready to surrender.

J
ames’s voice rings in my ear, and his bare foot is rubbing against my cheek. “Dude! Get up. Carla’s almost here, and you’re hogging the only bathroom.”

“Fuck off,” I groan, closing my eyes again. If I
could
move, what I would do is break his toes.

“Scott, get the fuck up. You can crash on the couch, but you’re a fucking giant and I need to piss and at least attempt to brush my teeth.” His toes press against my forehead, and I attempt to sit up. My body feels like a fucking bag of bricks, and my eyes and throat burn.

“He’s alive!” James calls.

“Shut the fuck up.” I cover my ears and walk past him into the living room. Empty beer bottles and red cups are being tossed into trash bags by a half-naked Janine and an overenthusiastic Mark.

“So, how was the bathroom floor?” Mark lilts through the cigarette between his lips.

“It was ace.” I roll my eyes and sit down on the couch.

“You were fucking
wrecked
,” he says quite proudly. ‘When was the last time you drank like that?”

“I don’t know.” I rub my temples, and Janine hands me a cup. I shake my head, but she pushes it closer.

“It’s only water.”

“I’m fine.” I don’t mean to be a dick to her, but, fuck, she’s annoying.

“You were so fucked-up,” Mark says. “I thought that American . . . what was her name, Trisha?” My heart pounds in my chest at the mention of her name, even if he got it wrong. “I thought she was going to tear the place down! She was a feisty little thing.”

Images of Tessa screaming at me, throwing a bottle against the wall, and walking away from me flood my memory. The weight of the pain in her eyes presses me farther into the couch, and I feel like I’m going to get sick again.

It’s for the best.

It is.

Janine rolls her eyes. “Little? I wouldn’t say she was little.”

“I
know
you’re not insulting her looks,” I say coolly, despite the burning urge to throw the cup of water in Janine’s face. If Janine thinks she’s anywhere near as beautiful as Tessa, she’s been snorting more cocaine than I thought.

“She’s not as skinny as me.”

One more bitchy comment, Janine, and I’ll tear your self-confidence to shreds.

“Sis, no offense, but that chick was way hotter than you. That’s probably why Hardin is so in loo-ove.” Mark draws out the last word.

“In
love
? Please! He kicked her ass out of here last night.” Janine laughs, and the knife twists in my stomach.

“I’m not—” I can’t even finish the sentence with a steady voice. “Don’t bring her up again. I’m not fucking around,” I threaten the pair.

Janine mumbles something under her breath, and Mark chuckles while emptying an ashtray into a trash bag. I lay my head against the cushion behind my back and close my eyes. I’m not going to be able to be sober, ever. Not if I want this pain to go away; not if I have to sit here with a hollowed-out fucking chest.