After Ever Happy (After #4) (17 page)

Carol’s voice is hard. “How did you get here? You were in London.”

“It’s called a fucking plane, that’s how.”

She rolls her eyes. “Just because you fly across the world and show up before the sun comes up doesn’t mean you have a place with her,” she says, seething. “She made that clear—why won’t you leave her? You’re only hurting her, and I won’t continue to stand around and allow it.”

“I don’t need your approval.”

“She doesn’t need you,” Carol fires back, grabbing the glass from my hand as if it were a loaded gun. She slams it onto the counter and meets my eyes.

“I know you don’t like me, but I love her. I make mistakes—way too fucking many of them—but, Carol, if you think I’m going to leave her with you after she saw what she saw, experienced what she experienced, then you’re even crazier than I thought.” I pick the glass back up just to spite her and take another drink.

“She will be fine,” Carol remarks coolly. She pauses for a minute, and something inside her seems to crack. “People die, and she will get over it!”

She says it loudly. Too loudly: I hope that Tessa couldn’t hear her mother’s cold remark.

“You’re serious? She’s your fucking
daughter
, and he was your
husband
 . . .” I trail off, remembering the two weren’t actually legally married. “She’s hurting, and you’re being a heartless bitch, which is exactly why I won’t leave her here with you. Landon shouldn’t have let you come get her in the first place!”

Carol cocks her head back indignantly. “
Let
me? She’s my daughter.”

The glass in my hand shakes and the water laps over the side and onto the floor. “Maybe you should act like it, then, and try to be there for her!”

“Be there for her? Who’s here for me?” Her emotionless voice cracks, and I’m shocked when the woman who I was convinced was made of stone crumbles and leans against the counter to keep herself from falling to the floor. Tears roll down her face, which is heavily made-up despite that it’s only five in the morning. “I didn’t see that man for years . . . He left us! He left me after making promise after promise of a good life!” Her hands swipe across the counter, knocking jars of utensils to the floor. “He lied—he lied to me—and he left Tessa and ruined my entire life! I could never even look at another man after Richard Young, and he left us!” she screams.

When she grasps my shoulder and digs her head into my chest, sobbing and screaming, for a flash she looks so much like the girl I love that I can’t bring myself to push her away. Not knowing what else to do, I wrap one arm around her and stay silent.

“I wished for this—I wished he would die,” she admits through her tears. I can hear the shame in her voice. “I used to wait for him, I used to tell myself that he would come back for us. For years I did this, and now that he’s dead, I can’t even pretend anymore.”

We stay this way for a long time, her crying into my chest, telling me in different ways with different words that she hates herself because she’s glad that he’s dead. I can’t find words to comfort this woman, but for the first time since I met her, I can see the broken woman behind the mask.

A
fter a few minutes of sitting with me, Noah gets up, stretches, and says, “I’m going to get you something to drink. You need food, too.”

My fists wrap around his shirt, and I shake my head, begging him not to leave me alone.

He sighs. “You’ll get sick if you don’t eat something soon,” he says, but I know I’ve won the battle. Noah has never been one to hold his ground.

The last thing I want is something to drink or to eat. I only want one thing: for
him
to leave and never come back.

“I think your mom is giving Hardin an earful.” Noah attempts a smile but fails.

I hear her yelling, and something crashes in the distance, but I refuse to let Noah leave me alone in the room. If I’m left alone, he will come in. That’s what he does, he preys on people when they are at their weakest. Especially me, who has been weak since the day I met him. I lay my head back on my pillow and block out everything—my mother screaming, the deep, accented voice yelling back at her, and even Noah’s comforting whispers in my ear.

I close my eyes and drift between nightmares and reality, trying to decide which is worse.

WHEN I WAKE UP AGAIN,
the sun is bright through the thin curtains tacked over the windows. My head is pounding, my mouth is dry, and I’m alone in the room. Noah’s tennis shoes are on the floor, and after a moment of peaceful confusion, the weight of the last twenty hours knocks the breath out of me, and I bury my face in my hands.

He was here. He was here, but Noah and my mother helped—

“Tessa,” his voice says, startling me out of my thoughts.

I want to pretend this is a phantom, but I know it’s not. I can
feel
his presence here. I refuse to look up at him as I hear him enter the room.
Why is he here? Why does he think he can toss me aside, then swoop back in when it’s convenient?
That’s not happening anymore. I’ve already lost him and my father, and I don’t need either loss shoved in my face right now.

“Get out,” I say. The sun disappears, hiding behind the clouds. Even the sun doesn’t want to be near him.

When I feel the bed shift under his weight, I hold my ground and try to hide the shiver that passes through me.

“Have some water.” A cold glass is pressed against my hand, but I swat it away. I don’t even flinch when I hear it fall to the floor. “Tess, look at me.” Then his hands are on me—icy, his touch almost foreign—and I jerk away.

As much as I want to crawl into his lap and let him comfort me, I don’t. And I won’t, not ever again. Even with my mind in the place it is now, I know that I won’t ever let him in again. I can’t, and I won’t.

“Here.” Hardin hands me another glass of water, from the bedside table, this one not as cold.

Instinctively I grab it. I don’t know why, but his name echoes in my mind. I didn’t want to hear his name, not in my own head, that’s the only place I am safe from him.

“You’ll drink some water,” he softly demands.

I stay silent as bring the glass to my lips. I don’t have the energy to refuse the water out of spite, and I am beyond thirsty. I finish the entire glass within seconds, my eyes never leaving the wall.

“I know you’re angry at me, but I just want to be here for you,” he lies.

Everything he says is a lie—always has been, always will be. I stay quiet, a low snort coming from my mouth at his claim.

“The way you acted when you saw me last night . . .” he begins. I can feel his eyes on me, but I refuse to look at him. “The way you screamed . . . Tessa, I’ve never felt pain like that—”

“Stop it,” I snap. My voice doesn’t sound like my voice, and I begin to wonder if I’m even awake right now, or if this is another nightmare.

“I just want to know that you’re not afraid of me. You aren’t, are you?”

“This
isn’t about you
,” I manage. And it’s true, absolutely true. He’s tried to make this about him—his pain—but this is about my father’s death and that I can’t take any more heartache.

“Fuck.” He sighs, and I just know that he’s running his hands over his hair. “I know it’s not. That’s not what I meant. I’m worried about you.”

I close my eyes and hear thunder in the distance.
He’s worried about me?
If he was so worried about me, maybe he shouldn’t have sent me back to America alone. I wish I hadn’t made it home; I wish something had happened to me on the trip back—so
he
could deal with the loss of
me
.

Then again, he probably wouldn’t want to be bothered. He would be too busy getting high. He wouldn’t even notice.

“You aren’t yourself, baby.”

I begin to shake at the use of the sick nickname.

“You need to talk about this, everything with your dad. It will make you feel better.” His voice is too loud, and the rain is pounding against the old roof. I wish it would just cave in and let the storm outside sweep me away.

Who is this person sitting here with me? I sure as hell don’t know him, and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I should talk about my father? Who the hell is he to sit here and act like he cares about me, like he could help me? I don’t need help. I need silence.

“I don’t want you here.”

“Yes, you do. You’re just mad at me right now because I acted like an asshole and I fucked up.”

The pain I should feel isn’t there, nothing is. Not even when my mind flashes with the images of his hand on my thigh as we drive in his car, his lips gently sliding over mine, my fingers threading through his thick hair. Nothing.

I feel nothing as the pleasant memories are replaced with ones of fists flying through drywall and that woman wearing his shirt. He slept with her only days ago. Nothing. I feel nothing, and it feels so good to finally feel nothing, to finally have control over my emotions. I’m realizing, as I stare at the wall, that I don’t have to feel anything I don’t want to. I don’t have to remember anything I don’t want to. I can forget it all and never allow the memories to cripple me again.

“I’m not.” I don’t clarify the words, and he tries to touch me again. I don’t move. I bite my cheek, wanting to scream again, but not wanting to give him the satisfaction. The calming ease that sweeps over me from his fingers on mine proves just how weak I am, right after I’d just settled on a path of perfect numbness.

“I’m sorry about Richard, I know how—”

“No.” I pull my hand away. “No, you don’t get to do this. You don’t get to come here and pretend like you’re here to help me when you’re the one who has hurt me the most. I won’t tell you again.” I know my voice is flat—I hear it sounding as unconvincing and as empty as I feel inside. “Get out.”

My throat hurts from speaking so much; I don’t want to talk anymore. I just want him to go away, and I want to be left alone. I focus on the wall again, not allowing my mind to taunt me with images of my father’s dead body. Everything is messing with me, fucking with my mind, and threatening the tiny bit of reason left inside me. I’m grieving two deaths now, and it’s tearing me apart piece by tiny piece.

Pain isn’t remotely kind in that way: pain wants its promised pound of flesh, ounce for ounce. It won’t settle until you’re left with nothing but a flaky shell of who you were. The burn of betrayal and the sting of rejection hurt, but nothing compares to the pain of being empty. Nothing hurts worse than not hurting at all, and that that makes no sense and perfect sense at the same time convinces me I’m going fucking crazy.

And I’m actually okay with that.

“Do you want me to get you something to eat?”

Did he not hear me? Does he not understand that I don’t want him here?
It’s impossible to think that he can’t hear the chaos inside my mind.

“Tessa,” he presses when I don’t respond. I need him to get away from me. I don’t want to look into those eyes, I don’t want to hear any more promises that will be broken when he begins to let his self-hatred take over again.

My throat burns—it hurts so bad—but I yell for the person who really cares: “Noah!”

As soon as I do, he’s rushing through the bedroom door, looking determined to be the force of nature that will finally move the immovable Hardin out of my room, out of my life. Noah stands in front of me and looks at Hardin, who I finally spare a glance at. “I told you if she called for me, that was it.”

Instantly moving from soft to enraged, Hardin’s shooting bullets at Noah, and I know he’s trying hard to rein in his temper. There’s something on his hand . . . a cast? I look again, and sure enough, a black cast covers his hand and wrist.

“Let’s get something clear,” Hardin says as he stands and looks down at Noah. “I’m trying not to upset her, and that’s the only reason I haven’t snapped your fucking neck. So don’t push your luck.”

In my damaged, chaotic mind, I can see my father’s head snapping back, jaw popping open. I just want silence. I want silence in my ears, and I need silence in my mind.

I start gagging as the image multiplies as their voices get louder, angrier, and my body begs me to just let it all go, to just let everything out of my stomach. The problem is that there’s nothing inside me but water, and so acid burns my throat when I vomit onto my old comforter.

“Fuck!” Hardin exclaims. “Get out, damn it!” He shoves at Noah’s chest with one hand, and Noah stumbles back, bracing himself against the frame of the door.

“You get out! You’re not even wanted here!” Noah fires back and rushes forward, pushing Hardin.

Neither of them notice as I stand from the bed and wipe vomit from my mouth with one sleeve. Because all either of them can see is red and their infinite “loyalty” to me, I make it out of the room, down the hall, and out the front door without either of them noticing.

F
uck you!” My cast connects with Noah’s jaw, and he rears back, spitting blood.

He doesn’t stop, though. He charges me again and knocks me to the floor. “You son of a bitch!” he yells.

I roll on top of him. If I don’t stop now, Tessa will hate me even more than she already does. I can’t stand this asshole, but she cares for him, and if I do any real damage to him, she will never forgive me. I manage to get to my feet and put some distance between this fucking newfound linebacker and myself.

“Tessa . . .” I start and turn to the bed, but my stomach drops when I find it empty. A wet stain from her getting sick is the only evidence that she was there at all.

Without a glance at Noah, I stalk down the hallway, calling her name.
How could I be so stupid? When will I stop being such a fuckup?

“Where is she?” Noah asks from behind me, following me like a suddenly lost puppy.

Carol is still asleep on the couch. She hasn’t moved from the spot I laid her in last night after she fell asleep in my arms. The woman may hate my fucking guts, but I couldn’t deny her comfort when she needed it.