After Ever Happy (After #4) (34 page)

Fuck.
I text Vance again, this time telling him to get his ass home—
now.

“Yeah, I do know. It’s not fair the way that works.” I hate that she’s feeling this way. She’s a good person, the best I’ve ever met, and she somehow ended up being surrounded by a bunch of fuckups, me included. Who am I kidding? I’m the worst offender.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be a g-good person anymore.”

What? No. No, no, no.
She shouldn’t be talking like this, thinking like this.

“No, don’t think like that.” I wave an impatient hand at Karen, who is standing in the doorway of the kitchen—wondering where I am running off to this late, I’m sure.

“I try not to, but I can’t help it. I don’t know how to stop.”

“What happened today?” It’s hard to believe that I’m talking to my Tessa, the same girl who always sees the best in everyone—herself, too. She has always been so positive, so happy, and now she’s not.

She sounds so hopeless, so defeated.

She sounds like me.

My blood runs cold in my veins. I knew this would happen; I knew she wouldn’t be the same after I got my claws into her. I somehow knew that after me she would be different.

I hoped it wouldn’t be true, but tonight it sure as hell seems that way.

“Nothing important,” she lies.

Vance still hasn’t answered me. He
better
be driving home.

“Tessa, tell me what’s wrong. Please.”

“Nothing. Just karma catching up to me, I guess,” she mumbles, and the sound of a cork’s being popped echoes through the silence on the line.

“Karma for what? Are you insane? You’ve never done anything to deserve any of the shit that’s happened to you.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“Tessa, I think you should stop drinking for the night. I’m on my way to Seattle. I know you need space, but I’m getting worried about you and I . . . well, I can’t stay away, I never could.”

“Yeah . . .” She isn’t even listening.

“I don’t like you drinking this much anymore,” I say, knowing she won’t hear me.

“Yeah . . .”

“I’m on my way. Get a bottle of water. Okay?”

“Yeah . . . a little bottle . . .”

THE DRIVE TO SEATTLE
has never seemed this fucking long, and because of the distance between us, I finally see it, this cycle that Tessa always bitches about. It’s a cycle that ends here—this is the last damn time I’ll be driving to another city to be close to her. No more endless fucking bullshit. No more running from my problems, and no more fucking excuses. No more long-ass drives across the damn state of Washington because I ran far away.

I
’ve called forty-nine times.

Forty-nine fucking times.

Forty-nine.

Do you know how many rings that is?

A fucking lot.

Too many to count, or at least I can’t think clearly enough to count them. But if I could, it would be a
massive
amount of fucking rings.

If I make it through the next three minutes, I plan on ripping the front door off the damn hinges and smashing Tessa’s phone—the one she apparently doesn’t know how to answer—against the wall.

Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t smash her phone against the wall. Maybe I’ll accidently step on it a few times until the screen cracks under my weight.

Maybe.

She’s going to get a goddamn earful, that’s for fucking sure. I haven’t heard from her in the last couple hours, and she has no fucking idea how torturous the last few hours of driving have been. I go twenty over the speed limit to make it to Seattle as fast as possible.

When I near the place, it’s three in the damn morning, and Tessa, Vance, and Kimberly are all on my shit list. Maybe I should smash all three of their phones, since they obviously have forgotten how to answer the fucking things.

As I reach the gate, I begin to panic, even more than I already have been.
What if they decided to close their security gate? What If they changed the code?

Do I even remember the fucking code? Of course not. Will they answer when I call to ask the code? Of course not.

What if they aren’t answering because something happened to Tessa and they took her to the hospital and she isn’t okay and they don’t have service and . . .

But then I see the gate is open, and I’m a little annoyed by that, too.
Why wouldn’t Tessa turn on the security system when she’s here alone?

As I drive up the winding road, I see that hers is the only car parked in front of the massive house. Good to know that Vance is here when I need him . . . Some fucking friend he is. Father, not friend. Fuck—right now he’s neither, really.

When I step out of my car and approach the front door, my anger and anxiety grow. The way she was talking, the way she sounded . . . it was like she wasn’t in control of her own actions.

The door is unlocked—of course it is—and I make my way through the living room and down the hall. Hands shaking, I push the door to her bedroom open, and my chest tightens when I find her bed empty. It’s not only empty, it’s untouched—perfectly made, the corners folded in that way that’s impossible to re-create. I’ve tried it—it’s impossible to make a bed like Tessa can.

“Tessa!” I call as I walk into the bathroom across the hall. I keep my eyes closed as I turn the light on. Not hearing anything, I open my eyes.

Nothing.

My breath is released in a heavy pant, and I move to the next room.
Where the fuck is she?

“Tess!” I yell again, louder this time.

After searching nearly the entire fucking mansion, I can barely breathe. Where is she? The only rooms left are Vance’s bedroom and a locked room upstairs. I’m not sure if I want to open that door . . .

I’ll check the patio and yard, and if she’s not there, I have no fucking clue what I will do.

“Theresa! Where the hell are you? This isn’t funny, I swear—” I stop yelling as I take in the curled-up ball on the patio lounge chair.

Approaching, I see that Tessa’s knees are tucked up to her stomach and her arms are wrapped around her chest, as if she fell asleep while trying to hold herself together.

All of my anger is dissolved when I kneel down beside her. I push her blond hair away from her face and will myself not to burst into fucking hysterics now that I know she’s okay. Fuck, I was so worried about her.

With my pulse racing, I lean into her and run my thumb along her bottom lip. I don’t know why I did that, actually; it just sort of happened, but I sure as hell don’t regret it when her eyes flutter open and she groans.

“Why are you outside?” I ask, my voice loud and strained.

She winces, clearly put off by the volume of my words.

Why aren’t you inside? I’ve been worried fucking sick for you, going over every possible scenario in my head for hours now,
I want to say.

“Thank God you were asleep” comes out instead. “I’ve been calling you, I was worried about you.”

She sits up, holding her neck as if her head might fall off. “Hardin?”

“Yes, Hardin.”

She squints in the dark and rubs her neck. When she moves to stand, an empty bottle of wine falls to the concrete patio and cracks in half.

“Sorry,” she apologizes, bending down to try to pick up the broken glass.

I gently push her hand away and wrap my fingers around hers. “Don’t touch that. I’ll get it later. Let’s get inside.” I help her stand.

“How’d . . . you get . . . here?” Her speech is stunted, and I don’t even want to know how much wine she drank after the line went dead. I saw at least four empty bottles in the kitchen.

“I drove, how else?”

“All the way here? What time is it?”

My eyes follow down her body, her body that’s covered in only a T-shirt. My T-shirt.

She notices my stare and begins to tug at the ends of the shirt to cover her bare thighs. “I only w-wear it . . .” She trails off, stuttering. “I’m only wearing it now, just once,” she says, making little to no sense at all.

“It’s fine, I want you to wear it. Let’s get inside.”

“I like it out here,” she quietly says, staring off into the darkness.

“It’s too cold. We’re going inside.” I reach for her hand, but she pulls away. “Okay, okay, if you want to stay out here, that’s okay. But I’m staying with you,” I say, redirecting my demand.

She nods and leans against the railing; her knees are shaking and her face is colorless.

“What happened tonight?”

She stays silent, still staring.

After a moment she turns to me. “Don’t you ever feel like your life has turned into one big joke?”

“Daily.” I shrug, unsure where the hell this conversation is going, but hating the sadness behind her eyes. Even in the dark the sadness burns low, blue and deep, haunting those bright eyes that I love so much.

“Well, me, too.”

“No, you are the positive one here. The happy one. I’m the cynical asshole, not you.”

“It’s exhausting being happy, you know?”

“Not really.” I take a step closer to her. “I’m not really the poster child for sunshine and happiness, in case you haven’t noticed,” I say, trying to lighten the mood, and I’m granted a half-drunk, half-amused smile.

I wish she would just tell me what is going on with her lately. I don’t know how much I can do for her, but this is my fault—all of this is my fault. The unhappiness inside her is my burden to bear, not hers.

She lifts her arm to rest it on the wooden plank in front of her but misses and stumbles, nearly smacking face-first into the umbrella attached to a patio table.

I wrap my hand around her elbow to steady her, and she begins to lean into me. “Could we go inside now? You need to sleep off all the wine you’ve had.”

“I don’t remember falling asleep.”

“That’s probably because it’s more like you passed out than fell asleep.” I point to the broken wine bottle a few feet away.

“Don’t try and scold me,” she snaps, and backs away.

“I’m not.” My hands rise in innocence, and I want to scream because of the irony of this whole fucking situation. Tessa’s the drunk one, and I’m the sober voice of reason.

“I’m sorry.” She sighs. “I can’t think.” I watch as she lowers herself to the ground and brings her knees to her chest again. She raises her head to look up at me. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course.”

“And you’ll be completely honest?”

“I’ll try.”

She seems to be okay with that, and I sit down on the edge of the chair closest to where she is on the ground. I’m slightly afraid of what she wants to talk about, but I need to know what’s going on with her, so I wait with my mouth shut for her to speak.

“Sometimes I feel like everyone else gets what I want,” she mumbles, embarrassed.

Tessa
would
feel guilty for saying the way she feels . . .

I can barely make out her words when she says, “It’s not that I’m not happy for them . . .” But I can all-too-clearly see the tears gathering in her eyes.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out what the hell she’s talking about, though Kimberly and Vance’s engagement pops into my mind. “Is this about Kimberly and Vance? Because if it is, you shouldn’t want what they have. He’s a liar and a cheater and . . .” I stop before finishing the sentence with something horrible.

“He loves her. So much, though,” Tessa murmurs. Her fingers trace patterns against the concrete under her.

“I love you more,” I say without thinking.

My words have the opposite effect from what I hoped, and Tessa whimpers. Literally whimpers, and wraps her arms around her knees.

“It’s true. I do.”

“You only love me sometimes,” she says, as if that is the one thing she knows for sure in this world.

“Bullshit. You know that’s not true.”

“It
feels
that way,” she whispers, looking out toward the sea. I wish it were daylight so the view could possibly help soothe her, since I’m obviously not doing a good job at that.

“I know. I know it might feel that way.” I can admit that’s how she probably experiences it now.

“You’ll love someone all the time, later.”

What?
“What are you talking about?”

“The next time, you’ll love her all the time.”

In this moment, I have a strange vision of me thinking back to this exact moment fifty years from now, reliving all over again the sharp pain that accompanies her words. The feeling is overwhelming, and it’s so obvious—it’s never been more obvious.

She has given up on me. On us.

“There isn’t a next time!” I can’t help the way my voice is rising, the way my blood is burning just beneath the surface, threatening to rip me open right here on this damn patio.

“There is. I’m your Trish.”

What is she going on about? I know she’s drunk, but what does my mum have to do with this?

“Your Trish. It’s me. You’ll have a Karen, too, and she can give you a baby.” Tessa wipes under her eyes, and I slide off the chair to kneel next to her on the ground.

“I don’t know what you’re saying, but you’re wrong.” My arms wrap around her shoulders just as she begins to sob.

I can’t make out her words but I hear “. . . baby . . . Karen . . . Trish . . . Ken.”

Damn Kimberly for keeping so much wine in the house.

“I don’t know what Karen or Trish or any other name you’ll throw out there has to do with us.”

She pushes against my shoulders, but I tighten my grip on her. She may not want me, but right now she needs me. “You’re Tessa, and I’m Hardin. End of—”

“Karen’s pregnant.” Tessa sobs into my chest. “She’s having a baby.”

“So?” I move my cast-covered hand up and down her back, unsure what to say or do with this version of Tessa.

“I went to the doctor,” she cries, and I freeze.

Holy fucking shit.

“And?” I try not to panic.

She doesn’t answer in an actual language. Her response comes out in some form of a drunken cry, and I take a moment to try to think clearly. She’s obviously not pregnant; if she were, she wouldn’t be drinking. I know Tessa, and I know she would never, ever, do something like that. She’s obsessed with the idea of being a mother one day; she wouldn’t endanger her unborn child.