After Ever Happy (After #4) (6 page)

“It’s true, though. There’s no happy ending—not for me, anyway. I’m too fucked-up.” He drops his hands from my face and turns away from me.

“No, you aren’t! You—”

“Why do you do that?” he slurs, his body swaying back and forth. “Why do you always try to find the light in me? Wake up, Tessa!
There isn’t any fucking light!
” he screams, and slams both of his hands against his chest.

“I’m nothing! I’m a fucked-up piece of shit with fucked-up parents and a fucked-up head! I tried to warn you, I tried to push you away before I destroyed you . . .” His voice gets lower, and he reaches into his pocket. I recognize the purple lighter as Judy’s from the bar.

Hardin doesn’t look at me as he strikes the flame.

“My parents are messed up, too! My father is in rehab, for God’s sake!” I shout back at him.

I knew this would happen—I knew Christian’s confession would be Hardin’s breaking point. One person can only handle so much, and Hardin was already so fragile.

“This is your last chance to go before this place burns to the ground,” he says without looking at me.

“You’d burn down the house with me in it?” I choke out. I’m crying now, but I don’t remember when I started.

“No.” His boots are so loud as he crosses the room; my head is spinning, my heart is aching, and I’m afraid I’ve lost my sense of reality. “Come on.” He lifts his hand to me, asking me to take it.

“Give me the lighter.”

“Come here.” He holds both arms to me. I’m full-on sobbing now. “Please.”

I force myself to ignore his familiar beckoning, no matter how much it hurts to do so. I want to run into his arms and take him away from here. But this is no Austen novel with a happy ending and good intentions; this is a Hemingway at best, and I can see right through his gesture. “Give me the lighter, and we can leave together.”

“You almost had me believing that I could be normal.” The lighter still rests dangerously in his palm.

“No one is!” I cry. “No one is normal—I don’t want you to be. I love you now, I love you and all of this!” I look around the living room and back to Hardin.

“You couldn’t. No one would, or ever has. Not even my own mum.”

As the words leave his lips, the sound of the door slamming against the wall makes me jump. I look toward the noise, and relief floods through me when Christian rushes into the living room. He’s out of breath and panicked. He stops in his tracks when he takes in the state of the small room, liquor covering nearly every inch.

“What—” Christian’s eyes narrow at the lighter in Hardin’s hand. “I heard sirens on my way here. We need to leave,
now
!” he shouts.

“How did you . . .” Hardin looks back and forth between Christian and me. “You called him?”

“Of course she did! What was she going to do? Let you burn the house down and get yourself arrested?” Christian yells.

Hardin throws his hands in the air, still holding that lighter. “Get the fuck out! Both of you!”

Christian turns to me. “Tessa, go outside.”

But I stand my ground. “No, I’m not leaving him in here.” Has Christian not learned that Hardin and I shouldn’t be separated?

“Go,” Hardin says, taking a step toward me. He flicks his thumb across the metal of the lighter, igniting the flame. “Take her outside,” he slurs.

“My car is parked in the alley across the street—go to it and wait for us,” Christian instructs. When I look at Hardin, his eyes are set on the white flame, and I know him well enough to know that he’s going to do this whether I leave or not. He’s too intoxicated and too upset to stop now.

A cold set of keys is placed into my hand, and Christian leans in close. “I’m not going to let anything happen to him.”

After a moment of internal battle, I wrap my fingers around the keys and walk out the front door without looking back. I run across the street and pray that the sirens in the distance have another destination in mind.

A
s soon as Tessa runs out the front door, Vance starts waving his hands in front of him and yelling, “Go ahead! Go ahead! Go ahead!”

What is he talking about—and why the fuck is he even here? I hate Tessa for calling him. I take that back; I could never hate her, but,
fuck
, she pisses me off.

“No one wants you here,” I say, my mouth numb as I speak to this man.

My eyes are burning.
Where is Tessa? Did she leave?
I thought she did, but now I’m confused.
How long ago did she come here? Was she even here to begin with? I don’t know.

“Light the fire.”

“Why? You want me to burn with the house?” I ask. A younger version of him leaning against the mantel at my mum’s house fills my mind. He was reading to me. “Why was he reading to me?”

Did I say that out loud? I have no fucking idea.
Present-day Vance stares at me, expecting something.

“All your mistakes would be gone if I were, too.” The metal on the lighter burns the rough skin on my thumb, but I continue to flick the lighter.

“No, I want you to burn the house down. Maybe then you can have some peace.”

I think he may be yelling at me, but I can barely see straight, let alone measure the volume of his voice. He’s actually giving me his permission to burn this shit down?

Who said I need fucking permission?

“Who are you to give me the okay? I didn’t fucking
ask
you!” I lower the flame down to the arm of the couch and wait for it to catch. I wait for the all-consuming fire to destroy this place.

Nothing happens.

“I’m a real piece of work, yeah?” I say to the man who claims to be my father.

“That’s not going to work,” he says. Or maybe I’m the one speaking—hell if I know.

I reach for an old magazine lying on top of one of the boxes and bring the flame to the corner of the pages. It ignites immediately. I watch the fire travel up the pages and toss the burning magazine onto the couch. I’m impressed by how quickly the fire swallows the couch, and I swear I can feel the fucking memories burning along with the piece of shit.

The trail of rum is next—it’s burning in a twisted line. My eyes can barely keep up with the flames as they dance across the floorboards, flicking and cracking, making the most comforting sounds. The colors are bright, fucking mad and they angrily attack the rest of the room.

Over the sound of the flames, Vance shouts, “Are you
satisfied
?”

I don’t know if I am.

Tessa wouldn’t be, she would be sad that I destroyed the house.

“Where is she?” I ask, searching the room, which is blurry, and filling with smoke.

If she’s in here and something happens to her . . .

“She’s outside. She’s safe,” Vance assures me.

Do I trust him? I fucking hate him. This is all his fault. Is Tessa still here? Is he lying?

But then I realize Tessa is too smart for this. She’d already be gone. Away from this. Away from my destruction. And if this man had raised me, I wouldn’t have become this bad a person. I wouldn’t have hurt so many people, especially Tessa. I never wanted to hurt her, but I always do.

“Where were you?” I ask him. I wish the flames would grow. At their small size, the house will never burn completely. I may have stashed another bottle somewhere. I can’t think clearly enough to remember. The fire doesn’t feel big enough. The small flames don’t match the size of my fucking anger, and I need more.

“I was at the hotel with Kimberly. Let’s go before the fire department arrives, or you get yourself hurt.”

“No—where were you
that night
?” The room is beginning to spin, and the heat is suffocating me.

Vance seems genuinely shocked and stops, shifting completely upright. “
What?
I wasn’t even here, Hardin! I was in America. I would never let something like that happen to your mum! But, Hardin—we need to go!” he yells.

Why would we go? I want to watch this shit burn.

“Well, it happened anyway,” I say, my body getting heavier and heavier. I should probably sit down, but if I have to play these images in my head, so does he. “She was beaten to a bloody fucking pulp. Each of them had their way with her, they fucked her over and over and over . . .” My chest hurts so fucking bad, I wish I could reach inside and yank everything out. Everything was easier before I met Tessa, nothing could hurt me. Even this shit wouldn’t hurt me like this. I had learned to suppress it until she made me . . . she made me feel shit that I never wanted to, and now I can’t seem to turn it off.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry that happened! I would have stopped it!”

I look up, and he’s crying.
How dare he fucking cry when
he
didn’t have to watch it
—he
didn’t have to see it each time he closed his eyes to sleep, year after year after year.

Flashing blue lights pour through the windows, scatter across all the glass in the room, interrupting my bonfire. The sirens are fucking loud—holy shit, they’re loud.

“Get out!” Vance shouts. “Get out now! Go out the back door and get in my car! Go!” he screams frantically.

Fucking dramatics.

“Fuck you.” I stumble; the room is spinning faster now and the sirens are piercing my ears.

Before I can stop him, his hands are on me and he’s pushing my drunken body back through the living room, into the kitchen, and out through the back. I try to push back, but my muscles refuse to cooperate. The cold air hits me, making me dizzy, and then my ass lands on the concrete.

“Go to the alley and get in my car,” I think he says before he disappears.

I scramble to my feet after falling over a few times and try to open the back kitchen door, but it’s fucking locked. Inside I hear multiple voices, all shouting and something buzzing.
What the fuck is that?

I pull my phone from my pocket and see Tessa’s name flashing across the screen. I can either go find his car in the alley and face her, or I can go inside and get arrested. I look at her blurry face on the screen, and the decision is made for me.

I can’t for the life of me figure out how the fuck I’m going to get across the street without the cops spotting me. The screen on my phone is duplicated and shifting, but somehow I manage to dial Tessa’s number.

“Hardin! Are you all right?” she cries into the speaker.

“Pick me up at the end of the street, in front of the cemetery.” I lift the latch on the neighbor’s gate and end the call. At least I don’t have to go through Mike’s yard.

Did he marry my mum today? For his sake, I hope not.

“You wouldn’t want her to be alone forever. I know you love her; she’s still your mother,”
Tessa’s voice rings through my head. Great, now I’m hearing voices.

“I’m not perfect. No one is,”
her sweet voice reminds me. She’s wrong though, she’s so very wrong, and naïve, and perfect.

I manage to find myself standing at the corner of my mum’s street. The cemetery behind me is dark; the only light is coming from the flashing blues in the distance. The black Beemer pulls up moments later, and Tessa stops in front of me. I climb into the car without a word, and the door is barely closed before she floors the gas pedal.

“Where should I go?” Her voice is hoarse and she’s trying to stop sobbing, but she’s failing miserably.

“I don’t know . . . There aren’t many”—my eyes are heavy—“places here, it’s night and late . . . and there’s nothing open . . .”

I close my eyes and everything fades away.

THE SOUND OF SIRENS
startles me awake. I jump at the loud noise, and my head slams against the roof of the car.

Car? Why the fuck am I in a car?

I look over and find Tessa sitting in the driver’s seat, her eyes closed and her legs curled up against her body. I’m instantly reminded of a sleepy kitten. My head is fucking killing me. I drank way too fucking much.

It’s daylight, the sun is hiding behind the clouds, leaving the sky gray and dreary. The clock on the dashboard informs me that it’s ten minutes until seven. I don’t recognize the parking lot we are parked in, and I try to remember how the hell I got in the car in the first place.

There are no police cars or sirens now . . . I must have been dreaming them in my sleep. My head is throbbing, and when I pull my shirt up to wipe my face, the thick smell of smoke invades my nostrils.

Flickers of a burning couch and Tessa crying play through my mind. I struggle to put them together; I’m still half-drunk.

Beside me, Tessa stirs and her eyes flutter before opening. I don’t know what she saw last night. I don’t know what I said or did, but I do know that the way she’s looking at me right now makes me wish I would have burned . . . with that house. Images of my mum’s house flash through my mind.

“Tessa, I—” I don’t know what to say to her; my mind isn’t working and neither is my fucking mouth.

Judy’s bleached hair and Christian pushing me out the back door of my mum’s house fill some of the gaps in my memory.

“Are you okay?” Tessa’s tone is soft and rough at the same time. I can tell she has nearly lost her voice.

She’s asking me if I’m okay?

I search her face, confused by her question. “Uhm, yeah? Are you?” I may not remember most of the night . . . hell, the day or night, but I know she should be upset with me.

She nods slowly, her eyes performing the same searching that mine are.

“I’m trying to remember . . . The cops came . . .” I sift through the memories as they come. “The house was burning . . . where are we?” I look out the window, trying to figure it out.

“We are . . . well, I’m not really sure where we are.” She clears her throat and looks straight ahead through the windshield. She must have been screaming a lot. Or crying, or both, because she can barely speak. “I didn’t know where to go, and you fell asleep, so I just kept driving, but I was so tired. I had to pull off the road eventually.” Her eyes are bloodshot and swollen; black makeup is smeared underneath them, and her lips are dry and cracked. She’s barely recognizable. Still beautiful, but I’ve drained her.