After Ever Happy (The After Series) Read online

  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.

  chapter twenty-six

  HARDIN

  Fuck 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.

  To my horror, the screen door is open and hanging on the hinges, blowing back and forth in the wind from the storm. Two cars are parked in the driveway: Noah’s and Carol’s. The $100 cab ride I took here from the airport was worth the time I would have wasted going all the way to Ken’s house for my car. At least Tessa hasn’t tried to drive anywhere.

  “Her shoes are here.” Noah picks up one of Tessa’s flimsy shoes and tosses it back onto the floor.

  Blood is smeared across his chin, and his blue eyes are wild, filled with worry. Tessa is walking around alone in the middle of a massive storm because I let my fucking ego take over.

  Noah disappears for a moment while I scan the landscape outside, trying to catch a glimpse of my girl. When Noah returns from searching her room again, her purse is in his hand. She has no shoes on, no money, and no phone. She couldn’t have gone far—we were only fighting for a minute, tops. How could I let my temper distract me from her?

  “I’ll get in my car and check around the block,” Noah says, pulling his keys from the pocket of his jeans and walking out the door.

  He has the advantage here. He grew up on this street; he knows this place and I don’t. I look around the living room and then walk to the kitchen. I glance out the window and realize that I have the advantage, not him. I’m surprised he didn’t think of this himself. He may know the town, but I know my Tessa, and I know exactly where she is.

  The rain is still coming down in large, unforgiving sheets as I descend the back porch steps with one stride and cross the grass to the small greenhouse in the corner, hiding between a cluster of swaying trees. The metal door is cracked open, proving my instincts right.

  I find Tessa huddled on the floor, dirt covering her jeans and her bare feet layered in mud. Her knees are pulled to her chest, and her shaky hands are covering her ears. It’s a heartbreaking sight, seeing my strong girl reduced to a shell. Pot after pot of dirt lines the poor excuse for a greenhouse; it’s obvious that no one has been in here since Tessa left home. A few cracks are in the ceiling, sending streams of rain down in random spots throughout the small space.

  I don’t say anything, but I don’t want to surprise her, and I hope she can hear the sloshing of my boots against the mud covering the floor. When I look down again, I see that there is no floor after all. That explains all the mud. Taking her hands away from her ears, I lean down to force her eyes to mine. She thrashes away like a cornered animal, and I flinch at her reaction but keep my grip on her hands.

  She digs her hands into the mud and uses her legs to kick at me. The moment I let go of her wrists, she covers her ears again, a terrible whimper falling from her full lips. “I need quiet,” she begs, slowly rocking back and forth.

  I have so many things to say, so many words to throw at her in hopes that she will listen to me and come out of hiding within herself, but one look into her desperate eyes, and I lose them all.

  If she wants quiet, I will give her that. Fuck, at this point I will give her anything and everything she wants as long as she doesn’t force me to leave.

  So I move closer to her, and we sit on the muddy floor of the old greenhouse. The greenhouse that she used to hide away from her father, the greenhouse that she’s now using to hide from the world, to hide from me.

  We sit here as the rain pounds against the glass roof. We sit here as her whimpers turn to quiet sobs and she stares into the empty space in front of her, and we sit in silence with my hands over her small fingers covering her ears, blocking her from the noise around us, giving her the silence she needs.

  chapter twenty-seven

  HARDIN

  As I sit here listening to the sounds of the unforgiving storm outside, I can’t help but draw comparisons to the
shitstorm I’ve made out of my life. I’m an asshole, the biggest one, the worst possible fucking kind of dickhead there is.

  Tessa finally fell still only minutes ago; her body leaned toward me and she allowed herself to rest against me for physical support. Her swollen eyes closed, and now she’s asleep despite the rain pounding loudly on the flimsy greenhouse.

  I shift slightly, hoping that she won’t wake when I lay her head down onto my lap. I need to get her out of here, out of the rain and away from the mud, but I know what she will do when she opens her eyes. She’s going to cast me away, tell me that I’m not wanted here, and, fuck, I’m not ready to hear those words again.

  I deserve them—all of them and then some—but that doesn’t change that I’m a goddamned coward, and I want to enjoy the silence while it lasts. Only here in the sweet silence can I pretend to be someone else. I can, just for a minute, pretend that I’m Noah. Well, a less annoying version of him, but if I were him, things would have been different. Things would be different now. I would have been able to use words and affection to win Tessa over from the beginning, instead of some stupid game. I would have been able to make her laugh more often than cry. She would have trusted me wholly and completely, and I wouldn’t have taken that trust, crumbled it into ash, and watched it blow away. I would have savored her trust and maybe even been worthy of it.

  But I’m not Noah. I’m Hardin. And being Hardin doesn’t mean shit.

  If I didn’t have so many fucking issues vying for attention inside my head, I could have made her happy. I could have shown her the light in life, just as she has done for me. Instead, here she sits, broken and completely fucked-up. Her skin is streaked with dark mud, the filth on her hands has now begun to dry, and her face, even in sleep, is twisted into a painful frown. Her hair is wet in some places, dry and matted in others, and I begin to wonder if she has changed her clothes more than once since she left London. I would have never sent her back here if I could even have imagined she would find her dad’s body in my apartment.

  When it comes to Tessa’s father himself and his death, the confusion I feel is overwhelming. The instinct to brush it off as a nonevent happening to a misfit who wasted his life away comes first, but then immediately the loss of him is heavy on my chest. I didn’t know him long, and I barely tolerated the man, but he was decent enough company. I would be hard-pressed to admit it, but I sort of liked him. He was obnoxious, and I absolutely loathed the way he emptied box after box of my cereal, but I adored something about the way he loved Tessa and his optimistic outlook on life, even though his own life fucking sucked.

  And the irony is that as soon as he finally had something, someone worth living for, he’s gone. Like he couldn’t handle that much goodness. My eyes burn to release some sort of emotion, grief maybe. Grief for losing a man I barely knew or liked, grief for losing the idea of a father I thought I had with Ken, grief for losing Tessa, and just a tiny bit of hope that she will come around and not be lost forever.

  My selfish tears mix with the drops of moisture falling from my rain-soaked hair, and I bow my head, fighting the urge to bury my face into her neck for comfort. I don’t deserve her comfort, I don’t deserve anyone’s comfort.

  I deserve to sit here alone and weep like a pitiful rogue amid silence and desolation, my oldest and truest friends.

  The pathetic sobs that leave my mouth are lost in the sound of the rain, and I’m thankful that this girl I adore is asleep and unable to witness the breakdown that I can’t seem to control. My own actions are the driving force behind every fucked-up thing that’s happening right now, right down to Richard’s death. If I hadn’t agreed to take Tessa to England, none of this shit would have happened. We would be blissful and stronger than ever, just like we were a week ago. Fuck, has it only been that long? It seems impossible that such few days have come and gone, yet it seems like a damn lifetime since I’ve touched her, held her, and felt her heart beating under my palm. My hand hovers there, across her chest, wanting to touch her, but afraid to wake her.

  If I can just touch her once, just feel the steady beat of her heart, it will anchor mine and calm me. It will bring me out of this breakdown and stop these disgusting tears from rolling down my cheeks and stop the violent heaves of my chest.

  “Tessa!” Noah’s deep voice rumbles through the rain outside, then thunder booms through the air like an exclamation mark. I wipe at my face furiously, praying to disappear into the chill spring air before he comes bursting in here.

  “Tessa!” he calls again, this time louder, and I know he’s right outside the greenhouse.

  I grit my teeth and hope that he doesn’t yell her name again, because if he wakes her up, I . . .

  “Oh, thank God! I should have known she was in here!” he exclaims when he bursts in. His voice is loud, his expression wild with relief.

  “Would you shut the fuck up? She’s just fallen asleep,” I whisper harshly and glance down at Tessa’s sleeping form. He’s the last person that I wanted to walk in on me like this, and I know he can see my bloodshot eyes, the messy evidence of a breakdown clear in the redness of my cheeks.

  Fuck, I don’t think I can even hate this motherfucker, because he’s making it a point not to stare at me, not to embarrass me. It makes part of me hate him more, that he’s that unfailingly good.

  “She . . .” Noah looks around the muddy greenhouse and back to Tessa. “I should have known she would be in here. She always used to come in here . . .” He brushes his blond hair back from his forehead and surprises me by taking a step toward the door. “I’ll be in the house,” he says wearily. Then, his shoulders sagging, he leaves without even so much as a rough closing of the screen door.

  chapter twenty-eight

  TESSA

  He’s been pestering me for the last hour, staring into the mirror, watching me apply my makeup and curl my hair, groping me every chance he gets.

  “Tess, baby,” Hardin groans for the second time, “I love you, but you have got to hurry up or we will be late to our own party.”

  “I know, I just want to look decent. Everyone will be there.” I give him an apologetic smile, knowing he won’t stay annoyed long and secretly loving the unpleasant expression on his face. I love the way a dimple appears on his right cheek when he has that adorable grumpy scowl.

  “Decent? You’ll be the center of everyone’s attention,” he whines, his jealousy clear.

  “What’s the party for, again?” I swipe a thin layer of gloss across my lips. I can’t remember what’s going on—I only know everyone is excited, and we are going to be late if I don’t finish grooming myself soon.

  Hardin’s strong arms wrap around me, and just like that I suddenly remember what everyone’s celebrating. It’s such a horrible thought, I drop the tube of gloss into the sink and let out a little gasp just as Hardin whispers, “Your father’s funeral.”

  I SIT UP and, finding myself wrapped around Hardin, quickly untangle myself from him.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?” he exclaims.

  Hardin’s here, right beside me, and my legs were intertwined with his. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep—why did I do that? I don’t even remember falling asleep; the last thing I remember was Hardin’s warm hands on mine, covering my ears.

  “Nothing,” I croak. My throat burns, and I take in my surroundings while my brain catches up with me. “I need water.” I rub my neck and attempt to stand. Stumbling, I glance down at Hardin.

  His face is tight and his eyes are red. “Did you have a dream?”

  The nothing quickly creeps back inside me, settling just below my breastbone and setting up camp there, in the deepest and emptiest spot.

  “Sit down.” He reaches for me, but his fingers burn on my skin and I pull away.

  “Please, don’t,” I quietly beg. The grumpy, adorable Hardin from my dream was just that, a pointless dream, and I am now faced with this Hardin, the one who keeps coming back for another hit after tossing me aside. I know why
he does it, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to deal with it right now.

  He lowers his head in defeat and drops his hand to the ground to lift himself up. His knee slides farther into the mud, and I look away while he catches himself on the railing. “I don’t know what to do,” he says softly.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” I mutter and attempt to pull all of my strength into forcing my legs to take me out of here and into the pouring rain.

  I’m halfway across the yard when I hear him behind me. He’s keeping a safe distance behind me, and I’m grateful. I need space from him, I need time to think and breathe, and I need him not to be here.

  I pull the back door open and step inside the house. Mud instantly streaks the rug, and I cringe at the reaction that this mess will pull from my mother. Instead of waiting to hear her complaints, I undress down to my bra and panties, leaving my clothes in a muddy pile on the back porch and try my best to rinse my feet in the rain before trudging across the clean tile floor. My feet squeak with each step, and I flinch as the back door opens and Hardin’s boots track mud in with them.

  Such a silly thing to worry about, mud? Out of all the things on my mind, mud seems so trivial, so small. I miss the days when a mess was a concern.

  A voice breaks through my inner discussion. “Tessa? Did you hear me?”

  I blink and look up to find Noah standing in the hallway with damp clothes and no shoes on his feet. “I’m sorry, I didn’t.”

  He nods sympathetically. “It’s okay. Are you all right? Do you need a shower?”

  I nod and he steps into the bathroom, starting the water. The noise from the shower draws me closer, but Hardin’s hard voice stops me.