After Ever Happy (The After Series) Read online

  “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.

  chapter seven

  HARDIN

  As 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.

  Looking at her right now, I can see the lack of warmth in her cheeks, the loss of hope from her eyes, the missing happiness from her full lips. I took a beautiful girl who lives her life for others, a girl who always found the good in everything, even me, and turned her into a shell whose void eyes are staring back at me now.

  “I’m going to be sick,” I choke out and yank the passenger door open. All of the whiskey, all of the rum, and all of my mistakes splatter against the concrete, and I repeatedly vomit until I’m left with nothing but my guilt.

  chapter eight

  HARDIN

  Tessa’s voice comes through soft and raspy in the gaps between my harsh breathing: “Where should I go?”

  “I don’t know.” Part of me wants to tell her to get on the next plane out of London, alone. But the selfish—and much stronger—part knows that if she did, I wouldn’t make it through the night without drinking myself sick. Again. My mouth tastes like vomit, and my throat burns from the brutal way my system expelled all that liquor.

  Opening the center console between us, Tessa pulls out a napkin and begins to wipe the corners of my mouth with the rough paper. Her fingers barely touch my skin, and I flinch away at the icy cold.

  “You’re freezing. Turn the car on.” But I don’t wait for her to oblige. Instead I lean across and turn the key myself, blasting the air from the vents. The air is cold at first, but this expensive-ass car has some trick to it, and warmth quickly spreads through the small space.

  “We need to get gas. I don’t know how long I was driving, but the fuel light is on, and that screen says so, too.” She points to the lavish navigation screen on the dash.

  The sound of her voice is killing me. “You’ve lost your voice,” I say, even though it’s incredibly obvious. She nods and turns her head away from me. My fingers wrap around her chin, and I turn her face back to me. “If you want to leave, I won’t blame you. I’ll take you to the airport right now.”

  She gives me a puzzled look before opening her mouth. “You’re staying here? In London? Our flight is tonight, I thought—” The last word voice comes out as more of a squeak than anything else, and she breaks into a coughing fit.

  I check the cup holders for some water or something, but they’re empty.

  I rub her back until she stops coughing, then I change the subject. “Trade me places; I’ll drive over there.” I nod toward the filling station across the road. “You need water and something for your throat.”

  I wait for her to move out of the driver’s seat, but she rakes her eyes over my face before shifting the car into drive and pulling out of the parking lot.

  “You’re still over the legal limit,” she finally whispers, careful not to strain her nonexistent voice.

  I can’t exactly argue with that. There is no way that a few hours of dozing in this car has sobered me completely. I drank enough liquor to black out most of the night, and the resulting headache is massive. I’ll probably be drunk for the entire fucking day, or half of it. I can’t tell. I can’t even remember how many drinks I had . . .

  My jumbled counting is cut short when Tessa parks in front of a gas pump and reaches for the door handle.

  “I’ll go in.” I climb out of the car before she can argue.

  There aren’t many people inside at this early hour, only men dressed for work. My hands are filled with aspirin, water bottles, and bags of snacks when Tessa walks into the small store.

  I watch as every head turns to look at the disheveled beauty in her dirty white dress. The men’s looks make me even more nauseated.

  “Why didn’t you stay in the car?” I ask as she approaches.

  She waves a hunk of black leather in front of my face. “Your wallet.”

  “Oh.”

  Handing it to me, she disappears for a moment, but takes her place next to me just as I reach the counter. In each hand is a large, steaming cup of coffee.

  I drop my pile of things on the counter. “Can you check the location on your phone while I pay?” I ask, taking the oversize cups from her small hands.

  “What?”

  “The location on your phone, so we can see where we are.”

  Grabbing the aspirin bottle and shaking it before he scans it, the portly man behind the counter remarks, “Allhallows. That’s where you are.” He nods at Tessa, who politely smiles back.

  “Thank you.” She widens her grin, and the poor bastard flushes.

  Yeah, I know she’s hot. Now look away before I rip your eyes from your head, I want to tell him. And next time you make a god-awful noise when I’m hungover, like you did with that aspirin bottle, it’s all
over. After last night, I could use the outlet, and I’m not in the mood for this mopey shit’s eyes to be raking across my girl’s chest at seven in the fucking morning.

  If I weren’t immensely aware of the lack of emotion behind her eyes, I would probably have pulled him over the counter, but her fake smile, black-rimmed eyes, and dirt-stained dress stop me and yank me from my violent thoughts. She just looks so lost, so sad, so fucking lost.

  What have I done to you? I silently ask.

  Her focus shifts to the door, where a young woman and child are entering, hand in hand. I watch her as she watches them, following their movements a little too closely, if you ask me; it’s borderline creepy. When the little girl stares up at her mum, Tessa’s bottom lip trembles.

  What the hell is that about? Because I threw a fit over the new revelation in my family?

  The clerk has packed up all of my stuff and holds the bag somewhat rudely in front of my face to get my attention. It seems that as soon as Tessa stopped looking at him, he decided he could be rude to me.

  I snatch the plastic bag and lean toward Tessa. “Ready?” I ask, nudging her with my elbow.

  “Yeah, sorry,” she mutters and grabs the coffees from the counter.

  I fill the car up, all the while considering the consequences of driving Vance’s rental into the sea. If we’re in Allhallows, we’re right next to the shore; it wouldn’t be hard.

  “How far are we from Gabriel’s bar?” Tessa asks when I join her in the car. “That’s where the car is.”

  “Only about an hour and a half, traffic considering.” The car slowly sinks in the ocean, costing Vance tens of thousands; we take a cab to Gabriel’s for a couple hundred. Fair trade.

  Tessa twists the top off the small bottle of aspirin and shakes three of them into my hand, then frowns and stares down at her screen, which has started to light up. “Do you want to talk about last night? I just received a text from Kimberly.”

  Questions begin pushing through the muddied images and voices from last night and into the surface of my mind . . . Vance locking me outside and walking back into the burning house . . . As Tessa continues to stare at her phone, I grow increasingly worried.