After We Collided (The After Series) (59 page)

If she’s wearing his clothes . . . “Did you fuck him?” I croak, tears threatening to spill at any given moment.

Her eyes go wide. “No! Of course not!”

“Tell me the truth right fucking now, Tessa! Did you fuck him?”

“I already answered you!” she shouts back.

Zed stands back and watches with a worried look on his bruised face. I should have done more damage.

“Did you touch him? Oh my fucking God! Did he touch you?” I’m frantic and I don’t give a shit. I can’t handle this; if he touched her I couldn’t stand it, I wouldn’t be able to.

I turn to Zed before either of them can answer. “If you touched her at all, I swear to fucking God I don’t give a shit if she’s here or not, I’ll—”

She steps between us again, and I see fear in her eyes.

“Get out of my apartment
now
or I’m calling the police,” Zed threatens me.

“The police? You think I give a flying—”

“I’ll go.” Tessa’s voice is soft in the middle of the chaos.

“What?” Zed and I say in unison.

“I’ll go with you, Hardin, only because I know you won’t leave unless I do.”

And I feel relief. Well, a little. I don’t give a fuck why she’s coming, only that she is.

Zed turns to her, almost pleading. “Tessa, you don’t have to go; I can call the cops. You don’t have to leave with him. This is what he does, he controls you by frightening you and everyone around you.”

“You’re not wrong . . .” She sighs. “But I’m exhausted, and it’s five in the morning, and we do have stuff to talk about, so this is the easiest way.”

“It doesn’t have to—”

“She’s coming with me,” I tell him, and Tessa shoots me a glare that would surely kill me dead if it could.

“Zed, let me just call you tomorrow. I’m so sorry that he came here,” she tells him softly, and at last he nods, finally understanding
that I’ve won. He’s fucking sulking, and she better not fall for it.

Actually, I’m really surprised she’s agreeing to come with me so easily . . . but she does know me better than anyone else, so she was right when she said I wouldn’t leave until she came with me.

“Don’t apologize. Be careful, and if you need anything, don’t hesitate for a moment to call me,” he says to her.

It must suck to be a little bitch and not be able to do shit about me showing up at his apartment in the middle of the night and taking Tessa with me.

Tessa doesn’t speak a word as she walks out of his bedroom and stalks to the bathroom across the hall.

“Don’t come near her again. I’ve already warned you before, and you haven’t gotten the hint yet,” I say when I reach the bedroom door.

Zed glowers at me, and if it weren’t for Tessa calling my name from the living room, I would have snapped his neck.

“If you hurt her, I swear to God I will make it the last time!” he says loud enough for her to hear as we walk through the door and out into the snow.

H
igh heels and his fucking boxers. It’s a ridiculous pairing, but I assume she doesn’t have other shoes, which may be a sign that she didn’t plan on staying the night. But, still, she did, and I’m fucking disgusted that she was in his bed. I can’t stand to look at her in those clothes. This is the first time that I don’t want to look at her. Her red dress is in her arms and I know she’s freezing.

I tried to give her my coat, but she just snapped at me to shut up and take her to my father’s place. I don’t even mind her anger toward me; in fact, I welcome it. I’m so relieved and so damn happy that she left with me at all. She could curse me out the entire drive and I’d enjoy every word falling from her full lips.

I’m angry, too, angry at her for running to Zed. Angry at myself for trying to push her away. “I have so much to tell you,” I say as we pull onto my father’s street.

With an icy glare she holds her ground, though. “I don’t want to hear it. You had your chance to talk to me for the past eleven days.”

“Just hear me out, okay?” I beg.

“Why now?” she asks and looks out the window.

“Because . . . because I miss you,” I admit.

“You miss me? You mean you’re jealous that I was with Zed. You didn’t miss me until he picked me up tonight. You are fueled by jealousy, not love.”

“That’s not true, that doesn’t have anything to do with it.” Okay, it
does
have a lot to do with it, but I do miss her, regardless.

“You didn’t talk to me all evening, then you came outside and told me you were too busy to talk to me. That’s not what you do when you miss someone,” she points out.

“I was lying.” I lift my hands into the air.

“
You? Lying?
No way.” Her eyes close, and she shakes her head slowly.

God, she’s feisty tonight. I take a deep breath to make sure that I don’t say something that will make this worse. “I don’t have a phone, for starters, and I went home to England.”

Her head snaps to look at me. “You what?”

“I went to England to clear my head. I didn’t know what else to do,” I explain.

Tessa turns down the volume on the radio and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “You didn’t answer my calls.”

“I know. I ignored them, and I’m so sorry for that. I wanted to call you back, but I couldn’t bring myself to, and then I got drunk and broke my phone.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No . . . I just want you to be happy, Tessa.”

She doesn’t say anything; she looks out the window again and I reach for her hand, but she pulls away. “Don’t,” she says.

“Tess . . .”

“No, Hardin! You can’t just show up eleven days later and hold my hand. I’m sick of going around in circles with you. I’m finally at a point where I can go an hour without crying, then you pop up and try to pull me back under. You’ve done this to me since the day I met you, and I’m sick of giving in to it. If you cared about me, you would have explained yourself.” She’s trying her hardest not to cry, I can tell.

“I’m trying to explain myself now,” I remind her, my annoyance growing as I pull into my father’s driveway.

She tries to open the door, but I hit the locks.

“You aren’t seriously trying to lock me in the car with you. You
already basically forced me to leave Zed’s house! What’s wrong with you!” she begins to shout.

“I’m not trying to lock you in the car.” I am, though. However, in my defense, she’s stubborn and doesn’t like to listen to anything I have to say.

She presses the unlock button and climbs out.

“Tessa! Goddammit, Tessa, just listen to me!” I shout into the wind.

“You keep telling me to listen, but you haven’t been saying anything!”

“Because you won’t shut up long enough for me to!”

We always end up in a screaming match. I need to let her yell at me and just take it, otherwise I’ll say something I regret. I want to bring up Zed and the fact that she’s in his fucking clothes, but I have to keep my temper under control. “I’m sorry, okay, just give me two minutes to talk without interrupting me. Please?”

She surprises me by nodding and crossing her arms to wait for me to speak.

The snow is really coming down, and I know she’s freezing, but I have to talk to her now or she may change her mind.

“I went to England after you didn’t come back that night. I was so pissed off at you that I couldn’t see straight. You were being so damned difficult, and I just . . .”

She turns away from me and starts to walk up the snowy driveway toward the house. Dammit. I’m shit at apologies.

“I know it’s not your fault. I lied to you and I’m sorry!” I shout, hoping she’ll turn around.

She does. “This isn’t only about you lying, Hardin. There is so much more than that,” Tessa says.

“Then tell me, please.”

“It’s about you not treating me the way I should be treated. I never come first with you—it’s always about you. Your friends, your parties, your future. I don’t get to make any decisions about
anything, and you made me feel like a fool when you said I was being crazy about marriage. You weren’t listening to me—it isn’t about marriage, it’s about the fact that you haven’t even thought of what I want for myself and my future. And yes, I would like to be married someday, not anytime soon, but I need security. So stop acting like I’m into this relationship more than you. Let’s not forget that you were drunk and stayed out all night with another woman.” She’s out of breath by the time she finishes speaking, and I take a few steps toward her.

She’s right, and I know she is. I just don’t know what to do about it.

“I know, I thought if it were just the two of us there, you would . . .” I stutter.

“I would
what
, Hardin?” Her teeth are chattering, and her nose is red from the cold.

I pick at the dried scabs on my knuckles. I don’t know how to say what I feel without sounding like the world’s most selfish asshole. “You would be less likely to leave me,” I admit . . . and wait for her horrified response.

It doesn’t come.

Instead she begins to cry. “I don’t know what else I could have done to show you how much I loved you, Hardin. I kept coming back every time you hurt me, I moved in with you and I forgave you for every unthinkable thing you did to me, I gave up my relationship with my mother for you, and you’re still so insecure.” She quickly wipes her tears away.

“I’m not insecure,” I tell her.

“See?”
she cries. “That’s why this would never work. You always let your ego get in the way.”

“I don’t let my ego get in the way of shit!” I snap. “If anything, my ego is pretty fucked right now because I just found you in Zed’s bed.”

“You’re really going to go there right now?”

“Hell, yes I am, you’re acting like a . . .” I stop myself as she flinches from the words that she knows will follow. I know it’s not her fault that he got under her skin—he’s good at that—but it still fucking hurts me that she stayed with him.

She throws her arms out in challenge. “Go ahead, Hardin, call me names.”

She’s the most infuriating woman in the entire world, but fuck if I don’t love her even at her most difficult. When I stay silent and try to tamp down my anger, she clicks her tongue. “Well, that’s some improvement, but I’m going inside. I’m cold and have to be up in an hour to get ready for school.”

She walks toward the house, and I follow her up the driveway, waiting for her to remember that she left her purse in my father’s car. Which is here, but locked.

After looking at the door for a moment, she says, mostly to herself, I assume, “I’ll have to call Landon. I don’t have a key.”

“You can come home,” I suggest.

“You know that’s not a good idea.”

“Why not? We just need to figure this all out.” I pull at my hair with one hand. “Together,” I clarify.

“Together?” Tessa repeats, half laughing.

“Yes, together. I’ve missed you so much. I’ve been through hell without you . . . and I hope you’ve missed me, too.”

“You should have reached out to me. I’m exhausted by this, we do this too much.”

“We can do it, though. You’re too good for me, and I fucking know it. But please, Tessa, I’ll do anything. I can’t go through another day like this.”

M
y heart aches as the words leave his mouth. He’s too good at this. “You always do this. You say the same things over and over, yet nothing changes,” I say.

“You’re right,” he admits, looking directly into my eyes. “It’s true. Yeah, I’ll admit the first few days I was just so mad, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near you because you were overreacting—but then, as I began to realize this could be it, it terrified me. I know I haven’t treated you the way I should have, I don’t know how to love anyone other than myself, Tess. I’m trying as hard as I can—
okay
, I haven’t been trying as hard I could. But I will from now on—I swear it.”

I look at him. I’ve heard those words too many times. “You know you’ve said that before.”

“I know, but this time I mean it. After I saw Natalie, I—”

Natalie?
My stomach drops. “You
saw
her?”

Does she still love him? Or hate him? Has he truly ruined her entire life?

“Yeah, I saw her and I spoke to her. She’s pregnant.”

Oh God.

“I haven’t seen her in
years
, Tessa,” he says sarcastically, reading my mind. “She’s also engaged, and she’s happy, and she told me that she forgives me and was saying how she’s happy to be getting married because there’s no greater honor or some shit, but it was really eye-opening for me.” He steps toward me again.

My legs and arms are numb from the cold air, and I’m furious
at Hardin, more than furious. I’m enraged and heartbroken. He keeps going back and forth, and it’s exhausting. Now he’s here in front of me talking about marriage, and I don’t know what to think.

I shouldn’t have even left with him. My mind was made up earlier: I would get over him if it was the last thing I did.

“What are you saying?” I ask.

“That now I realize how lucky I am to have you, to have you stick by me through all the shit I put you through.”

“Well, you are. And you should’ve realized that before. I’ve always loved you more than you love me and—”

“That’s
not true
! I love you more than anyone has ever loved another person. I went through hell, too, Tessa. I’ve been sick, literally, without you. I’ve barely eaten, I know I look like shit. I was doing this for you so you could move on,” he explains.

“That doesn’t even make any sense.” I push my damp hair away from my face.

“Yes, it does. It does make sense. I thought if I stayed out of your life, you could move on and be happy without me, with your own Elijah.”

“Who’s Elijah?”
What is he talking about?

“What? Oh, Natalie’s fiancé. See, she found someone to love and marry her; you can, too,” he tells me.

“But that someone’s not you . . . is it?” I ask him.

A few seconds pass and he doesn’t say anything. His expression is puzzled and frantic as he tugs at his hair for the tenth time in the last hour. Slivers of orange and red light are beginning to appear behind the large houses on the block, and I need to get inside before everyone wakes up and I have to shame-walk past them in boxers and high heels.