After Never

Chapter 13

Hardin

My life is a joke. An absolute joke.

I really don't understand why Tessa wants to be around me. I don't even want to be around me...

But it sounds like Seattle has been good to her, and she has found herself in new company. And I might not have been fully honest with her when I said I don't care.

I do. But I don't want to care. Because I don't want to be back together. It's not good for me, it won't be good for her...and right now all I care about is...well nothing.

Not even music...

I know the night of the acccident Zed had told me he reached out to a label. I was mad at first, but then I was hopeful...because what if they liked my music...but clearly they didn't.... seeing as how I never heard anything.

I know I'm in a really bad place, and I know it might get better in time like everyone keeps saying...but it also might not.

This is pretty rock bottom...how could it get worse?

I say that as I am in the bathroom doing what I know i shouldn't be doing when I am supposed to be taking a shower.

It's the instant relief and gratification that I need right now. And doing this gives that to me. I decided tomorrow I need to get my shit together...I don't know why I am saying tomorrow. Maybe because right now and today i want to keep doing what I am doing...and I know I still need it. Especially if I am going to have this talk with Zed. So maybe the day after tomorrow...

Which i should probably be in a clearer head when him and I talk. Maybe I make this shower a cold one...try and snap me out of it a little bit, or just enough so when I get out Tessa doesn't think anything of it.

Sitting in the shower, letting the water fall over me, I have a lot running through my head.

I don't know if I am supposed to apologize to Zed. If he should apologize to me. I have no idea what's been going through his head the last week and a half. All I know is he's going to be going away for 18 months...and I can't let him do that without saying what I need to say.

Which at this point feels like an I'm sorry.

I am sorry that the night turned out the way it did. I am sorry we kept drinking. I am sorry we got in his car. I'm sorry that it ruined his life...

My thoughts will be the death of me...

I hear knocking on the bathroom door.

"Hardin, you alright?" Tessa asks.

"Yea...be right out." I reply snapping myself out of my self pitty.

I get out of the shower, rinse off, and get dressed.

When I get back into my room, Tessa is sitting on my bed.

"What took you so long?" She asks me.

I lie... "It's hard with my leg...it takes me longer."

I take the seat next to her on my bed. Placing my hand on her leg.

"Did you mean what you said, when you said you didn't care?" She asks me.

I take a deep sigh...about to respond when she stops me.

"Actually don't answer that. It's fine. I need to accept what is." She says to me.

"What do you mean?" I question confused.

"You're not ready to have anything change between us, and I need to not push it." She replies.

And I don't really feel like pushing it either, because anything I would say she wouldn't like...

I bring my hand to her chin, and pull her face towards me gently kissing her. Slowly bringing my hand from her chin to the back of her neck as I continue kissing her.

I did miss this. And I don't want to stop kissing her. I also know I am being really unfair by doing what I'm doing right now.

But it's also in this moment that I'm thinking about how good we were before we broke up, how I would have given anything to stay like that. And then my thought goes to the fact that she did what she did. And I pull away...

"I'm sorry I shouldn't have..." I start to say, and she starts kissing me again.

I pull away again...

As bad as I want to continue kissing her, as bad as I want more. I don't want her to think there is still a chance.

I guess I am just confirming in my head right now...that there isn't.

That we need to be done for good. I need to let her move on.

Fuck...my head is so fucked right now. I shouldn't be thinking about any of this right now.

Her fear of what I might say next is evident. And I decide to not say anything. Which is probably worse...I don't know anymore.

I slide back to the headboard of the bed, resting my back up against it, and grab the remote off the nightstand.

"Do you want to watch something?" I ask her...which I can tell is the last thing she wants to do.

But again...fear is powerful. And we are both scared right now. Because as much as I want to say that we are done. I don't want her to leave my side...

So there's that.

"Yea...sure put on whatever you want." She replies slightly annoyed.

I scroll through netflix for an excessive amount of time. And finally I decide on The Butterfly Effect.

I've never seen it, and don't ask me why I chose it.

But here I am watching this movie about this guy who rereads his old childhood journals, and everytime he reads it brings him back in time to change his trajectory of his whole life. All these different scenarios and choices leading to different things...

I can't help but wish I had that same opportunity, read my journal and change something that happened.

Because in the movie he and his friends put a firework in a mailbox, and it ends up blowing up a mom and a baby. Well he's able to go back and stop it from happening but what happens instead is he blows off his arms from the elbow down.

So what if I was able to go back and stop the crash...would all have been well, or would have something else horrible happen.

And then there is the girl he is in love with in the movie and ultimately all the scenarios he goes through ends up with them in different places in their lives. And what he decides on as best case scenario, but breaks his heart is telling her when they were kids that he wishes they never met, he hates her, he hates her whole family...and in that decision. She goes on to live a happy life...

At the end of the movie they end up passing each other on the streets ultimately as strangers...

The movie makes me think a lot about me and Tessa...what if I walked away. What if I did get kicked out for fighting Zed...and went back to London like I was going to.

Then that woman would probably still be here, Zed wouldn't be going to jail. Maybe I wouldn't be so fucked up...maybe Tessa would just be happy...who knows maybe her new little Easton friend would be something to her...

I don't know....All I do know is every decision, every choice we make in our lives affects something else.

And I can't help but think I'm the problem in every scenario...just like Evan in The Butterfly Effect.

I'm the fucking butterfly effect in everyone's life. And I feel like the thing I need to do, and the thing I should have done was leave.

I need to go back to London. I don't belong here. I thought maybe Tessa and I could have worked out. I thought music would be a thing for me here...

But the truth is, and what i need to face is once I'm better I need to be gone. I need to be gone for good...