After 2

Chapter 178.

"I'm sorry okay, just give me two minutes to talk without interrupting me. Please?" I ask her.

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.

Damn it.

I am shit at apologies.

"I know it's not your fault, I lied to you and I'm sorry!" I shout, hoping she will turn around.

She does.

"This isn't only about you lying Hardin. There is so much  more than that." Tessa tells me.

"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 wasn't about marriage, it was 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 any time soon but I need security. You know how I am and you couldn't even humor me with the idea of it yet you expected me to move across the world where I will not know anyone." She is 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?" Her teeth are chattering and her nose is red from the cold.

"You would be less likely to leave." 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 are still so insecure." She quickly wipes her tears away.

"I'm not insecure." I tell her.

"See? That's why this would never work. You always let your ego get in the way." She cries.

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

"You're really going there right now?" She challenges.

"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 is good at that but it still fucking hurts me that she did.

"Go ahead Hardin, call me names." She is the most infuriating woman in the entire world but fuck if I don't love her even at her most difficult.

I have to go inside I'm cold and I have to be up in an hour to get ready for school." She adds and walks toward the house again.

I follow her up the driveway and watch as she remembers that she left her purse in my father's car.

"I'll have to call Landon, I don't have a key." She says, mostly to herself I assume.