Hessa.

Chapter 24

I hear the shower turn on and I know hardins awake. I havent moved all morning from my spot on the kitchen stools.

"Morning Beautiful." He says as he enters the room in only a towel.

"Whats wrong?" His eyes move from me to the bottle.

"Whats this doing here?" I ask hoping he won't lie to me.

"I don't know maybe molly left it here or something." If I didnt know the truth i would have believed him.

"Hardin just be honest with me. Have you relapsed?"

"What no! Thats ridiculous!" He laughs nervously.

"Hardin please don't lie to me" he sighs

"It was one drink ok"

"Thats how it starts hardin. Its one drink then it becomes 5." I am aware of how much of a hypocrit im being. Im asking hardin not to lie to me but thats all I've been doing lately.

"I promise you im fine. I can control myself"

"Thats not what you said last night."

"What are you talking about?" He sits down next to me.

"I was awake last night when you told me about relapsing and how you were scared to loose control again." He runs his hands through his hair.

"Im fine ok. I promise I will stop." I grab the bottle and empty it down the sink.

"Please dont drink anymore. It was the thing that tore us apart before and I dont want that to happen again." His expression changes into worry.

"I swear to you I won't drink anymore. I won't risk loosing you" Im gonna have to trust him when he says he can't risk loosing me.

"Can we just forget about this please" he begs. I nod and carry on doing the dishes.

"Dont you have therapy today?" He asks. I check the time.

"Ye I still have half hour. Im gonna go get dressed." I walk into the bedroom to get dressed and hardin follows behind me.

"What are you doing today?" I ask.

"Im meeting Christian at the office to talk about the book and then nothing."

"Oh i forgot to ask you as well. Have you been on your Instagram lately?" I couldnt believe my eyes when I last looked.

"Tess you go on my phone more than I go on my phone. So no I haven't. Why do you ask?"

"Look." He takes out his phone and I sit down next to him in just my underwear while he looks.

"1.5 million followers. Why though? I dont get it." I take the phone off him and pull up his message request. He never looks but I do.

'Hi im Hayley im a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. I just wanted to say how much you've helped me in my life from your book. I managed to save my marriage because of you. Thank you❤' He smiles at the message and takes the phone off me. He scrolls through the thousands of messages requests. He clicks on a message from a girl called 'Natalie' a full photo of her in black lingerie and her ass out pops up on the screen.

"Damn. Shes fine as hell." He says. I punch him as hard as I can in his leg.

"Excuse you."

"Owww what the hell was that for?" I raise my eyebrows at him and get up off the bed. He pulls me back by my hips to sit back down on his lap.

"Dont strop. I was only joking . kinda."

"Thats fine Im gonna go see how Zed's doing maybe." I know that will annoy him which is exactly why i said it.

"Hey now thats not funny. Don't joke with me about that shit." He turns serious quickly.

"Jesus chill out would you. I was joking. Kinda." I turn back to smile at him.

"Right i need to go or im gonna be late." I give him a quick kiss and head out the door to my 'therapy session'

I spend the afternoon in the coffee shop doing nothing. I might just come clean to hardin and tell him that I haven't actually been going. Im bored as hell sitting here 3 times a week doing nothing and I feel really guilty about lying to hardin for this long. I hate lying to him.

I arrive home slightly late than usual to find hardin sitting in the living room doing nothing but staring at the floor.

"Hey u OK?" I take my coat off and sit down next to him.

"Ye im fine." I sit down on his lap and go in to kiss him. He turns his head away.

"Whats wrong?" Something is definitely up. He would never refuse to kiss me unless something Is bothering him.

"Nothing im fine." Hes lying to me.

"Hardin don't lie to me. If there's nothing wrong then why won't you kiss me?" He grabs my face and kisses me.

"Better?" No its not better. Thats worse. Now I know somethings happened and he doesn't want me to know.

"No. Somethings up with you? What is it?"

"I said nothing ok. Just drop it." Honestly I have no patience at all today so I just roll my eyes and start to make food. Hardin doesn't move he just sits there for a while before getting up and going into the bedroom. I leave him in there and put a plate aside for him. I eat alone.

I havent seen hardin at all since earlier today and its late at night now. I walk into the bedroom to find him already in bed.

"Have you finished stropping now?" He doesn't answer me.

"So now your ignoring me. What i even do? Did I say something to upset you?" I pull the blanket off him and slide into bed next to him so we are face to face. I wrap my arms around his waist and nuzzle my head into his neck.

"Can we just go to sleep please.im really tired."

"Yes sure." I close my eyes and try to go to sleep.

"On your side of the bed though." I immediately feel like crying. I dont known what I did for him to be like this. He's been craving my touch for the last several months and now he won't even kiss me meaningfully. He kissed me earlier to prove something but it just clarified that something was definitely wrong for me. I get out of his side of the bed and get in my side. He sleeps with his back turned away from me and he's on the edge of the bed. I lay there for hours thinking about it. I silently sob into my pillow and all I can think about is how he might be leaving me. So many people say that the first sing that something is wrong in your relationship is when your partner is very hesitant of any physical touch. I mean hardin not wanting to kiss me is beyond irregular. I can feel hardin turn over in his sleep and take a deep breath. I know I must have woke him from my crying but what made it even worse is that he did nothing at all to comfort me. He just turned back over.

I wake up in the morning to hardin still sleeping on the edge of the bed. I sit up and think about what I should do.

"Hardin. Can you wake up please."I nudge him with my arm.

"Whats wrong?" He says in a sleepy voice.

"We need to talk about everything. First off what the hell is going on with you? You wont kiss me you won't even touch me at all. Few weeks ago you wanted to nothing but touch me now your sleeping on the edge of the fucking bed trying to get away from me. I dont even know what I did wrong?" He takes a deep breath and looks down fiddling with his fingers. I look up at him and I see a tear rolling down his cheek. He wipes it
way quickly with his hand.

"Oh my god what's wrong your scaring me." I get up and move closer to him.

"Are you cheating on me?"

Update on Friday now. Sorry havent updated this week I've been super busy moving house and im exhausted even now writing this at litteraly 00:07 in the morning.