*Tessas POV*
I'm laying on my bed when Hardin walks in.
"Can we please talk?" He asks, well more like pleading.
I nod, and he sits in the chair near my dresser. "What do you want to talk about?" I ask. His hand's motion between us.
"Hardin, I already told you I want to focus on the kids before I jump into a relationship with you, and" He cuts me off.
"I love you, I always have and I always will. I will never stop loving you until the day I die. It's not just you but our kids. You are the reason I still had hope. Why I never stopped believing in me. We don't have to be in a relationship right now but I need you to know that I love you and I will Always and Forever." He says.
*Hardin POV*
I knew I should have waited to tell her, but I feel like we have waited so long.
" I love you, Hardin, Always and Forever, Till death do us part," She says.
She said it back, I sit there and smile.
"You know, Our kids are great. All four of them," She says. I knew it. She has only know Adrian for only forty-eight hours and she is already treating him like her own flesh and blood.
"Thank you," I say. She furrows her eyebrows together. "For what?" She says confused. "For raising our kids to be humble, mature, well sort of mature, kind human beings. You raised them well." I say.
"You weren't here for 'the animal crisis'" She says with a slight chuckle. "What was that?"
"When Emery and Auden were 6 and Elena were 5, They were playing then all of a sudden I walked into where they were playing and they were scratching each other. They all have scars from that. Emerys is on the back of her hand, Auden on his shoulder, and Elenas on the side of her neck. Looking back on it Zach calls it 'The animal crisis" She says.
Zach, Who the fuck is Zach?
So many questions run through my mind, 'Have they ever slept together?' 'Did him and her ever date?' 'Why did he teach my kids how to do things'
I get angry, my jaw clenched and my hands are balled into a fist.
"Do you love him?" I ask. I can't look at her. "Yea, Of course, I do." She says. My eyes start to water. A few tears slip past. "But I'm not him, so we stay friends." I look up at her. Our eyes meet and she burst out laughing,
"Not funny," I say with a slight chuckle.
She pats the spot next to her on the bed. I happily oblige and I lie down. She cuddles up next to me. " I missed this," She says. Our hands entwined while she rubs circles over my thumb. "Me too," I say kissing her forehead.
"I decided to adopt Adrian." I am stunned. We have only been together for three days. "I'll figure out the legal issues. And I already asked if I could and he said yes." She says. "Thank you," I say.
"For?" she asks. "He was scared coming here, He thought you guys wouldn't like him. And now you were just willing to adopt him." I say.
We talk for a little more until her words start to slur and soft snores leave her lips.
I look down at her, her hair has fallen around her face, her lips are at a pout.
I never believed in love. To me love was just a transaction. From Darcy to Heathcliff, I thought they were fools. I thought that love was something fictional, only found in worn pages of a book. But all that has changed since I met my Elizabeth Bennett. I never thought I would find myself utterly consumed by another until her. She took my hand and led me out of the darkness and showed me how to love. She once asked me who I loved most in the world.
It's Tessa
Its Emery.
It's Auden.
It's Elena.
It's Adrian.
There was a time where I couldn't even love myself. and now here I am with 4 kids who are my everything.
After everything that happened, Our love is one that cannot be broken. Because whatever the fuck our souls are made of hers and mine are the same.