Songs for this chapter are:
Hundred- The Fray
Say Something- A great big world
Almost Lover - A fine frenzy
(A book isn't worth reading if it doesn't make you feel so remember that when you're threatening to stop reading because it's not going the way you want! xo)
Hardin's POV.
Tessa finally fell silent only minutes ago, her body leaned toward me and she allowed herself to lay against me for physical support. Her swollen eyes closed and now she's asleep despite the loud rain pounding down on the flimsy greenhouse.
As I sit here listening to the sounds of the unforgiving storm outside, I can't help but draw comparisons to the shit storm I've made out of my life. I'm an asshole, the biggest one, the worst possible fucking kind of dickhead there is.
I shift slightly, hoping that she won't wake when I lay her head down onto my lap. I really need to get her out of here, out of the rain and away from the mud but I know what she will do when she opens her eyes. She's going to cast me away, tell me that I'm not wanted here, and fuck, I'm not ready to hear those words again.
I deserve them, all of them and then some, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm a god damned coward and I want to enjoy the silence while it lasts. Only here in the sweet silence I can pretend to be someone else. I can, just for a minute, pretend that I'm Noah. Well, a less annoying version of him but if I were him things would have been different. Things would be different now. I would have been able to use words and affections to win Tessa over from the beginning instead of a stupid game. I would have been able to make her laugh more often than cry. She would have trusted me wholly and completely and I wouldn't have taken that trust, crumbled it into ash then pissed on it. I would have savored her trust and maybe even been worthy of it.
But I'm not Noah, I'm Hardin and being Hardin doesn't mean shit.
If I didn't have so many fucking issues inside my head I could have made her happy. I could have shown her the light in life, just as she has done for me. Instead, here she sits, broken and completely fucked up. Her skin streaked with dark mud, the filth on her hands has now begun to dry and her face, even in sleep, is twisted into a painful frown. Her hair is wet in some places, dry and matted in others and I begin to wonder if she has changed her clothes more than once since she left London. I would have never sent her back here if I would have known she would find her dad's body in my apartment.
The confusion that I feel when it comes to Tessa's father and his death is overwhelming. The instinct to brush it off comes first but the loss of him is heavy on my chest. I didn't know him long and I barely tolerated the man, but he was decent enough company and I would never admit it but I sort of liked him. He was obnoxious and I absolutely loathed the way he emptied box after box of my cereal, but there was something I adored about the way he loved Tessa and his optimistic look on life, even though his life fucking sucked.
As soon as he finally had something, someone worth living for, he is gone. My eyes burn to release some sort of emotion, grief maybe. Grief for losing a man I barely knew or liked, grief for losing the idea of a father I thought I had with Ken, grief for losing Tessa, and just a tiny bit of hope that she will come around and not be lost forever.
My selfish tears mix with the drops of moisture falling from my hair and I bow my head, fighting the urge to bury my face into her neck for comfort. I don't deserve her comfort, I don't deserve anyone's comfort.
I deserve to sit here alone and weep like a pitiful rogue with silence and desolation, my oldest and truest friends.
The pathetic sobs that leave my mouth are lost in the sound of the rain and I'm thankful that she's asleep and unable to witness this breakdown that I can't seem to control. My own actions are the driving force behind every fucked up thing that's happening right now, even down to Richard's death. If I wouldn't have agreed to take Tessa to England, none of this shit would have happened.
We would be blissful and stronger than ever, just the way we were a little over a week ago. Fuck, has it only been that long? It seems impossible that such few days have came and gone, yet it seems like a damn lifetime since I've touched her, held her, and felt her heart beating under my palm. My hand hovers there, across her chest, wanting to touch her there but afraid to wake her.
If I can just touch her once, just feel the steady beat of her heart, it will anchor mine and calm me. It will bring me out of this breakdown and stop these disgusting tears from rolling down my cheeks and stop the violent heaves of my chest.
"Tessa!" Noah's deep rumble sounds through the rain while thunder simultaneously booms through the air. I furiously wipe at my face, praying to disappear into the cool spring air before he comes bursting in here.
"Tessa!" He calls again, this time louder and I know he's right outside the greenhouse.
I grit my teeth and hope that he doesn't yell her name again because if he wakes her up I..
"Oh, thank god! I should have known she was in here!" His voice is loud, his expression relieved when he walks inside.
"Would you shut the fuck up? She's just fallen asleep," I harshly whisper and glance down at Tessa's sleeping form. He's the last person that I wanted to walk in on me like this and I know he can see the redness in my eyes, the messy evidence of a breakdown clear in the red of my cheeks. Fuck, I don't think I can even hate this motherfucker because he's making it a point not to stare at me, not to embarrass me.
"She.." Noah looks around the muddy greenhouse and back to Tessa, "I should have known she would be in here. She always used to come in here," he brushes his blonde hair back from his forehead and takes a step toward the door.
"I'll be in the house," his shoulders sag and he leaves with a quiet slam of the screen door.
Tessa's POV.
"Tess, baby," Hardin groans for the second time. "I love you but you have got to hurry up or we will be late to our own party." He's been pestering me for the last hour, staring into the mirror watching me get apply my makeup and curl my hair, groping me every chance he gets.
"I know, I just want to look decent. Everyone will be there," I give him an apologetic smile, knowing he won't stay annoyed long and secretly loving the unpleasant expression on his face. I love the way the dimple on his right cheek makes an appearance when he has that adorable grumpy scowl.
"Decent? You'll be the center of everyone's attention," he whines, his jealousy clear.
"What's the party for again?" I ask him, swiping a thin layer of gloss across my lips. I can't remember what the party is for, I only know everyone is excited and we are going to be late if I don't finish grooming myself soon.
Hardin's strong arms wrap around me, "your father's funeral," he whispers and I drop the tube of gloss into the sink.
..
"What's wrong? What happened?" Hardin's here, right beside me and my legs are wrapped around his. I sit up and untangle myself from him. I shouldn't have fallen asleep, why did I do that? I don't even remember falling asleep, the last thing I remember was Hardin's warm hands on mine, covering my ears.
"Nothing," I croak. My throat burns and I take in my surroundings while my brain catches up with me. "I need water." I rub my neck and attempt to stand to my feet. Stumbling, I glance down at Hardin. His face is tight and his eyes are red.
"Did you have a dream?"
The nothing quickly creeps back inside of me, settling just below my breastbone and setting up camp there, in the deepest and emptiest spot.
"Sit down." his fingers burn on my skin and I pull away.
"Please, don't." I quietly beg. The grumpy, adorable Hardin from my dream was just that, a pointless dream and I am now faced with this Hardin, the one who keeps coming back for another hit after tossing me aside. I know why he does it, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to deal with it right now.
"I don't know what to do," he lowers his head in defeat and drops his hand to the floor to lift himself up. His knee slides further into the mud and I look away while he catches himself on the railing.
"You don't have to do anything," I mutter and attempt to pull all of my strength into forcing my legs to take me out of here and into the pouring rain. I'm halfway across the yard when I hear him behind me. He's keeping a safe distance behind me and I'm grateful. I need space from him, I need time to think and breathe and I need him not to be here.
I pull the back door open and step inside the house. Mud instantly streaks the rug and I cringe at the reaction that this mess will pull from my mother. Instead of waiting to hear her complaints, I undress down to my bra and panties, leaving my clothes in a muddy pile on the back porch and try my best to rinse my feet off in the rain before trudging across the clean tile floor. My feet squeak with each step and I flinch as the back door opens and Hardin's boots track mud in with them. Such a silly thing to worry about really, mud? Out of all the things on my mind, mud seems so trivial, so small. I miss the days when a mess was a concern.
"Tessa? Did you hear me?" A voice breaks through my inner discussion.
I blink and look up to find Noah standing in the doorway of the hallway with damp clothes and no shoes on his feet. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you." I admit.
"It's okay. Are you alright? Do you need a shower?" He asks.
I nod and he steps into the bathroom and the noise from the shower draws me closer. "He's not helping you take a shower." He says, his voice hard.
I don't respond. I don't have the energy to. Of course he's not going to help me take a shower, why would he?
"I'm sorry, but this isn't going to happen." He walks past me, trailing mud behind him. My mind is disconnected from me, or maybe it just feels that way but I laugh lightly at the mess he's left behind him. Not only in my mother's house but everywhere he goes, he leaves a mess behind. Including me, I'm the biggest mess of all.
"She's half naked and you're running her a shower. Fuck no, you aren't going to stay in here while she bathes. Nope, not going to fucking happen." Hardin says and Noah quietly argues back.
"I am only trying to help her and you're causing a problem when-"
"Both of you can leave," my voice is monotone, robotic and flat as I push past the two brooding men. "Go fight somewhere else." I shut the door behind me and click the lock into place, hoping that Hardin won't add this thin bathroom door to his list of destruction.
The water is hot, so hot, against my back and I'm covered in filth. I hate it. I hate the way the mud is crusted under my nails and into my hair. I hate the way that I've been scrubbing furiously and I can't seem to get clean.
Hardin's POV.
"I can't help that she was undressed. All of this stuff going on and you're concerned about me seeing her body?" The judgment in his tone makes me want to strangle him with my good hand.
"It's not just-," I take a deep breath. "It's not that." It's a whole lot of shit that I'm not going to tell him.
"I don't know what happened between you two but you can't blame me for wanting to help her. I've known her my whole life and I've never seen her like this." Noah says.
"I'm not discussing anything with you. You and I aren't on the same team here."
"We don't have to be rivals either, I want the best for her and so should you. I'm not a threat to you, I'm not stupid enough to think she would ever choose me. I've moved on, I still love her because, well, I think I always will but not in the way you love her." His words would make much more sense if I wouldn't have despised his ass for the last eight months.
I stay quiet, my back leaning against the wall in front of the bathroom while I wait for the shower to shut off.
"You two broke up again, right?" He nosily asks. He really doesn't know when to shut up.
"Obviously,"
"I'm not going to get into your business but I do hope you'll tell me about Richard and how he ended up in your apartment. I don't get it."
"He was staying at my place after Tessa left for Seattle. He didn't have anywhere else to go so I let him stay with me but when we left for London he agreed to go to rehab so imagine the surprise when he ends up dead as a fucking doornail on the bathroom floor." I explain.
The bathroom door clicks open and Tessa walks straight past both of us, dressed only in a towel. I know I shouldn't be worried about shit like that but I can't help it. Noah has never seen her naked before, no other man has, and selfishly, I'd like to keep it that way.
"As much as I hate you for taking her from me, for her sake I'm sort of glad you did." He says and walks toward the living room. "I'll be out here but know that if she calls for me, I'm coming to her whether you try to fight me or not."
Tessa's POV.
"I'm coming in," Hardin says and opens the door before I can respond. I pull a clean t-shirt down over my stomach and sit on the bed. "I brought you more water." He places a full glass on the small nightstand and sits on the opposite side of the bed.
"Thank you." I came up with a speech in the shower but now that he's here in front of me I can't remember any of it. I feel slightly less insane after the shower, or maybe the short nap in the greenhouse, or maybe the silence I was finally granted. I don't know but I can see the world with more clarity, only slightly more, but it's helping me not feel so delusional and giving me a little hope that each day will bring more clarity, more peace.
"Are you feeling better?" He's being cautious. I must look so frail, so weak to him. I feel it too. I should feel defeated and angry and sad and confused and lost. The thing is, there's still nothing. There's the deep throb of nothing but I'm growing used to it as each minute passes.
During each long minute in the shower while the water turned cold, I thought of things from a new perspective. I thought of the way my life has turned into this dark hole of absolutely nothing and I thought about how much I hated feeling that way, and I thought of the perfect solution but now I can't get the jumbled words into a proper sentence. This must be what it feels like to lose your mind.
"I hope you are," he says. He hopes I am what? "Feeling better," he answers my thoughts. I hate the way he's so connected to me, the way he knows what I'm feeling and thinking even when I don't.
"I am, sort of." I shrug and focus on the wall again. The wall is easier to focus on than the brilliant green of his eyes, the green that I was always so terrified of losing. While laying in our bed with him, I remember hoping I would get another hour, another week, maybe even another month with those eyes. I would pray that he would come around and want me permanently, the way I wanted him. I don't want to feel that anymore, I don't want that desperation rolling off of me when it comes to him. I want to sit here with my nothing and be content and quiet and maybe one day, I can become someone else, someone I thought I would be before I moved to Pullman. If I'm lucky, I could at least be the girl I was when I left home.
That girl is long gone though, she took a ticket straight to hell and here she sits, silently burning.
"I want you to know how sorry I am for everything Tessa, I should have come back here with you. I shouldn't have ended things with you because of my own problems. I should have let you be there for me like I want to be for you. Now I know how you must feel, constantly trying to help me when I pushed and pushed you away."
"Hardin," I whisper, not sure what I will say next.
"No Tessa, let me say this. I promise you this time it will be different. I'll never do that again. I'm sorry that it took your dad dying to make me realize how much I need you but I won't do it again, I swear it." The desperation in his voice is all too familiar, I've heard this same tone and these same words many times from him.
"I can't." I calmly interrupt him. "I'm sorry Hardin, but I really can't."
He moves to my side in a panic and drops to his knees in front of me, ruining the carpet there. "Can't what? I know it will take some time but I am prepared to wait for you to come out of this.. this, state of grief you're in. I'm willing to do everything, I mean everything."
"We can't, we never could." My voice is flat again. I guess robotic Tessa is here to stay. I don't have enough energy to push any emotion into my voice.
"We can get married," he rambles. He seems surprised by his own words but he doesn't take them back. His long fingers wrap around both of my wrists and he continues. "Tessa, we can get married. I'll marry you tomorrow if you'll agree. I'll wear a tux and everything."
The words that I've been hysterically wishing and waiting for have finally fallen from his lips but I can't feel them. I heard them clear as day, but I can't feel them.
"We can't," I shake my head and watch as he grows more desperate.
"I have money, more than enough money to pay for a wedding, Tessa and we could have it wherever you choose. You can get the most expensive dress and flowers and I won't complain about any of it!" His voice is loud now, echoing through the room.
"It's not about that, it's not right." I wish I could engrave his words and the way his voice sounds so frantic, excited even, and take them with me into the past. A past where I couldn't see how destructive our relationship really was and I would have given anything to hear those words from him.
"What is it then? I know you want this Tessa, you've told me so many times." I can see the battle behind his eyes and I wish I could do something to ease his pain but I can't.
"I don't have anything left, Hardin. I don't have anything left to give you. You've already taken it all and I'm sorry but there's just nothing left." The hollowness inside of me grows, taking my entire being with it and I've never been so thankful to feel nothing. If I could feel this, any of this, it would kill me.
It would surely kill me and I decided only a little while ago that I want to live. I'm not proud of the dark thoughts that crossed my mind but I'm proud that they were brief and that I overcame them on my own, on the floor of a cold shower.
"I don't want to take anything from you. I want to give you what you want!" He gasps for air and the sound is so troubled that I almost agree with everything he's saying just so I won't ever have to hear that sound again.
"Marry me, Tess. Please just marry me and I swear I'll never do anything like this again. We could be together forever, we would be husband and wife. I know you're too good for me and I know you deserve better but now I know that you and I, we aren't like anyone else. We aren't like your parents or mine, we are different and we can fucking make it, okay? Just listen to me one more time-"
"Look at us," I weakly wave my hand through the space between us. "Look at who I've become. I don't want this life anymore."
"No, no, no," he stands up and paces across the floor. "You do! Let me make it up to you." He begs, tugging at his hair with one hand.
"Hardin please calm down. I'm sorry for everything I've done to you and most of all I'm sorry that I complicated your life and I'm sorry for all the fighting and back and forth but you have to know this wouldn't work. I thought," I smile a pitiful smile, "I thought that we could make it, I thought ours was a love of the novels, a love that no matter how hard and fast and tough it was, I thought we would survive anything and everything and live to tell the story."
"We can, we can survive it." He chokes. I can't look at him because I know what I would see.
"That's just it Hardin, I don't want to have to survive, I want to live."
My words strike something in him and he stops pacing, stops tugging at his hair. "I can't just let you go. You know that. I always come back to you, you had to know that I would. I would have come back from London eventually and we-"
"I can't spend my life waiting for you to come back to me and it would be selfish of me to want you to spend yours running." I tell him.
I'm confused again. I'm confused because I don't remember ever having these thoughts, all of my thoughts have always been geared toward Hardin and what I could do to make him better, to make him stay. I don't know where these thoughts and words are coming from but I can't ignore the resolve I feel when I say them.
"I can't be without you," he declares. This is another declaration that he's spoken so many times yet he does everything In his power to keep me away, to shut me out.
"You can. You'll be happier and less conflicted. It would be easier, you said so yourself." I tell him, meaning it. He will be happier without me, without our constant back and forth. He can focus on himself and his anger towards both of his fathers and one day he could be happy. I love him enough to want his happiness, even if it's not with me.
"No!" He brings his hands in fists to his forehead and clenches his teeth. I love him, I'll always love this man, but I've run out. I can't continue to be the fuel to his fire when he's constantly coming back with bucket upon bucket of water to extinguish it.
"We've fought so hard but I think it's time to stop."
"No! No!" His eyes search the room and I know what he's going to do before he does it. That's why I'm not surprised when the small lamp goes flying across the room and shatters against the wall. I don't move, I don't even blink. It's all too familiar and this is why I'm doing what I'm doing.
I can't comfort him, I can't. I can't even comfort myself and I don't trust myself enough to wrap my arms around his shoulders and whisper promises into his ear.
"This is what you wanted, remember? Go back to that Hardin. Just remember why you didn't want me. Remember why you sent me back to America alone."
"I can't be without you, I need you in my life." He chants.
"I can still be in your life," I promise him. "Just not like this."
"You're seriously suggesting we be friends?" He spits. The green of his eyes is almost gone now, replaced by black as his anger builds.
Before I can respond he continues, "we can't go back to being friends after everything. I could never be in the same room as you and not be with you. You are everything to me and you're going insult me by suggesting we be friends? You don't mean that. You love me, Tessa." He looks into my eyes. "You have to. Don't you love me?"
The nothing begins to chip away and I fight desperately to hold onto it. If I begin to feel this, it will take me down. "Yes," I breathe and he kneels down in front of me again. "I love you but we can't keep doing this to each other."
I don't want to fight with him and I don't want to hurt him but the weight of this is on his back. I would have given him everything, hell I did give him everything and he didn't want it. At the end of the day, when times got hard, he didn't love me enough to fight his demons for me. He gave up, each and every time.
"How will I survive without you?" He's crying now, right in front of my face and I blink back my own tears and swallow the heavy lump of guilt in my throat. "I can't. I won't. You can't just throw this away because you're going through some shit. Let me be here for you, don't push me away."
Once again, my mind detaches from my body and I laugh. It's not an amused laugh, it's a sad and broken laugh at the idea of his words. He's asking of me what I've asked of him and he doesn't even realize it.
"I've been begging for the same since I met you," I softly remind him. I love him and I don't want to hurt him but I've got to end this cycle once and for all. If I don't, I won't make it out alive.
"I know," his head falls to my knees and his body shakes against me. "I'm sorry," he's hysterical and the nothing is slipping too fast for me to stop it. I don't want to feel this, I don't want to feel him crying against me after promising and offering the things I've waited what feels like an eternity, to hear.
"We will be okay. When you snap out of this we will be okay," I think he says. I'm not sure and I can't ask him to repeat it because I can't handle hearing it again. I hate this about us, I hate that no matter what he does to me, I somehow find a way to blame myself for his pain.
I catch a glimpse of movement at the door and I nod at Noah, letting him know that I'm fine. I'm not fine but I haven't been for a while and unlike before, I don't feel the need to be fine. His eyes move to the broken lamp and he looks worried but I nod again, silently pleading with him to leave, to let me have this moment. This last moment to feel Hardin's body against mine, to feel his head on my lap, to memorize the black swirls of ink across his arms.
"I'm sorry that I couldn't fix you," I tell him while softly stroking his damp hair.
"Me too," he cries against my legs.
(I know some of you hate what's happening but you are supposed to feel the emotions, you're supposed to be mad and sad and emotional. We only have 25 chapters left! It's going so quickly! I hope everyone has an amazing weekend.! I love you all! xo)