After Ever Happy (After 4)

“It’s true, though. There’s no happy ending—not for me, anyway. I’m too fucked-up.” He drops his hands from my face and turns away from me.

“No, you aren’t! You—”

“Why do you do that?” he slurs, his body swaying back and forth. “Why do you always try to find the light in me? Wake up, Tessa! There isn’t any fucking light!” he screams, and slams both of his hands against his chest.

“I’m nothing! I’m a fucked-up piece of shit with fucked-up parents and a fucked-up head! I tried to warn you, I tried to push you away before I destroyed you . . .” His voice gets lower, and he reaches into his pocket. I recognize the purple lighter as Judy’s from the bar.

Hardin doesn’t look at me as he strikes the flame.

“My parents are messed up, too! My father is in rehab, for God’s sake!” I shout back at him.

I knew this would happen—I knew Christian’s confession would be Hardin’s breaking point. One person can only handle so much, and Hardin was already so fragile.

“This is your last chance to go before this place burns to the ground,” he says without looking at me.

“You’d burn down the house with me in it?” I choke out. I’m crying now, but I don’t remember when I started.

“No.” His boots are so loud as he crosses the room; my head is spinning, my heart is aching, and I’m afraid I’ve lost my sense of reality. “Come on.” He lifts his hand to me, asking me to take it.

“Give me the lighter.”

“Come here.” He holds both arms to me. I’m full-on sobbing now. “Please.”

I force myself to ignore his familiar beckoning, no matter how much it hurts to do so. I want to run into his arms and take him away from here. But this is no Austen novel with a happy ending and good intentions; this is a Hemingway at best, and I can see right through his gesture. “Give me the lighter, and we can leave together.”

“You almost had me believing that I could be normal.” The lighter still rests dangerously in his palm.

“No one is!” I cry. “No one is normal—I don’t want you to be. I love you now, I love you and all of this!” I look around the living room and back to Hardin.

“You couldn’t. No one would, or ever has. Not even my own mum.”

As the words leave his lips, the sound of the door slamming against the wall makes me jump. I look toward the noise, and relief floods through me when Christian rushes into the living room. He’s out of breath and panicked. He stops in his tracks when he takes in the state of the small room, liquor covering nearly every inch.

“What—” Christian’s eyes narrow at the lighter in Hardin’s hand. “I heard sirens on my way here. We need to leave, now!” he shouts.

“How did you . . .” Hardin looks back and forth between Christian and me. “You called him?”

“Of course she did! What was she going to do? Let you burn the house down and get yourself arrested?” Christian yells.

Hardin throws his hands in the air, still holding that lighter. “Get the fuck out! Both of you!”

Christian turns to me. “Tessa, go outside.”

But I stand my ground. “No, I’m not leaving him in here.” Has Christian not learned that Hardin and I shouldn’t be separated?

“Go,” Hardin says, taking a step toward me. He flicks his thumb across the metal of the lighter, igniting the flame. “Take her outside,” he slurs.

“My car is parked in the alley across the street—go to it and wait for us,” Christian instructs. When I look at Hardin, his eyes are set on the white flame, and I know him well enough to know that he’s going to do this whether I leave or not. He’s too intoxicated and too upset to stop now.

A cold set of keys is placed into my hand, and Christian leans in close. “I’m not going to let anything happen to him.”

After a moment of internal battle, I wrap my fingers around the keys and walk out the front door without looking back. I run across the street and pray that the sirens in the distance have another destination in mind.

Chapter seven

HARDIN

As soon as Tessa runs out the front door, Vance starts waving his hands in front of him and yelling, “Go ahead! Go ahead! Go ahead!”

What is he talking about—and why the fuck is he even here? I hate Tessa for calling him. I take that back; I could never hate her, but, fuck, she pisses me off.

“No one wants you here,” I say, my mouth numb as I speak to this man.

My eyes are burning. Where is Tessa? Did she leave? I thought she did, but now I’m confused. How long ago did she come here? Was she even here to begin with? I don’t know.

“Light the fire.”

“Why? You want me to burn with the house?” I ask. A younger version of him leaning against the mantel at my mum’s house fills my mind. He was reading to me. “Why was he reading to me?”

Did I say that out loud? I have no fucking idea. Present-day Vance stares at me, expecting something.

“All your mistakes would be gone if I were, too.” The metal on the lighter burns the rough skin on my thumb, but I continue to flick the lighter.

“No, I want you to burn the house down. Maybe then you can have some peace.”

I think he may be yelling at me, but I can barely see straight, let alone measure the volume of his voice. He’s actually giving me his permission to burn this shit down?

Who said I need fucking permission?

“Who are you to give me the okay? I didn’t fucking ask you!” I lower the flame down to the arm of the couch and wait for it to catch. I wait for the all-consuming fire to destroy this place.