After Ever Happy (After 4)

“I’m not leaving.” I turn to Tessa. She’s still coughing, and no one seems to care. “Someone get her some goddamn water!” I yell in the small room, and the noise echoes from wall to wall.

Tessa whimpers and pulls her knees to her chest.

I know she’s in pain, and I know that I shouldn’t be here, but I also know that her mum and Noah will never be able to truly be there for her. I know Tessa better than the two of them combined, and I’ve never seen her this way, so surely neither of them will have a clue what to do with her while she’s in this state.

“I’ll call the police if you don’t leave, Hardin,” Carol says, low and threatening, from behind me. “I don’t know what you did this time, but I’m sick of it, and you have no place here. You never have, and you never will.”

I ignore the two interlopers and take a seat on the edge of Tessa’s childhood bed.

To my horror, she moves away again, this time scuttling back with her hands—until she hits the edge and falls hard to the floor. I’m on my feet in seconds to bring her into my arms, but the sounds she makes when my skin touches hers are even worse than the horrified screams that sounded from her minutes ago. I’m not sure what to do at first, but after endless seconds of this a broken scream of “Get off of me!” leaves her cracked lips and slices clear through my body. Her small hands pound at my chest and claw at my arms, trying to break my embrace. It’s hard to try to comfort her this way with this cast on. I’m afraid it will hurt her, and that’s the last thing I want.

As much as it kills me to see her so desperate to get away from me, I’m so fucking happy to see her react at all. The mute Tessa was the worst, and instead of yelling at me, like she is now, her mum should be thanking me that I brought her girl out of that phase in her grief.

“Get off!” Tessa screams again, and Noah begins to protest behind me. Tessa’s hand hits my solid cast, and she cries out again. “I hate you!”

Her words burn me, but I still hold her flailing body in my arms.

Noah’s deep voice breaks through Tessa’s screams: “You’re making things worse!”

Then she goes mute again . . . and does the worst thing she could do to my heart. Her hands break free of my hug—it’s harder than hell to hold her with one hand—and she reaches for Noah.

Tessa reaches for Noah to help her, because she can’t stand the sight of me.

I let go of her immediately, and she rushes into his arms. One of his arms hooks around her waist, and one rests at the base of her neck, pulling her head to his chest. Fury wrestles with sense, and I’m fighting my hardest to stay calm, watching his hands on her. If I touch him, she will hate me even more. If I don’t, I’ll be driven crazy watching this.

Fuck—why did I come here in the first place? I should have stayed away, just like I had planned. Now that I’m here, I can’t seem to force my feet out of this goddamn room, and her cries only trigger my need to keep her near. I can’t fucking win for losing, and it’s making me crazy.

“Make him go,” Tessa sobs into Noah’s chest.

The splintering pain of rejection seeps in, making me motionless for a few seconds. Noah turns to me, silently begging in the most civil way for me to leave the room. I hate that he’s become her comfort; one of my biggest insecurities has slapped me in the face, but I can’t think of it that way. I have to think of her. Only what’s best for her. I back away clumsily, reaching and scrambling for the door handle. Once I’m outside the small room, I lean against the door to catch my breath. How did our life together spiral down so much in such a short time?

I find myself in Carol’s kitchen filling a glass with water. It’s awkward, since I only have one usable hand, and it takes longer to get the cup, fill it, and turn off the faucet, all the while the huffing woman behind me grating my nerves.

I turn to face her, waiting for her to tell me she called the police. When she just glares at me silently, I say, “I don’t care about the trivial shit right now. Go ahead and call the police, or do whatever you have to do, but I’m not leaving this shithole of a town until she talks to me.” I take a drink from the glass and cross the small but immaculate kitchen to stand before her.

Carol’s voice is hard. “How did you get here? You were in London.”

“It’s called a fucking plane, that’s how.”

She rolls her eyes. “Just because you fly across the world and show up before the sun comes up doesn’t mean you have a place with her,” she says, seething. “She made that clear—why won’t you leave her? You’re only hurting her, and I won’t continue to stand around and allow it.”

“I don’t need your approval.”

“She doesn’t need you,” Carol fires back, grabbing the glass from my hand as if it were a loaded gun. She slams it onto the counter and meets my eyes.

“I know you don’t like me, but I love her. I make mistakes—way too fucking many of them—but, Carol, if you think I’m going to leave her with you after she saw what she saw, experienced what she experienced, then you’re even crazier than I thought.” I pick the glass back up just to spite her and take another drink.

“She will be fine,” Carol remarks coolly. She pauses for a minute, and something inside her seems to crack. “People die, and she will get over it!”

She says it loudly. Too loudly: I hope that Tessa couldn’t hear her mother’s cold remark.