After Ever Happy (After 4)

HARDIN

As I sit here listening to the sounds of the unforgiving storm outside, I can’t help but draw comparisons to the shitstorm I’ve made out of my life. I’m an asshole, the biggest one, the worst possible fucking kind of dickhead there is.

Tessa finally fell still only minutes ago; her body leaned toward me and she allowed herself to rest against me for physical support. Her swollen eyes closed, and now she’s asleep despite the rain pounding loudly on the flimsy greenhouse.

I shift slightly, hoping that she won’t wake when I lay her head down onto my lap. I 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 that I’m a goddamned coward, and I want to enjoy the silence while it lasts. Only here in the sweet silence can I 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 affection to win Tessa over from the beginning, instead of some 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, and watched it blow away. 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 vying for attention 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 is 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 could even have imagined she would find her dad’s body in my apartment.

When it comes to Tessa’s father himself and his death, the confusion I feel is overwhelming. The instinct to brush it off as a nonevent happening to a misfit who wasted his life away comes first, but then immediately 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. I would be hard-pressed to 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 I adored something about the way he loved Tessa and his optimistic outlook on life, even though his own life fucking sucked.

And the irony is that as soon as he finally had something, someone worth living for, he’s gone. Like he couldn’t handle that much goodness. 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 rain-soaked 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 amid 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 this girl I adore is asleep and unable to witness the 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, right down to Richard’s death. If I hadn’t agreed to take Tessa to England, none of this shit would have happened. We would be blissful and stronger than ever, just like we were a week ago. Fuck, has it only been that long? It seems impossible that such few days have come 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, 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 voice rumbles through the rain outside, then thunder booms through the air like an exclamation mark. I wipe at my face furiously, praying to disappear into the chill 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!” he exclaims when he bursts in. His voice is loud, his expression wild with relief.

“Would you shut the fuck up? She’s just fallen asleep,” I whisper harshly 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 my bloodshot eyes, the messy evidence of a breakdown clear in the redness 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. It makes part of me hate him more, that he’s that unfailingly good.

“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 blond hair back from his forehead and surprises me by taking a step toward the door. “I’ll be in the house,” he says wearily. Then, his shoulders sagging, he leaves without even so much as a rough closing of the screen door.