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 in that greenhouse, but I’m proud that they were brief and that I overcame them on my own, on the floor of a cold shower after the hot water ran out.
“I don’t want to take anything from you. I want to give you exactly 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 wave my hand weakly 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 out.
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 from me, from us.” But 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—another sentiment he’s proclaimed a million 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 mean it. He will be happier without me, without our constant back-and-forth. He can focus on himself and his anger toward 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.
He brings his hands in fists to his forehead and clenches his teeth. “No!”
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. I need you in my life. I need. You. In my life,” he chants.
“I can still be in your life. Just not like this.”
“You’re seriously suggesting we be friends?” he spits out venomously. 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 on to it. If I begin to feel this, it will take me down. “Yes,” I breathe.
He kneels down in front of me again.
“I love you, Hardin, 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. 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.”