After Ever Happy (After 4)

I start gagging as the image multiplies as their voices get louder, angrier, and my body begs me to just let it all go, to just let everything out of my stomach. The problem is that there’s nothing inside me but water, and so acid burns my throat when I vomit onto my old comforter.

“Fuck!” Hardin exclaims. “Get out, damn it!” He shoves at Noah’s chest with one hand, and Noah stumbles back, bracing himself against the frame of the door.

“You get out! You’re not even wanted here!” Noah fires back and rushes forward, pushing Hardin.

Neither of them notice as I stand from the bed and wipe vomit from my mouth with one sleeve. Because all either of them can see is red and their infinite “loyalty” to me, I make it out of the room, down the hall, and out the front door without either of them noticing.

Chapter twenty-six

HARDIN

Fuck you!” My cast connects with Noah’s jaw, and he rears back, spitting blood.

He doesn’t stop, though. He charges me again and knocks me to the floor. “You son of a bitch!” he yells.

I roll on top of him. If I don’t stop now, Tessa will hate me even more than she already does. I can’t stand this asshole, but she cares for him, and if I do any real damage to him, she will never forgive me. I manage to get to my feet and put some distance between this fucking newfound linebacker and myself.

“Tessa . . .” I start and turn to the bed, but my stomach drops when I find it empty. A wet stain from her getting sick is the only evidence that she was there at all.

Without a glance at Noah, I stalk down the hallway, calling her name. How could I be so stupid? When will I stop being such a fuckup?

“Where is she?” Noah asks from behind me, following me like a suddenly lost puppy.

Carol is still asleep on the couch. She hasn’t moved from the spot I laid her in last night after she fell asleep in my arms. The woman may hate my fucking guts, but I couldn’t deny her comfort when she needed it.

To my horror, the screen door is open and hanging on the hinges, blowing back and forth in the wind from the storm. Two cars are parked in the driveway: Noah’s and Carol’s. The $100 cab ride I took here from the airport was worth the time I would have wasted going all the way to Ken’s house for my car. At least Tessa hasn’t tried to drive anywhere.

“Her shoes are here.” Noah picks up one of Tessa’s flimsy shoes and tosses it back onto the floor.

Blood is smeared across his chin, and his blue eyes are wild, filled with worry. Tessa is walking around alone in the middle of a massive storm because I let my fucking ego take over.

Noah disappears for a moment while I scan the landscape outside, trying to catch a glimpse of my girl. When Noah returns from searching her room again, her purse is in his hand. She has no shoes on, no money, and no phone. She couldn’t have gone far—we were only fighting for a minute, tops. How could I let my temper distract me from her?

“I’ll get in my car and check around the block,” Noah says, pulling his keys from the pocket of his jeans and walking out the door.

He has the advantage here. He grew up on this street; he knows this place and I don’t. I look around the living room and then walk to the kitchen. I glance out the window and realize that I have the advantage, not him. I’m surprised he didn’t think of this himself. He may know the town, but I know my Tessa, and I know exactly where she is.

The rain is still coming down in large, unforgiving sheets as I descend the back porch steps with one stride and cross the grass to the small greenhouse in the corner, hiding between a cluster of swaying trees. The metal door is cracked open, proving my instincts right.

I find Tessa huddled on the floor, dirt covering her jeans and her bare feet layered in mud. Her knees are pulled to her chest, and her shaky hands are covering her ears. It’s a heartbreaking sight, seeing my strong girl reduced to a shell. Pot after pot of dirt lines the poor excuse for a greenhouse; it’s obvious that no one has been in here since Tessa left home. A few cracks are in the ceiling, sending streams of rain down in random spots throughout the small space.

I don’t say anything, but I don’t want to surprise her, and I hope she can hear the sloshing of my boots against the mud covering the floor. When I look down again, I see that there is no floor after all. That explains all the mud. Taking her hands away from her ears, I lean down to force her eyes to mine. She thrashes away like a cornered animal, and I flinch at her reaction but keep my grip on her hands.

She digs her hands into the mud and uses her legs to kick at me. The moment I let go of her wrists, she covers her ears again, a terrible whimper falling from her full lips. “I need quiet,” she begs, slowly rocking back and forth.

I have so many things to say, so many words to throw at her in hopes that she will listen to me and come out of hiding within herself, but one look into her desperate eyes, and I lose them all.

If she wants quiet, I will give her that. Fuck, at this point I will give her anything and everything she wants as long as she doesn’t force me to leave.

So I move closer to her, and we sit on the muddy floor of the old greenhouse. The greenhouse that she used to hide away from her father, the greenhouse that she’s now using to hide from the world, to hide from me.

We sit here as the rain pounds against the glass roof. We sit here as her whimpers turn to quiet sobs and she stares into the empty space in front of her, and we sit in silence with my hands over her small fingers covering her ears, blocking her from the noise around us, giving her the silence she needs.

Chapter twenty-seven