After Ever Happy

  “I need to close my eyes,” I tell Noah when he tries to offer me some grapes from the plate. “No more.” I gently push the plate away. The sight of food is making me want to vomit.

  I lie down and bring my knees to my chest. Noah being Noah reminds me of the time we got in trouble for throwing grapes at each other during Sunday service when we were twelve.

  “That was our most rebellious thing we did, I think.” he says with a soft laugh.

  The sound puts me to sleep.

  “YOU’RE NOT GOING IN THERE. The last thing we need is you setting her off. She’s sleeping for the first time in days,” I hear my mother’s voice say from down the hall.

  Who is she talking to? I’m not sleeping, am I? I lean up on my elbows, and the blood rushes to my head. I’m so tired, so tired. Noah is here, in my childhood bed with me. It all feels so familiar, the bed, the messy blond hair sticking up from Noah’s head. I feel different, though, out of place and disoriented.

  “I’m not here to hurt her, Carol. You should know that by now.”

  “You—” my mother attempts to fight back, but she’s interrupted.

  “You should also know that I still don’t give a fuck what you say.” My bedroom door opens, and the last person I thought I’d see pushes past my irate mother.

  Noah’s arm is heavy across me, weighing me into the bed. His grip tightens on my waist in his sleep, and my throat burns at the sight of Hardin. His green eyes are furious at the sight in front of him. He crosses the room and forcefully yanks Noah’s arm from my body.

  “What the—” Noah wakes with a startle and jumps to his feet. When Hardin takes another step toward me, I scramble across the twin bed and my back hits the wall, hard. Hard enough to knock the wind from me, but I still try to get away from him. I cough and Hardin’s eyes soften.

  Why is he here? He can’t be here, I don’t want him here. He’s done enough damage, and he doesn’t get to just show up here and pick at the scraps.

  “Fuck! Are you okay?” His inked arm reaches for me, and I do the first thing that comes to my twisted mind: I scream.

  chapter twenty-four

  HARDIN

  Her screams fill my ears, my empty chest, my lungs, until they finally rest somewhere inside me that I wasn’t quite sure could be reached anymore. A place only she can access, and always will.

  “What are you doing here?” Noah jumps to his feet and moves between me and the small bed like some fucking white knight designated to protect her . . . from me?

  She’s still screaming; why is she screaming?

  “Tessa, please . . .” I’m not sure what I’m asking for, but her screams turn to coughs, and her coughs turn to sobs, and her sobs turn to choking sounds that I simply can’t handle. I take a cautious step toward her, and she finally catches her breath.

  Her haunted eyes still rest on me, burning a hole into me that only she can fill.

  “Tess, do you want him here?” Noah asks.

  It’s taking every ounce of my self-control to ignore that he’s here in the first place, and he’s really pushing it.

  “Get her some water!” I tell her mum. She ignores me.

  Then, unbelievably, Tessa’s head moves swiftly back and forth, denying me.

  That triggers her makeshift protector to raise his hand to me and grow bold. “She doesn’t want you here.”

  “She doesn’t know what she wants! Look at her!” I throw my hands in the air and immediately feel Carol’s manicured nails digging into my arm.

  She’s lost her shit if she thinks I’m going anywhere. Doesn’t she know by now that she can’t keep me away from Tessa? Only I can keep myself away from her—a stupid fucking idea that I can’t seem to hold to.

  Noah leans in toward me a little. “She doesn’t want to see you and you would be best to leave.”

  I don’t give a fuck that the kid has seemed to grow in size and muscle mass since the last time I’ve seen him. He’s nothing to me. He will soon learn why people don’t bother to even attempt to come between Tessa and me. They know better, and he will, too.

  “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 a
t 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.

  “You’re serious? She’s your fucking daughter, and he was your husband . . .” I trail off, remembering the two weren’t actually legally married. “She’s hurting, and you’re being a heartless bitch, which is exactly why I won’t leave her here with you. Landon shouldn’t have let you come get her in the first place!”

  Carol cocks her head back indignantly. “Let me? She’s my daughter.”

  The glass in my hand shakes and the water laps over the side and onto the floor. “Maybe you should act like it, then, and try to be there for her!”

  “Be there for her? Who’s here for me?” Her emotionless voice cracks, and I’m shocked when the woman who I was convinced was made of stone crumbles and leans against the counter to keep herself from falling to the floor. Tears roll down her face, which is heavily made-up despite that it’s only five in the morning. “I didn’t see that man for years . . . He left us! He left me after making promise after promise of a good life!” Her hands swipe across the counter, knocking jars of utensils to the floor. “He lied—he lied to me—and he left Tessa and ruined my entire life! I could never even look at another man after Richard Young, and he left us!” she screams.

  When she grasps my shoulder and digs her head into my chest, sobbing and screaming, for a flash she looks so much like the girl I love that I can’t bring myself to push her away. Not knowing what else to do, I wrap one arm around her and stay silent.

  “I wished for this—I wished he would die,” she admits through her tears. I can hear the shame in her voice. “I used to wait for him, I used to tell myself that he would come back for us. For years I did this, and now that he’s dead, I can’t even pretend anymore.”

  We stay this way for a long time, her crying into my chest, telling me in different ways with different words that she hates herself because she’s glad that he’s dead. I can’t find words to comfort this woman, but for the first time since I met her, I can see the broken woman behind the mask.

  chapter twenty-five

  TESSA

  After a few minutes of sitting with me, Noah gets up, stretches, and says, “I’m going to get you something to drink. You need food, too.”

  My fists wrap around his shirt, and I shake my head, begging him not to leave me alone.

  He sighs. “You’ll get sick if you don’t eat something soon,” he says, but I know I’ve won the battle. Noah has never been one to hold his ground.

  The last thing I want is something to drink or to eat. I only want one thing: for him to leave and never come back.

  “I think your mom is giving Hardin an earful.” Noah attempts a smile but fails.

  I hear her yelling, and something crashes in the distance, but I refuse to let Noah leave me alone in the room. If I’m left alone, he will come in. That’s what he does, he preys on people when they are at their weakest. Especially me, who has been weak since the day I met him. I lay my head back on my pillow and block out everything—my mother screaming, the deep, accented voice yelling back at her, and even Noah’s comforting whispers in my ear.

  I close my eyes and drift between nightmares and reality, trying to decide which is worse.

  WHEN I WAKE UP AGAIN, the sun is bright through the thin curtains tacked over the windows. My head is pounding, my mouth is dry, and I’m alone in the room. Noah’s tennis shoes are on the floor, and after a moment of peaceful confusion, the weight of the last twenty hours knocks the breath out of me, and I bury my face in my hands.

  He was here. He was here, but Noah and my mother helped—

  “Tessa,” his voice says, startling me out of my thoughts.

  I want to pretend this is a phantom, but I know it’s not. I can feel his presence here. I refuse to look up at him as I hear him enter the room. Why is he here? Why does he think he can toss me aside, then swoop back in when it’s convenient? That’s not happening anymore. I’ve already lost him and my father, and I don’t need either loss shoved in my face right now.

  “Get out,” I say. The sun disappears, hiding behind the clouds. Even the sun doesn’t want to be near him.

  When I feel the bed shift under his weight, I hold my ground and try to hide the shiver that passes through me.

  “Have some water.” A cold glass is pressed against my hand, but I swat it away. I don’t even flinch when I hear it fall to the floor. “Tess, look at me.” Then his hands are on me—icy, his touch almost foreign—and I jerk away.

  As much as I want to crawl into his lap and let him comfort me, I don’t. And I won’t, not ever again. Even with my mind in the place it is now, I know that I won’t ever let him in again. I can’t, and I won’t.

  “Here.” Hardin hands me another glass of water, from the bedside table, this one not as cold.

  Instinctively I grab it. I don’t know why, but his name echoes in my mind. I didn’t want to hear his name, not in my own head, that’s the only place I am safe from him.

  “You’ll drink some water,” he softly demands.

  I stay silent as bring the glass to my lips. I don’t have the energy to refuse the water out of spite, and I am beyond thirsty. I finish the entire glass within seconds, my eyes never leaving the wall.

  “I know you’re angry at me, but I just want to be here for you,” he lies.

  Everything he says is a lie—always has been, always will be. I stay quiet, a low snort coming from my mouth at his claim.

  “The way you acted when you saw me last night . . .” he begins. I can feel his eyes on me, but I refuse to look at him. “The way you screamed . . . Tessa, I’ve never felt pain like that—”

  “Stop it,” I snap. My voice doesn’t sound like my voice, and I begin to wonder if I’m even awake right now, or if this is another nightmare.

  “I just want to know that you’re not afraid of me. You aren’t, are you?”

  “This isn’t about you,” I manage. And it’s true, absolutely true. He’s tried to make this about him—his pain—but this is about my father’s death and that I can’t take any more heartache.

  “Fuck.” He sighs, and I just know that he’s running his hands over his hair. “I know it’s not. That’s not what I meant. I’m worried about you.”

  I close my eyes and hear thunder in the distance. He’s worried about me? If he was so worried about me, maybe he shouldn’t have sent me back to America alone. I wish I hadn’t made it home; I wish something had happened to me on the trip back—so he could deal with the loss of me.

  Then again, he probably wouldn’t want to be bothered. He would be too bu
sy getting high. He wouldn’t even notice.

  “You aren’t yourself, baby.”

  I begin to shake at the use of the sick nickname.

  “You need to talk about this, everything with your dad. It will make you feel better.” His voice is too loud, and the rain is pounding against the old roof. I wish it would just cave in and let the storm outside sweep me away.

  Who is this person sitting here with me? I sure as hell don’t know him, and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I should talk about my father? Who the hell is he to sit here and act like he cares about me, like he could help me? I don’t need help. I need silence.

  “I don’t want you here.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re just mad at me right now because I acted like an asshole and I fucked up.”

  The pain I should feel isn’t there, nothing is. Not even when my mind flashes with the images of his hand on my thigh as we drive in his car, his lips gently sliding over mine, my fingers threading through his thick hair. Nothing.

  I feel nothing as the pleasant memories are replaced with ones of fists flying through drywall and that woman wearing his shirt. He slept with her only days ago. Nothing. I feel nothing, and it feels so good to finally feel nothing, to finally have control over my emotions. I’m realizing, as I stare at the wall, that I don’t have to feel anything I don’t want to. I don’t have to remember anything I don’t want to. I can forget it all and never allow the memories to cripple me again.

  “I’m not.” I don’t clarify the words, and he tries to touch me again. I don’t move. I bite my cheek, wanting to scream again, but not wanting to give him the satisfaction. The calming ease that sweeps over me from his fingers on mine proves just how weak I am, right after I’d just settled on a path of perfect numbness.

  “I’m sorry about Richard, I know how—”

  “No.” I pull my hand away. “No, you don’t get to do this. You don’t get to come here and pretend like you’re here to help me when you’re the one who has hurt me the most. I won’t tell you again.” I know my voice is flat—I hear it sounding as unconvincing and as empty as I feel inside. “Get out.”