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I know how crazy I’m acting, but, for once, I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of me. I don’t give him a chance to answer before I continue. “You are so selfish! You think pushing me away and closing yourself off is good for me? You know damn well how this goes by now! You can’t last without me—you’ll just be miserable, and so will I. You aren’t doing me any good by hurting me, yet I find you like this?”
“You don’t know what you’re even talking about,” Hardin says, his voice low and intimidating.
“I don’t?” I throw my hands up. “She’s wearing your fucking shirt!” I scream, and point at the fucking whore, who hops down from the counter, tugging at the hem of Hardin’s shirt to cover her thighs. She’s much smaller than me and the shirt looks gigantic on her. The image will be burned into my memory until my last day, I know it will. I can feel it burning into me now, my entire body is burning, on fire with rage, and in this moment of pure, raw, fucking anger . . . it all clicks.
Everything makes sense to me now. My earlier thoughts regarding love and not giving up on the one you love couldn’t be further from the truth. I was wrong this entire time. When you love people, you don’t let them destroy you along with themselves, you don’t allow them to drag you through the mud. You try to help them, try to save them, but the moment that your love is one-sided or selfish, if you keep trying, you are a fool.
If I loved him, I wouldn’t let him ruin me, too.
I have tried and tried with Hardin. I have given him chance after chance after chance, and this time I thought everything would be fine. I actually thought this would work. I thought if I loved him enough, if I only tried harder, it could work and we could be happy.
“Why are you even here?” he asks, interrupting my epiphany.
“What? You thought I would let you get away with being a coward?” Behind the pain, the anger begins to sizzle. I’m terrified for its departure, but I almost welcome the resolve as it settles over me. For the last seven months, I have been weakened by Hardin’s words and this cycle of rejection, but now I see our volatile relationship for what it is.
Inevitable.
It’s always been inevitable, and I can’t believe that it took me all this time to see that, to accept it.
“I’ll give you one last chance to leave with me now and go back home, but if I walk out of this door without you, that will be it.”
His silence and the smug look in his impaired eyes pushes me further over the edge.
“Thought so.” I’m not even yelling anymore. There is no point. He isn’t listening. He never has. “You know what? You can have all of this, you can drink and smoke your fucking life away”—I step closer, stopping only a few feet from him—“but this is all you will ever have. So I hope you enjoy it while it lasts.”
“I will,” he responds, cutting through me. Again.
“So, if she isn’t your girlfriend . . .” Mark says to Hardin, reminding me that we aren’t alone in the room.
“I am no one’s girlfriend,” I snap.
My attitude seems to spur Mark further; his smile grows, and his hand moves to my back in an attempt to lead me back into the living room. “Good, it’s settled, then.”
“Get off of her!” Hardin’s hands push against Mark’s back, not hard enough to knock him down, but with enough force to push him away from me. “Outside, now!” Hardin snaps while walking past me through the living room and out the door. I follow him out into the hallway and slam the door behind me.
He tugs at his hair, his temper rising. “What the fuck was that?”
“What was what? Me calling you out on your shit? You think you can just shove a plane ticket and a key chain into a suitcase and I’ll go away?” I shove at his chest, pushing him against the wall. I almost apologize, I almost feel guilty for pushing him, but when I look up into his dilated eyes, every trace of remorse dissolves. He reeks of pot and liquor; there’s no hint of the Hardin I love.
“I’m so fucking lost in my own head right now that I can’t think straight, let alone give you a fucking explanation for the thousandth goddamn time!” he yells, slamming a fist into the cheap drywall, cracking it.
I have witnessed this scene one too many times. This one will be the last. “You didn’t even try! I did nothing wrong!”
“What more do you need, Tessa? Do you need me to fucking spell it for you? Get out of here—go back where you belong! You have no business in this place, you don’t fit in.” By the time he gets to the last word, his voice is neutral—soft, even. Disinterested, almost.
I don’t have any fight left in me. “Are you happy now? You win, Hardin. You win yet again. You always do, though, don’t you?”
He turns, looking me straight in the eyes. “You know that better than anyone, wouldn’t you say?”
Chapter fourteen
TESSA
I don’t know how I manage to make it to Heathrow on time, but I do.
Kimberly gives me a goodbye hug when she drops me off, I think. I do remember Smith just watching me, calculating something unknowable.
And here I sit on the plane, next to an empty seat, with an empty mind, and an empty heart. I couldn’t have been more wrong about Hardin, and that really does just go to show that people can only change themselves, no matter how hard you try. They have to want it as bad as you do or there is no hope.
It’s impossible to change people who have their mind set on who they are. You can’t support them enough to make up for their low expectations, and you can’t love them enough to make up for the hate they feel for themselves.