Chapter 62

“That ‘asshole’ is my son, missy,” Trish says with hooded eyes. Underneath her humor is a woman clearly ready to go into the ring for her son.

“Well, your son is ruining and corrupting my daughter,” my mother fires back.

“Both of you—get out,” Hardin says and stands up from the bed.

My mother shakes her head and gives a toothy smile. “Theresa, grab your things, now.”

Being ordered about makes me snap, “What part of I am not leaving do you not understand? I gave you the opportunity to spend the holidays with me, but you couldn’t get over yourself long enough to allow it.” I know I shouldn’t be speaking to her this way, but I can’t help it.

“Get over myself? You think just because you bought a few slutty dresses and learned to put on makeup, you suddenly know more than I do about life?” Although she’s yelling, it’s like she’s laughing, too. Like my choices are a joke. “Well, you’re wrong. Just because you gave yourself to this . . . this filth doesn’t mean you’re a woman! You are nothing but a little girl. A naive, impressionable little girl. Now grab your things before I do it for you.”

“You will not touch her things,” Hardin spits. “She isn’t going anywhere with you. She’s staying here with me, where she belongs.”

My mother wheels toward him, all humor gone. “?‘Where she belongs’? Where did she belong when she was staying in a damned motel because of what you did to her? You are no good for her—and she will not stay here with you.”

“Mrs. White, these two are adults,” Trish interjects. “Tessa is an adult. If she wants to stay, there is nothing—”

My mother’s enraged eyes turn to meet Trish’s equally hardened glare. This is a disaster. I open my mouth to speak, but my mother beats me to it.

“How can you defend this sinful behavior? After what he did to her, he should be locked away!” she screams.

“She has obviously chosen to forgive him. You need to accept that,” Trish says coolly. Too coolly. She looks like a snake, one that slithers by so slowly you never see its attack coming. But when it does, you are done for. My mother is the prey, and right now I can’t help but hope that Trish’s bite is venomous.

“Forgive him? He stole her innocence as a game—a bet with his friends. And then bragged about it while she was here playing house!”

Trish’s gasp overrides all sound in the air and silences everything for a second. Mouth agape, she looks at her son. “What . . .”

“Oh, you didn’t know? You mean—surprise—the liar lied even to his own mother? Poor woman, no wonder you’re defending him,” my mother says, shaking her head. “Your son bet his friends—for money—that he could take Tessa’s virginity. He even kept the evidence and flaunted it around the entire campus.”

I’m frozen. I keep my eyes on our mothers, too afraid to look at Hardin. I can tell by the shift in his breathing that he hadn’t thought I’d told my mother the details of his deceit. As for his mother, I didn’t want her to know the terrible things her son has done. It was my embarrassment to share or not share with people.

“Evidence?” Trish’s voice is shaky.

“Yes, evidence. The condom! Oh, and the sheets with Tessa’s stolen virginity on them. God knows what he did with the money, but he was telling everyone every detail of their . . . intimacy. So now you tell me if I should make my daughter come with me or not.” My mother raises her perfectly sculpted eyebrow to Trish.

I feel it the moment it happens. I feel the change in the room, the energy shifting. Trish is now on my mother’s side of this. I try desperately to cling to the edge of the crumbling cliff that is Hardin, but I can see it all perfectly in the disgusted glare she gives her son. A look I can tell is nothing new. It’s something she’s had to use on him before, like a memory brought back as a facial expression. A look that all but says she believes, once again, every bad thing anyone’s ever said about her son.

“How could you, Hardin?” she cries. “I had hoped you were different now . . . I hoped you had stopped doing things like this to girls . . . women. Have you forgotten what happened last time?”

Chapter thirty-eight

TESSA

It doesn’t help. It doesn’t help at all that my mother follows Trish into the living room and practically howls, “Last time? See, Theresa! This is exactly why you need to get away from him. He has done this before, I knew it! Prince Charming strikes again!”

I look over at Hardin, my fingers slipping from the edge. Not again. I don’t think I can take any more. Not from him.

“It’s not like that, Mum,” Hardin finally says.

Trish gives him a look of utter disbelief and wipes under her eyes, even as her tears keep coming. “It sure sounds like it, Hardin. I honestly can’t believe you. I love you, son, but I can’t help you here. This is wrong, so wrong.”

I never am able to find my voice in these situations. I want to speak, I need to, but an endless list of potential terrible things that Trish could be referring to as “last time” are running rapidly through my head, stealing my voice.

“I said it’s not like that!” Hardin shouts, his arms out wide.

Trish turns and stares at me, hard. “Tessa, you should go with your mother,” she says, and a lump rises in my throat.

“What?” Hardin says to her.

“You’re no good for her, Hardin. I love you more than life itself, but I can’t allow you to do this again. Coming to America was supposed to have helped you—”