Chapter 135

What does this mean to me? “I don’t think I can answer that, not yet. I—”

“Thought so,” he says, his voice slightly angry.

“I just don’t know . . .”

“It’s fine, I get it. You still love him.”

“It’s only been nine days, Zed, I can’t help it.” I keep managing to make new messes, each one bigger than the last.

“I know, I’m not saying that you can or will stop loving him. I just don’t want to be your rebound. I just started dating someone—I haven’t dated anyone since I met you, and I finally met Rebecca. Then, when I drove you home and saw the way you reacted to me dating someone, I started thinking . . . I know I’m an idiot, but I started thinking you didn’t want me to move on or something.” I look away from his handsome face and stare out the window.

“You aren’t my rebound . . . I wanted to kiss you just now; I just don’t know what I’m thinking or doing. Nothing’s made sense to me for the last nine days, and I finally stopped thinking about him when I kissed you and it felt amazing. I felt like I could do this. I could get over him, but I know that it’s not fair for me to use you that way. I’m just confused and irrational. I’m sorry for making you cheat on your girlfriend; that wasn’t my intention. I just—”

“I don’t expect you to move on so soon. I know how deep his claws are into you.”

He has no idea.

“Just tell me one thing,” Zed says and I nod. “Tell me that you’ll at least try to allow yourself to be happy. He hasn’t even called you, not once. He’s done so much shit to you and he hasn’t even tried to fight for you. If that were me, I’d be fighting for you. I would have never let you go in the first place.” He reaches across and tucks an errant lock of hair behind my ear. “Tessa, I don’t need an answer right now, I just need to know that you’re ready to try to be happy. I know you aren’t ready for any type of relationship with me, but maybe someday you will be.”

My mind is racing, my heart is racing and aching all at once, and the air has been sucked out of the car. I want to tell him that I can try and I will try to allow myself this, but the words won’t come. That small smile that Hardin has on his face in the mornings when I finally get him to wake up after complaining about my alarm clock, the way his raspy morning voice says my name, the way he tries to force me to stay in bed with him and I end up squealing and running from the room, the way he likes his coffee black just like me, the way I love him more than anything in the entire world and I wish he could be different. I wish he could be exactly the same, only different—it doesn’t make sense to me, and I know it won’t make sense to anyone else, but that’s the way it is.

I wish I didn’t love him as much as I do. I wish he hadn’t made me fall in love with him.

“I get it. It’s okay,” Zed says, and he tries his best to smile but fails miserably.

“I’m sorry . . .” I say, and mean it more than he could ever know.

He climbs out of the car and shuts the door behind him, and I’m left alone, again.

“Fuck!” I scream and hit my hands against the steering wheel, reminding me of Hardin once again.

Chapter eighty-five

HARDIN

I wake up soaked in my own sweat again. I had forgotten how miserable it was to wake up this way nearly every night. I had thought the sleepless nights were a thing of the past, but now the past is haunting me yet again.

I glance at the clock: it’s six in the morning. I need sleep, real sleep. Uninterrupted sleep. I need her, I need Tess. Maybe if I close my eyes and pretend that she’s here, I’ll be able to go back to sleep . . .

I close my eyes and try to imagine her head on my chest as I lie on my back. I try to remember the way her hair always smells like vanilla, the way she breathes heavily in her sleep. For a moment I feel her, feel her warm skin against my bare chest . . . I’m officially going fucking crazy.

Fuck.

Tomorrow will be better, it has to be. I’ve been thinking that for the last . . . ten days now. If I could just see her one more time, it wouldn’t be so bad. Just once. If I saw her smile one more time, I could live with myself for letting her go. Will she be at Christian’s party tomorrow? Seems pretty likely . . .

I stare at the ceiling and try to imagine what she’d be wearing if she was to go. Would she wear the white dress that she knows I love so much? Will her hair be curled and tucked behind her ear or will she pull it back? Will she wear makeup even though she doesn’t need to?

Goddammit.

I sit up and get out of bed. There is no way I can go back to sleep. When I get downstairs, Mike is sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper.

“Good morning, Hardin,” he says to me.

“Hey,” I mumble back and pour myself a cup of coffee.

“Your mum is still asleep.”

“You don’t say . . .” I roll my eyes.

“Your mum is really happy to have you here.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve been a dick the entire time.”

“Yeah, that’s true. But she was glad to have you open up to her. She’s always been so worried about you . . . until she met Tessa. Then she wasn’t so worried anymore.”

“Well, guess she’ll have to be worried again.” I sigh. Why is he trying to have a fucking heart-to-heart with me at six in the fucking morning?

“I wanted to bring something to your attention,” he says and turns to me.

“Okay . . . ?” I eye him.