Chapter 169

“Of course you can, you don’t have to ask.” She turns around with a smile.

Her smile is a true testament to her character; she must think I’m an asshole, but she still smiles and welcomes me to stay for dinner.

BY DINNERTIME I’m going fucking crazy. I’m fidgeting in my seat, looking out the window every few seconds, about to call her a thousand times until she answers. Fucking crazy.

My father is talking to Landon about the upcoming baseball season and I really wish both of them would shut the fuck up.

Where the hell is she?

I pull my phone out to finally text her as I hear the front door open. I’m on my feet before I realize it and everyone looks up at me.

“What?” I snap and head to the living room.

Relief washes over me when she practically stumbles in with books and what looks like a poster board in her hands.

As soon as she sees me, the objects begin to topple to the floor. I rush over to help her pick them up.

“Thanks.” She takes the books from my hands and starts to walk up the staircase.

“Where are you going?” I ask her.

“To put my stuff away . . .” She turns to answer but then turns back around.

I would normally start cussing at her, but I’m hoping to find out what’s wrong with her without yelling, for once. “Are you going to eat dinner?” I call after her.

“Yeah,” she answers simply, without turning around.

I bite my tongue and head back to the dining room.

“She’ll be down in a minute,” I say, and I swear I catch Karen smiling, but it disappears when I look at her.

Minutes feel like hours before Tessa finally takes a seat next to me at the table. Hopefully her sitting next to me is a good sign.

A few minutes later, I realize it’s not a good sign, since she hasn’t spoken to me once and she’s barely eating the food on her plate.

“I got all my paperwork squared away for NYU. I still can’t believe it,” Landon says, and his mum smiles with pride.

“You won’t be getting the family rate,” my father jokes, but only his wife actually laughs.

Tessa and Landon—both being the polite suck-ups they are—smile and attempt fake laughs, but I know better.

Once my father brings the conversation back to sports, I find my opening to talk to Tessa. “I saw that cake . . . I didn’t know . . .” I begin to whisper.

“Don’t. Not right now, please.” She frowns and gestures to the other people in the room.

“After dinner?” I ask and she nods.

It drives me insane as she picks at her food; I really just want to shove her forkful of potatoes into her mouth. This is why we have issues, because I daydream about force-feeding her. The dining room is filled with my father trying to bring us all together through small talk and shitty attempts at jokes. I ignore him the best I can and finish my dinner.

“It was really good, honey,” my father praises Karen as she begins to clean up the table. He looks at Tessa, then back at his wife. “When you’re done with that, why don’t I take you and Landon out to Dairy Queen. Haven’t been there in a while . . .”

Karen nods with false enthusiasm, and Landon pops up to help her.

“Can we talk, please?” Tessa surprises me by asking when she stands up.

“Yeah, of course.” I follow her upstairs and into the room she’s been staying in.

I can’t tell if she’s going to scream at me or cry when she closes the door behind me.

“I saw the cake . . .” I decide to speak first.

“Did you?” She sounds almost uninterested and she takes a seat on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah . . . it was . . . nice of you.”

“Yeah . . .”

“I’m sorry for going to the party instead of asking you to spend time with me.”

She closes her eyes for a few seconds and takes a deep breath before opening them again. “Okay,” she says in a monotone voice.

The way she’s staring out the window with no emotion on her face gives me the chills. She looks as if someone has sucked the life out of her . . .

Someone has.

Me.

“I really am sorry. I didn’t think you wanted to see me; you said you were busy.”

“How could you think that? I waited for you as ‘I’ll be there in thirty minutes’ turned into two hours.” She still sounds so emotionless, and the hair on the back of my neck is standing up from it.

“What are you talking about?”

“You said you said you’d be here, and you weren’t. Simple as that.” I really wish she’d scream at me.

“I didn’t say I’d be here. I asked you if you wanted to come to the party and then I even texted and called you last night, but you didn’t answer to either.”

“Wow. You must’ve been really drunk,” she says slowly, and I move to stand in front of her.

Even though I’m right here, she doesn’t look at me. She stares off into space, and it’s really unsettling. I’m used to her fire, to her stubbornness, to her tears . . . but I’m not used to this.

“What do you mean? I called you—”

“Yeah, at midnight.”

“I know I’m not as smart as you, but I’m really fucking confused right now,” I tell her.

“Why did you change your mind? What made you not come?” she asks.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to be here. I texted you and said ‘hey,’ but you never responded.”

“Yes, I did, so did you. You said you weren’t having fun and you asked if you could come over.”