After Ever Happy (After #4) (21 page)

“Shut up,” I groan and go back to staring at this weird pillow that’s on the plush, oversize chair I’ve claimed these past few days.

“I’m just saying. I don’t understand why you called him if you hate him so much.”

He doesn’t know when to shut up. I hate this town for not having a hotel within twenty miles of Tessa’s mum’s house. “Because”—I let out an annoyed breath—“she doesn’t hate him. She trusts him even though she shouldn’t, and she needs some kind of friend right now, since she won’t see me.”

“What about me? And Landon?” Noah pulls at the tab of a can of soda, and it opens with a loud pop. Even the way he opens soda is obnoxious.

I don’t want to tell Noah that what I’m really worried about is that Tessa will run back to
him
, wanting the safe relationship instead of giving me another chance. And when it comes to Landon, well, I’ll never admit it, but I sort of need him to be
my
friend. I have none, and I kind of need him, in a way. A little.

A lot. I need him a fucking lot, and except for Tessa, I have no one else, and I barely have her, so I can’t lose him, too.

“I still don’t understand. If he likes her, why would you want him around her? You’re obviously the jealous type, and you know about stealing people’s girlfriends better than anyone.”

“Ha-ha.” I roll my eyes and glance out the expansive windows covering the front wall of the house. The Porters’ house is the biggest on this street, probably the biggest in this entire shithole of a town. I don’t want him getting the wrong impression here. I still hate his ass, and I’m only allowing him to be around me because I need to give Tessa her space without going too far. “Why do you care anyway? Why are you suddenly playing nice with me? I know you despise me, just the way I do you.” I look over at him, dressed in his stupid fucking cardigan and brown dress shoes that should have a penny stuck on the top of them.

“I don’t care about you; I care about Tessa. I just want her to be happy. It took me a long time to come to terms with everything that happened between us because I was so used to her. I was comfortable and conditioned to be that way, so I couldn’t understand why she would possibly want someone like you. I didn’t get it, and I still don’t, really, but I see how much she has changed since she met you. Not in a bad way either, it’s a really good change.” He smiles at me. “Excepting this week, obviously.”

How could he think that? I have done nothing but hurt her and tear her down since I crashed into her life.

“Well”—I shift uncomfortably in the chair—“that’s enough bonding for today. Thanks for not being a dick.”

I stand and walk toward the kitchen, where I can hear Noah’s mum working the blender. In my stay here, I’ve found
vast
entertainment in the way she fumbles with words and traces her fingernails over the cross around her neck each time I’m in the same room with her.

“Leave my mom alone, or I’ll kick you out,” Noah warns mockingly, and I almost laugh. If I didn’t miss Tessa so damn much, I would laugh along with the asshole. “You’re going to the funeral, right? You can ride with us if you want; we aren’t leaving for another hour,” he offers, which makes me stop.

I shrug my shoulders and pick at the fringe along the bottom of my cast. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not? You did pay for it. You were his friend, kind of. I think you should go.”

“Stop talking about it, and remember what I said about spreading it around that I paid for the shit,” I threaten. “I.e., don’t fucking do it.”

Noah rolls his stupid blue eyes at me, and I leave the room to torture his mum and get my mind off Zed’s being in the same house as Tessa.

What was I thinking?

I
can’t remember the last time I attended a funeral. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I’ve never been to one.

When my mum’s mum died, I simply didn’t feel like going. I had booze to drink and a party that I just couldn’t miss. I never had the urge to say a final goodbye to a woman I barely knew. One thing I did know about the old woman was that she didn’t care much for me. She could barely stand my mum, so why would I spend my time sitting in a pew, pretending to be upset about a death that, in reality, didn’t affect me at all?

Yet here I sit years later in the back of a tiny church, mourning the death of Tessa’s father. Tessa, Carol, Zed, and what appears to be half the damn congregation all crowd the front rows. Only me and an old woman, who I’m pretty sure doesn’t actually know where she is, sit in the lone pew near the back wall.

Zed is sitting on one side of Tessa and her mother on the other.

I don’t regret calling him . . . Well, I do, but I can’t ignore the flicker of life that seems to have been revived since his arrival earlier today. She still doesn’t look like my Tessa, but she is getting there, and if that asshole is the key to that light, then so fucking be it.

I’ve done a lot of fucked-up shit in my life, a lot. I know this, Tessa knows this, hell, everyone in this church probably fucking knows it thanks to her mother, but I will make this right with my girl. I don’t give a fuck about making amends with any of the other shit from my past or present; I only care about fixing what was broken within her.

I broke her . . . she says she couldn’t fix me . . . that she will never be able to. But my damage wasn’t caused by her. I was healed by her, and while she was healing me, I was splintering her beautiful soul into too many pieces. Essentially, I single-handedly broke her, broke her fucking brilliant spirit, while selfishly being stitched back together. The most fucked-up part of this massacre is that I refused to see just how much I was hurting her, just how much of her light I had dimmed. I knew it; I knew it all along, but it didn’t matter, it only mattered when I finally got it. When she denied me, once and for all, I got it. It hit me like a damn truck, and I couldn’t move out of the way even if I tried.

It took her father’s death to make me see just how stupid my plan to save her from me actually was. If I had thought about it, really thought this mess through, I would have known how stupid it all was. She wanted
me
—Tessa has always loved me more than I deserve, and how did I repay her? I pushed and pushed until she was finally done with my shit. Now she doesn’t want me; she doesn’t want to want me, and I have to find a way to remind her how much she loves me.

Now here I sit, watching as Zed loops his arm around her shoulder and pulls her into his side. I can’t even look away. I’m stuck watching them. Maybe I’m punishing myself, maybe not, but either way, I can’t stop staring at the way she leans into him and he whispers something in her ear. The way his thoughtful expression somehow calms her and she sighs, nodding once, and he smiles at her.

Someone slides in next to me, temporarily interrupting my self-torture.

“We’re nearly late . . . Hardin, why are you sitting back here?” Landon asks.

My father . . . Ken, sits down next to him, while Karen takes it upon herself to walk to the front of the small church to approach Tessa.

“You may as well go up there, too. The front row is only for people who Tessa can stand,” I complain, glancing at the line of people, who, from Carol to Noah, I can’t stand.

And that includes Tessa. I love her, but I can’t stand being so close to her while she’s comforted by Zed. He doesn’t know her the way I do; he doesn’t deserve to be sitting next to her right now.

“Stop that. She can ‘stand’ you,” Landon says. “This is her father’s funeral, try to remember that.”

I catch my father—
fuck
—Ken, I catch
Ken
staring at me.

He’s not even my father. I knew this, I’ve known for the last week, but now that he’s in front of me, it’s like I’m finding out for the first time again. I should tell him right now, I should affirm his longtime suspicions and just let the truth out about my mum and Vance. I should tell him right here, right now, and let him feel as fucking disappointed as I was. Was I disappointed? I don’t know for sure; I was mad. I still am mad, but that’s about as far as I’ve gotten.

“How are you feeling, son?” His arm reaches across Landon to rest his hand on my shoulder.

Tell him. I should tell him.
“I’m fine.” I shrug, wondering why my mouth won’t cooperate with my mind and just say the words. Like I always say, misery loves company, and I’m as miserable as it gets.

“I’m sorry about all of this, I should have called the facility more. I promise you that I had checked on him, Hardin. I did, and I had no clue that he left until it was too late. I’m sorry.” The disappointment in Ken’s eyes silences me from forcing him to join my pity party. “I’m sorry that I always fail you.”

My eyes meet his and I nod, deciding in this moment that he doesn’t need to know. Not right now. “It’s not your fault,” I quietly remark.

I can feel Tessa’s eyes on me, calling my attention from so many feet away. Her head is turned toward me, and Zed’s arm is no longer around her shoulders. She’s staring at me, the way I was her, and I grip the wooden pew with everything I have, to restrain myself from rushing across the church to her.

“Either way, I’m sorry,” Ken says and removes his hand from my shoulder. His brown eyes are glossy, like Landon’s.

“It’s fine,” I mumble, still focusing on the gray eyes holding mine.

“Just go up there, she needs you,” Landon suggests, his voice soft.

I ignore him and wait for her to give me some sort of signal, any tiny, little fragment of emotion to show me that she does need me. I will be next to her in seconds.

The preacher steps to the podium, and she turns away from me without beckoning me to her, without a real indication that she was actually seeing me at all.

But before I can feel too sorry for myself, Karen smiles down at Zed and he slides down, allowing her to take the seat next to Tessa.

I
give another fake smile to another faceless stranger and move on to the next, thanking each of them for attending. The funeral was short; apparently this church doesn’t take kindly to celebrating the life of an addict. A few stiff words and phony praises were given, and that was that.

Only a few more people; a few more simulated thanks and forced emotions as condolences are given. If I hear what a great man my father was one more time, I think I’ll scream. I think I’ll scream right in the middle of this church, in front of all my mother’s judgmental friends. Many of them have never even met Richard Young. Why are they here, and what lies has my mother told them about my father if they are praising him?

It’s not that I don’t think my father was a good man. I didn’t know him well enough to judge his character accurately. But I do know the facts, and the facts are that he left me and my mother when I was a child, and he only came back into my life a few months ago by chance. If I hadn’t been with Hardin at that tattoo parlor, chances are I would never have seen him again.

He didn’t want to be in my life. He didn’t want to be a father or a husband. He wanted to live his own life and make choices that revolved around him and him alone. That’s fine, it is, but I can’t understand it. I can’t understand why he would run away from his responsibilities only to live the life of a drug addict. I remember how I felt when Hardin mentioned my father’s drug use; I couldn’t believe it. Why was I so accepting of his being an alcoholic, but not a drug addict? I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. I think I was trying to make him better, in my mind. I’m slowly realizing that, like Hardin always says, I’m naïve. I’m naïve and foolish to keep trying to find the good in people when all they do in return is prove me wrong. I’m always proven wrong, and I’m sick of it.

“The ladies want to come over to the house when we leave here, so I need you to help prepare for that as soon as we get home,” my mother says after the last hug is given.

“Who are the ladies? Did they even know him?” I snap. I can’t help the harsh tone of my voice, and I feel slightly guilty when my mother frowns. The guilt is pushed back when she glances around the church to make sure none of her “friends” caught my disrespectful tone.

“Yes, Theresa. Some of them did.”

“Well, I’d love to help as well,” Karen interrupts as we walk outside. “If that’s okay, of course?” She smiles.

I am so thankful for Karen’s presence. She’s always so sweet and thoughtful; even my mother seems to like her.

“That would be lovely.” My mother returns Karen’s smile and walks away while waving at an woman unfamiliar to me in the small crowd across the lawn of the church.

“Do you mind if I come, too? If not, I get it. I know Hardin’s here and all, but since he’s the one that called me in the first place . . .” Zed says.

“No, of course you can come. You drove all the way here.” I can’t help but scan the parking lot in search of Hardin at the mention of his name. Across the lot, I spot Landon and Ken getting into Ken’s car; as far as I can see, Hardin isn’t with them. I wish I had gotten a chance to speak to Ken and Landon, but they were sitting with Hardin and I didn’t want to take them away from him.

During the funeral I couldn’t help but worry that Hardin would tell Ken the truth about Christian Vance right in front of everyone. Hardin would be feeling bad, so he might want someone else to feel bad, too. I pray that Hardin has enough decency to wait until he can find the right time to disclose the hurtful truth. I know he’s decent; deep down Hardin is not a bad person. He’s just bad for me.

I turn to Zed, whose fingers are picking at the dots of fuzz on his red button-down shirt. “Do you want to walk back? It’s not a far walk, twenty minutes at most.”

He agrees, and we slip away before my mother can shove me into her small car. I can’t stand the thought of being trapped in an enclosed space with her right now. My patience with her is growing thin. I don’t want to be rude, but I can feel my frustration grow with every stroke of her hands over her perfectly curled hair.