After We Collided (The After Series) (27 page)

“I don’t know. I didn’t care to find out.”

The most chilling part of this whole thing is how casual and cold he is about it. This is nauseating. I see the pattern here, I see the similarities between Natalie and me. I was left with nowhere to go because of Hardin, too. I have no relationship with my mother because of Hardin. I fell for him while he was using me as part of some sick game.

Hardin stands up with me but keeps few feet of space between us.

“Oh my God . . .” My entire body begins to shake. “You recorded me—didn’t you?”

“No!
Fuck
no! I would never do that to you! Tessa, I swear to God I did not.”

I shouldn’t, but part of me does believe that part, at least. “How many others?” I ask.

“How many others what?”

“Did you record?”

“Just Natalie . . . until I came here.”

“You did it again! After everything you did to that poor girl, you did it again?” I scream.

“Once . . . to Dan’s sister,” he says.

Dan’s sister? “Your friend Dan?” It makes sense now. “That’s what Jace meant when you were fighting!” I had forgotten all about Dan and Hardin’s fight, but Jace had hinted about some previous tension between the two of them.

“Why did you do that if he was your friend? Did you show everyone?”

“No, I didn’t show anyone. I deleted it after I sent Dan a screen grab . . . I don’t know why I did it, really. He was such a dick about telling me to stay away from her when he brought her around the first time that it made me want to fuck her just to piss him off. He’s a true asshole anyway, Tessa.”

“How do you not see how fucked up this is! How fucked up you are?” I yell.

“I know it is! I know that, Tessa!”

“I thought my bet was the worst thing you had done . . . but, oh my God, this is even worse.”

Natalie’s story doesn’t hurt me nearly as bad as finding out about Hardin and Zed’s bet, but it’s worse by being more vile and revolting, and it makes me question everything I thought I knew about Hardin. I knew he wasn’t perfect—far from it—but this is a whole new level of disgrace.

“This was all before you, Tessa—this is my past. Please let it stay that way,” he pleads. “I’m not the same person now—you’ve made me a better person.”

“Hardin, you don’t even care about what you did to those girls! You don’t even feel guilty, do you?”

“I do.”

I cock my head and squint at him. “Only because now
I
know.” When he doesn’t argue, I reiterate my point. “You didn’t care about them, about anyone!”

“You’re right! I don’t care—I honestly don’t give a shit about anyone, except you!” he shouts back.

“This is too much, Hardin! Even for me . . . the bet, the apartment, the fights, the lies, getting back together, my mother, your mother, Christmas—it’s too fucking much. I don’t even get a breath between these . . . these
messes
. As soon as I get over one thing, another comes out. God knows what else you’ve done!” I start crying. “I don’t know you at all, do I?”

“Yes, you do, Tessa! You do know me. That wasn’t me—this is me. This is me now. I love you! I will do anything for you, for you to see that this is me, the man who loves you more than breathing, the man who dances at weddings and watches you sleep, the man whose day can’t start until you kiss me, the man who would rather die than be without you. That’s me, that’s who I am. Please don’t let this ruin us. Please, baby.”

His green eyes are glossy, and I’m moved by his words, but it isn’t enough. He steps toward me, and I back away. I need to be able to think. I raise my hand in front of me. “I need time. This is too much for me right now.”

His shoulders lower, and he seems relieved. “Okay . . . okay . . . take time to think.”

“Away from you,” I explain.

“No—”

“Yes, Hardin. I can’t think straight around you.”

“No, Tessa, you’re not leaving,” he commands.

“You will not tell me what I will or will not do,” I snap.

He sighs and wraps his fingers in his hair, tugging hard at the roots. “Fine . . . fine . . . Let me go, then. You stay here.”

I want to argue, but I really don’t want to leave. I’ve had enough of hotel rooms, and tomorrow is Christmas.

“I’ll be back in the morning . . . unless you need more time,” he says. He puts his shoes on and reaches for the key rack before realizing that his mother has taken his car.

“Take mine,” I say.

He nods and walks toward me. “Don’t,” I say and bring my hands up in front of me. “And you’re in your pajamas still.”

He frowns and looks down, but walks into the bedroom and emerges two minutes later fully dressed. He stops to look me in the eyes. “Please remember that I love you, and I have changed,” he says once more before leaving me alone in the apartment.

W
hat the hell am I going to do?

I walk to the bedroom and sit on the edge of the bed. I’m sick to my stomach from all of this. I knew Hardin wasn’t a good person before, and I knew there would be some more things that I wouldn’t be happy to hear, but of all the things I thought Trish could be referring to, this never, ever crossed my mind. He violated that girl in a terrible, deplorable way, and he had no remorse—he still barely does.

I try to breathe in and out slowly as tears spill down my cheeks. The worst part to me is knowing her name. It’s kind of fucked up, but if she was just some anonymous girl, I could almost pretend that she didn’t exist. Knowing that her name is Natalie opens up too many thoughts. What does she look like? What did she plan to study in college before Hardin took her scholarship from her? Does she have any brothers or sisters? Did they see the tape? If Trish hadn’t brought this up, would I have ever known?

How many times did they have sex? Did Hardin like it? . . . Of course he did. It’s sex, and obviously Hardin was having a lot of it. With other girls. Lots of other girls. Did he stay the night with Natalie after? Why do I feel jealous of Natalie? I should feel sorry for her, not envy her for touching Hardin. I push this sick thought out of my mind and go back to thinking about the type of person Hardin really is.

I should have had him stay to talk it out; I always leave or,
in this case, make him leave. The problem is that his presence washes away every ounce of restraint I should have.

I wish I knew what happened to Natalie after Hardin demolished her life. If she’s happy now and leading a good life, I’d feel better, slightly. I wish I had a friend to talk about all of this with, someone to give me advice. Even if I did, I wouldn’t divulge Hardin’s indiscretion. I do not want anyone to know what he has done to these girls. I know how foolish it is to want to protect him when he doesn’t deserve it, but I can’t help it. I don’t want anyone to think any worse of him, and mostly I don’t want him to think any worse of himself than he already does.

I lie back against the pillows and stare up at the ceiling. I just got over . . . well, was
working on
getting over Hardin using me to win a bet—and now this? Natalie, plus four other girls, since he said she was week five. Then Dan’s sister. This is a cycle with him, this is what he does—will he be able to stop doing it? What would have happened to me if he hadn’t fallen in love with me?

I know that he loves me—he truly does love me. I know that.

And I do love him despite all the mistakes he makes, and has made in the past. I’ve seen changes in him, even in the course of the last week. He has never expressed his feelings about me the way he did today. I just wish that his beautiful declaration hadn’t been followed by such an ugly revelation.

He said that I’m his only shot at happiness, I’m the only chance that he has to not spend the entirety of his life alone. What a heavy statement. What a true statement. No one will ever love him the way I do. Not because he’s not worth loving, but because no one will ever know him the way that I do. Did.
Still do?
I can’t decide, but I want to believe I know him, the true him. Who he is now is not the person he was just a few months ago.

Despite the pain he’s caused me, he has also done a lot to prove himself to me. He has made a huge effort to be the person I need him to be. He can change; I’ve seen him change. Half of
me thinks that it may be time for me to take some of the blame here—not for what he did to Natalie, but for being so hard on him when change takes time and nobody can erase their past. What he did was wrong, so incredibly wrong, but sometimes I forget that he’s an angry, lonely man who up until now has never loved anyone. He loves his mother, in his manner, if not the same way that people usually love their parents.

The other half of me is tired. Tired of this cycle with Hardin. In the beginning of our relationship, it was a constant back-and-forth, with him being cruel, then nice, then cruel again. Now the cycle has evolved somewhat, but it’s worse. Much worse. I leave him, then come back, then leave him again. I cannot keep doing this—
we
cannot keep doing this. If there’s anything else that he’s hiding, it will break me—I’m barely holding myself together now. I can’t take any more secrets, any more heartache, any more breakups. I always used to have everything planned—every detail of my life was calculated, overanalyzed, until Hardin. He’s completely turned my life upside down, often in a negative way. And yet he’s also made me happier than I have ever been.

We need to be together and try to move past all of the terrible things he’s done, or I need to end things and keep them that way. If I leave him, I need to move away from here, far away. I need to leave behind every reminder of my life with him or I’ll never be able to move on.

And suddenly I realize the tears have stopped, telling me that my verdict is in. The pain that comes from considering leaving him is much worse than the pain he has caused me.

I can’t leave him. I know I can’t.

I know how pathetic that is, but there’s no way I can be without him. No one will ever make me feel the way he does. No one will ever be him. He is it for me, just the way I am it for him. I shouldn’t have had him leave. I needed time to think and I should take more time, but I’m already wanting him back.
Is love always
like this? Is it always so passionate, yet so damn painful?
I have no experience to compare this to.

Hearing the front door open, I climb off the bed and rush into the living room. But I’m disappointed to find Trish instead of Hardin.

Trish hangs Hardin’s keys on the rack and removes her snow-covered shoes. I’m not sure what to say to her since she told me to leave with my mother.

“Where is Hardin?” she asks as she walks into the kitchen.

“He left . . . for the night,” I explain.

She turns to me. “Oh.”

“I’m sure if you call him he’ll tell you where he is, if you don’t want to stay here . . . with me.”

“Tessa,” she says, clearly searching for words, but with sympathy on her face. “I’m sorry for what I said. I don’t want you to think I have any ill feelings toward you—I don’t. I was just trying to protect you from what Hardin can do. I don’t want you to . . .”

“To end up like Natalie?”

I can see that the memory pains her. “He told you?”

“Yes.”

“Everything?” I hear the doubt in her voice.

“Yes—the tape, the pictures, the scholarship. Everything.”

“And you’re still here?”

“I told him I needed time and space, but yes. I’m not going anywhere.”

She nods, and we both sit down at the table across from each other. When she looks at me with wide eyes, I know what she’s thinking, so I say, “I know he’s done terrible things, deplorable things, but I believe him when he says that he’s changed. He isn’t that person anymore.”

Trish puts one hand over the other. “Tessa, he’s my son, and I love him, but you really have to think about this. He just did the same thing to you that he did before. I know that he loves you—
that’s clear to me now—but I’m just afraid that the damage has been done.”

I nod, appreciative of her honesty. But I tell her, “It hasn’t. Well, damage has most certainly been done, but it’s not irreversible. And it’s
my
decision to figure out how to deal with his past. And if I hold his past against him, how will he move forward? Is he never deserving of love forever more? I know you probably think I’m naive and foolish to keep forgiving him, but I love your son, and I cannot be without him, either.”

Trish softly clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “Tessa, I don’t think you’re either of those things. If anything, your forgiveness shows maturity and compassion. My son hates himself—always has—and I thought he always would, until you. I was mortified when your mum told me what he did to you, and for that I’m sorry. I don’t know where I went wrong with Hardin. I tried to be the best mother that I could be, but it was so hard with his father not being around. I had to work so much, and I didn’t give him the attention that I should have. If I had, maybe he would have more respect for women.”

I know that if she hadn’t already cried herself out today, she’d be crying now. The guilt in her is so thick, I just want to comfort her. “He’s not this way because of you. I think it has a lot to do with his feelings about his father and the type of friends he has, both of which I’m trying to work on. Please don’t blame yourself. None of this is your fault.”

Trish reaches across the table, and I give her my hands. Taking them in hers, she says, “You are certainly the most kind-hearted person I’ve met in all of my thirty-five years.”

I arch my brow. “Thirty-five?”

“Hey, just go with it. I can pass, right?” She smiles.

“Definitely.” I laugh.

Twenty minutes ago I was just crying and on the verge of a breakdown, and now I’m laughing with Trish. The moment I decided
to let Hardin’s past be his past, I felt most of the tension leave my body.

“Maybe I should call him and tell him what I’ve decided,” I say.

Trish tilts her head to the side and smirks. “I think he could use a little time to stir.”

The idea of torturing him further isn’t appealing, but he does need to really think about everything he’s done. “I guess so . . .”