After We Collided (The After Series) (25 page)

“Almost done?”

I jump in surprise from the sound and the tickle at my ear. Then I turn and smack Hardin. “You scared me!”

“Sorry, love,” he says between chuckles. My heart leaps when he calls me “love.” It’s so unlike him.

I feel him smile against my neck, and he wraps his arms around my waist. “Join me for my nap?”

I turn and face him. “No. I’ll keep your mom company. But,” I add with a smile, “I
will
tuck you in.” I don’t really like to take naps unless I’m too exhausted to do anything else, and it would be nice to hang out with his mom and read or something.

Hardin rolls his eyes but leads me to our bedroom. He pulls his shirt over his head, and it falls to the floor. As my eyes travel over the familiar designs inked into his skin, he smiles at me. “You really like the bracelet?” he asks as he walks over to the bed. He tosses the decorative pillows onto the floor and I pick them up.

“You’re so messy!” I complain. I put the pillows into the trunk and Hardin’s shirt on the dresser before grabbing my e-reader and joining him by the bed. “But to answer your question, I do love the bracelet. It’s really thoughtful, Hardin. Why didn’t you say it was from you?”

He pulls me down and lays my head on his chest. “Because I knew you were already feeling bad about not getting me something.” He lets out a laugh. “And that you would feel even worse after my amazing gift.”

“Wow, so humble,” I tease.

“Also, when I had it made for you, I had no idea if you would ever speak to me again,” he admits.

“You knew I would.”

“Honestly, I didn’t. You were different this time.”

“How so?” I look up at him.

“I don’t know . . . you just were. It wasn’t like the other hundred times you said you wanted nothing to do with me.” Hardin’s voice is light as he pushes my loose hair from my forehead with his thumb.

I concentrate on the rise and fall of his chest. “Well, I
knew . . . I mean, I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew I would come back. I always do.”

“I won’t give you reason to leave again.”

“I hope not,” I say and kiss the palm of his hand. “Me, too.”

I don’t say anything else; there’s nothing to say at the moment. He’s sleepy, and I don’t want to talk about me leaving him any longer. Within minutes he’s asleep, breathing heavily. Hardin calling me Daisy this morning made me want to reread
The Great Gatsby
, so I scroll through my e-reader’s library to see if Hardin already loaded it on there. And find that, of course, he has. Just as I’m about to get up and join his mother, I hear a woman’s angry voice.

“Excuse me!”

My mother. I toss my e-reader to the end of the bed and get up.
Why the hell is she here?

“You have no right to go in there!” I hear Trish yell.

Trish. My mother. Hardin. This apartment. Oh my Lord. This isn’t going to go well.

The bedroom door crashes open to reveal my mother, looking sophisticated yet menacing in a red dress and black heels. Her hair is curled and pinned up to resemble a beehive, and her red lipstick is bright, too bright.

“How could you be here! After everything!” she yells.

“Mother . . .” I begin as she turns to Trish.

“And who the hell
are you
?” she asks, their faces close together.

“I’m his mother,” Trish says sternly.

Hardin groans in his slumber and opens his eyes. “What the fuck?” are the first words out of his mouth when he spots the devil in the crimson dress.

My mother snaps her head back in my direction. “Let’s go, Theresa.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Why are you even here?” I ask her, and she huffs, putting her hands on her hips.

“Because I have already told you. You are my only child, and I will not sit back and watch you ruin your life over this . . . this
asshole
.”

Her words light a fire under my skin, and I immediately go on defense. “Do
not
speak of him that way!” I shout.

“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?”

I
t 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—”

“Theresa,” my mother says. “I think we’ve have heard enough.” She grabs hold of my arm. “It’s time to go.”

Hardin moves toward her and she steps back, gripping me tighter.

“Let go of her, now,” he says through gritted teeth.

Her plum nails dig into my skin as I try to process the events of the last two minutes. I had not expected my mother to barge into the apartment—and I certainly didn’t expect Trish to drop hints about yet another one of Hardin’s secrets.

Has he done this before? To who? Did he love her? Did she love him?
He said he had never been with a virgin before, he said he had never loved anyone before.
Was he lying?
The angry mask he wears makes it hard for me to decipher.

“You don’t get to have a say in anything that concerns her any longer,” my mother strikes back.

But, surprising everyone in the room, even myself, I slowly pull my arm from my mother’s grip . . . and step behind Hardin. Hardin’s mouth falls open, like he’s unsure what I’m doing. Trish and my mother wear identical horrified expressions

“Theresa! Don’t be stupid. Get over here!” my mother instructs.

In response, I wrap my fingers around Hardin’s forearm and stay hidden behind him. I don’t really understand why, but I do. I should be leaving with my mother, or forcing Hardin to tell me what the hell Trish is talking about. But, really, I just want my mother to go away. I need a few minutes, hours—some
time
—to comprehend what’s going on. I just forgave Hardin. I just decided to forget everything and move on with him. Why must there always be some secret locked away that comes to a head at the worst possible time?

“Theresa.” My mother takes another step toward me, and Hardin brings his arm back to wrap around me. To protect me from her.

“Stay away from her,” he warns.

Trish steps forward. “Hardin. That is her
daughter
. You have no right coming between them.”

“I have no
right
?
She
has no right coming into our apartment, into our fucking
bedroom
, uninvited!” he shouts. My grip on his arm tightens.

“That’s not
her
bedroom, nor is this her apartment,” my mother says.

“Yes. It is! See who she’s standing behind? She’s using me as a shield to block her from
you
.” Hardin points a thick finger at her.

“She’s just being foolish and doesn’t understand what’s best for her—”

But I interrupt her, finally finding part of my voice. “Stop speaking as if I’m not here! I’m right here, and I’m an adult, Mother. If I want to stay, I will,” I announce.

With pitying eyes, Trish tries to appeal to me. “Tessa, honey. I think you should listen to your mother.”

The sting of her dismissal burns my chest like a betrayal, but I don’t know what she knows about her son.

“Thank you!” My mother sighs. “At least someone in this family is reasonable.”

Trish shoots her a warning glare. “Missy, I don’t agree with how you treat your daughter, so don’t think that we’re on the same team here, because we’re not.”

My mother shrugs a little. “Regardless, we both agree that you need to go, Tessa. You need to leave this apartment and not come back. We can transfer you to another school if need be.”

“She can make up her own—” Hardin starts.

“He has poisoned your mind, Theresa—look at the things he’s done to you. Do you know him
at all
?” my mother asks.

“I
know
him, Mother,” I say through my teeth.

My mother turns her attention to Hardin. I don’t know why she’s not afraid of him, the way his chest is heaving up and down,
the way his cheeks are flaring with anger, the way his fists are clenched into balls so tightly that his knuckles are white. He should intimidate her, but she’s unfazed as she says, “Boy, if you care for her, even a little bit, you will tell her to go. You have done nothing but break her down. She isn’t the same girl that I dropped off at college three months ago, and that’s your fault. You didn’t have to see her cry for days over what you did to her. You were probably partying with another girl while she was crying herself to sleep. You have destroyed her—how can you even live with yourself? You know you’ll hurt her again sooner or later. So if you have one decent bone in your body, you’ll tell her . . . tell her to come with me.”

The silence in the room is chilling.

Trish stands silently staring at the wall, deep in thought, likely mulling over Hardin’s past actions. My mother is glaring at Hardin, waiting for his response. Hardin is breathing so hard he may combust. And me, I’m trying to decide which will win the battle inside of me: my heart or my head?