Текст книги "After We Fell"

Автор книги: Anna Todd

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 49 страниц)

chapter

sixty-five

HARDIN

Watching the clock change from minute to minute is slowly murdering me. I’d rather pull my hair out piece by piece than sit here and wait in this goddamned driveway until five. I don’t see Tessa’s mum’s car. There are no cars in the driveway except Tessa’s, which I’m sitting in. Landon has parked on the street, having followed me here so I get a lift back. Luckily he cares about Tessa’s well-being more than anyone except me, so it didn’t take any convincing.

“Go knock on the door, or I will,” he threatens through the phone.

“I’m going to! Fuck, give me a second. I don’t know if anyone’s here.”

“Well, if not, leave the keys in the mailbox, and we’ll go.” That’s exactly why I haven’t done that already—I want her to be inside. I have to know that she’s okay.

“I’m going up now,” I say and hang up on my obnoxious stepbrother.

The seventeen steps up to her mum’s front door are the worst of my life. I knock on the outer screen door, but I’m not sure if it was loud enough. Fuck it. I knock again, this time much harder. Too hard, too hard. I put my hand down when the flimsy aluminum bends, snapping a couple pieces of wire from the screen. Shit.

The door creaks open, and instead of Tessa, her mum, or anyone else on the fucking planet that I’d rather see, it’s Noah.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I say.

When he tries to close the door in my face, I stop it with my boot.

“Don’t be a dick.” I push the door open, and he steps back.

“Why are you here?” he asks, his face etched in a deep scowl. I should be asking him why the fuck he is here. Tessa and I haven’t been separated three days, and here this asshole is, worming his way back into her life.

“To drop her car off.” I look behind him, but I can’t see shit. “Is she here?” The entire way here, I told myself that I didn’t want her to see me or remember that I was at her house at all last night, but I know I was just bullshitting myself.

“Maybe. Does she know you’re coming?” Noah crosses his arms, and it takes every bit of self-control I have not to knock him to the ground, step over him—maybe on him—and find her.

“No. I just want to make sure that she’s okay. What did she tell you?” I ask him, backing back off of the porch.

“Nothing. She didn’t have to. She doesn’t have to tell me anything. I know she wouldn’t come all the way here if you hadn’t done something to her.”

I frown. “You’re wrong, actually; it wasn’t me . . . this time.” He looks surprised by my small admission, so I continue—peacefully, for now. “Look, I know you hate me, and you have every reason to, but I will see her one way or another, so you can either move out of my way or I’ll—”

“Hardin?” Tessa’s voice is a small whisper, nearly lost in the breeze, as she appears behind Noah.

“Hey . . .” My feet carry me inside the house, and Noah sensibly moves out of my way. “Are you okay?” I ask, cupping her cheeks in my cold hands.

Her head jerks away—because of the cold, I force myself to believe—and she steps back from me. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she lies.

Questions tumble out of my mouth. “Are you sure? How are you feeling? Did you sleep? Does your head ache?”

“Yes, okay, some, yes,” she answers, nodding along, but I already forgot what I asked her in the first place.

“Who told you?” she asks me, her cheeks a deep red.

“Molly.”

“Molly?”

“Yeah, she called when you were . . . um, in my old room.” I can’t keep the panic from my voice.

“Oh . . .” She looks past me, focusing on some distant space, her eyebrows drawn together in concentration.

Does she remember that I was here? Do I want her to?

Yes, of course I do. “You’re okay, though?”

“Yes.”

Noah steps to where we’re standing, and with alarm clear in his voice asks, “Tessa, what happened?”

Looking back at Tessa, I can tell she doesn’t want him to know about everything. I like the idea of that more than I should.

“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” I answer him so she doesn’t have to.

“Was it serious?” he presses.

“I said, don’t worry about it,” I growl, and he gulps. I turn back to Tessa. “I brought your car,” I tell her.

“You did?” she says. “Thanks, I thought Steph would have busted the windshield or something.” She sighs, her shoulders slouching further with every word. Her attempt at a joke didn’t work for anyone, herself included.

“Why did you go to her, anyway? Out of all people, why her?” I ask her.

She looks at Noah, then back to me. “Noah, can you give us a minute?” she sweetly requests.

He nods and gives me what I assume is supposed to be some kind of warning glare before leaving us alone in the small living room.

“Why her? Tell me, please,” I repeat.

“I don’t know. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, Hardin.”

“You could have gone to Landon; you practically have your own bedroom at that house,” I point out.

“I don’t want to keep dragging your family into it. I’ve done it enough, and it’s not fair to them.”

“And you knew I would go there?” When she looks down at her hands, I say, “I wouldn’t have.”

“Okay,” she says sadly.

Fuck, that’s not what I meant. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant I was going to give you space.”

“Oh,” she whispers while picking at her fingernails.

“You’re being really quiet.”

“I’m just . . . I don’t know. It’s been a long night and morning.” She frowns. I want to walk over and smooth the line between her brows and kiss her pain away.

“No Hardin, Zed,” she called out in her barely conscious state.

“I know, do you remember it?” I ask her, not sure if I can bear to listen to her response.

I expect her to tell me to go away or cuss me out even, but she doesn’t. Instead she nods and sits down on the couch, gesturing for me to sit on the other side.

chapter

sixty-six

HARDIN

I want to move closer to her, to reach for her shaking hand and find a way to erase her memories. I hate that she went through such an ordeal, and I’m once again blown away by her strength. She’s sitting up, her back as straight as a board, and ready to talk to me.

“Why did you come here?” she asks quietly.

By way of answer, I ask, “Why is he here?” and nod my head toward the kitchen. I just know Noah is perched against the wall, listening in to our conversation. I really can’t fucking stand him, but given the circumstances, I should probably shut up about it.

Playing with her hands, she says, “He’s here to check on me.”

“He doesn’t need to check on you.” That’s why I’m here.

“Hardin”—she frowns—“not today. Please.”

“Sorry . . .” I inch back, feeling like an even bigger asshole than I did seconds ago.

“Why did you come here?” Tessa asks again.

“To bring your car. You don’t want me here, do you?” I haven’t once, until now, even considered that possibility. And it burns through me like acid. My being here might only be making things worse for her. The days of her finding solace in me are no longer.

“It’s not that . . . I’m just confused.”

“About what?”

Her eyes shine under the dim lights of her mum’s living room. “You, last night, Steph, everything. Did you know that it was all a game to her, and she really has hated me all this time.”

“No, of course I didn’t know,” I tell her.

“You had no idea that she had any bad feelings toward me?”

Dammit. But I want to be honest, so I say, “Maybe a little, I guess. Molly had mentioned it once or twice, but she didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t think it was something to this extent—or that Molly even knew what she was talking about.”

“Molly? Since when does Molly care about me?”

So black and white. Tessa always wants things to be so black and white, and it makes me shake my head, a little sad that things just can never be so simple. “She doesn’t, she hates you still,” I tell her and look down. “But she called me after that Applebee’s shit, and I was mad. I didn’t want her or Steph to ruin things between me and you. I thought Steph was trying to meddle just to be a nosy bitch. I didn’t think she was a fucking psycho.”

When I look over at Tessa, she’s wiping tears from her eyes. I move across the couch to close the space between us, and she recoils. “Hey, it’s okay,” I say and grab her arm to pull her to my chest. “Shhh . . .” My hand rests over her hair, and after a few seconds of trying to pull away, she gives in.

“I just want to start over. I want to forget about everything that’s happened in the last six months,” she sobs.

My chest tightens as I nod along, agreeing with her even though I don’t want to. I don’t want her to want to forget me.

“I hate college. I always looked forward to it, but it’s been one mistake after another for me.” She pulls at my shirt, bringing herself closer to me. I stay silent, not wanting to make her feel any worse than she’s already feeling. I didn’t have a fucking clue of what I was walking into when I knocked on the door, but I sure as hell didn’t expect to have a crying Tessa in my arms.

“I’m being so dramatic.” She pulls away too soon, and for a moment I consider pulling her back to me.

“No. No, you’re not. You’re being really calm, considering what happened. Tell me what you remember, don’t make me ask again. Please.”

“It’s all a blur really, it was so . . . strange. I was aware of everything but nothing made any sense. I don’t know how to explain it. I couldn’t move, but I could feel things.” She shudders.

“Feel things? Where did he touch you?” I don’t want to know.

“My legs . . . they undressed me.”

“Only your legs?” Please say yes.

“Yes, I think so. It could have been so much worse, but Zed—” She stops. Takes a breath. “Anyway, the pills made my body so heavy . . . I don’t know how to explain it.”

I nod. “I know what you mean.”

“What?”

Broken memoires of blacking out in bars and stumbling down the streets of London race through my mind. The idea of fun that I once had is completely different from what I consider to be fun now. “I used to take them now and then for fun.”

“You did?” Her mouth falls open, and I don’t like how her look makes me feel.

“I guess ‘fun’ isn’t really the word,” I backtrack. “Not anymore.”

She nods and gives me a sweet, relieved smile. She adjusts the collar of her sweater, which I see now is pretty tight on her.

“Where did that come from?” I ask.

“The sweater?” She gives me a wry smile. “It’s my mother’s . . . can’t you tell?” Her fingers tug at the thick fabric.

“I don’t know. Noah was at the door, and you’re dressed like that . . . I thought I had stepped into a time machine,” I tease. Her eyes light up with humor, all sadness momentarily washed away, and she bites down on her lip in an attempt to stop from laughing.

She sniffles and reaches over to the small table to pull a tissue from the floral box. “No. There are no time machines.” Tessa shakes her head back and forth slowly while wiping at her nose.

Fuck, even after crying she’s so damned beautiful. ’ “I was worried about you,” I tell her.

Her smile disappears. Fuck.

“This is what confuses me,” she says. “You told me you didn’t want to try anymore, but here you are telling me that you were worried about me.” She stares at me blankly, her lip trembling.

She’s right. I don’t always say it, but it’s true. I spend hours a day worrying about her. Emotion . . . this is what I need from her. I need the reassurance.

But she takes my silence the wrong way. “It’s okay, I’m not upset with you. I do appreciate you coming here and bringing my car. It means a lot to me that you did that.”

I remain mute on the couch, unable to talk for some time.

“It’s nothing,” I finally manage to say with a shrug. But I need to say something real, anything.

After watching more of my painful silence for a moment, Tessa goes into polite hostess mode. “How will you get home? Wait . . . how did you even know how to get here?”

Shit. “Landon. He told me.”

Her eyes light up again. “Oh, he’s here?”

“Yeah, he’s outside.”

She flushes and rises to her feet. “Oh! I’m keeping you, I’m sorry.”

“No, you aren’t. He’s fine out there waiting,” I stammer. I don’t want to leave. Unless you’re coming with me.

“He should have come inside.” She glances toward the door.

“He’s fine.” My voice comes out much too sharp.

“Thank you again for bringing my car . . .” She’s trying to dismiss me in a polite way. I know her.

“Do you want me to bring your stuff inside?” I offer.

“No, I’m leaving in the morning, so it’s easier to keep it in there.”

Why does it surprise me that every single time she opens her mouth, she reminds me that she’s going to Seattle? I keep waiting for her to change her mind, but it will never happen.

chapter

sixty-seven

TESSA

As Hardin reaches the door, I ask, “What did you do about Dan?”

I want to know more about last night, even if Noah can hear us talking. As we pass him in the hallway, Hardin doesn’t so much as look at him. Noah glares, though, unsure of what to do, I assume.

“Dan. You said Molly told you. What did you do?” I know Hardin well enough to know that he went after him. I’m still surprised by Molly’s help—I was far from expecting it when she walked into the bedroom last night. I shudder at the memory.

Hardin half smiles. “Nothing too bad.”

I didn’t kill Dan when I found him; I only kicked him in the face . . .

“You kicked him in the face . . .” I say, trying to dig through the mess in my head.

He raises a brow. “Yeah . . . Did Zed tell you that?”

“I . . . I don’t know . . .” I remember hearing the words, I just can’t remember who said them.

I’m Hardin, not Zed, Hardin said—his voice in my mind feels so real.

“You were here, weren’t you? Last night?” I step toward him. He backs into the wall. “You were; I remember it. You said you were going to drink and you didn’t . . .”

“I didn’t think you remembered,” Hardin mutters.

“Why wouldn’t you just tell me?” My head aches while I struggle to separate drug-induced dreaming from reality.

“I don’t know. I was going to, but then everything got so familiar and you were smiling and I didn’t want to ruin it.” He shrugs one shoulder, and his eyes focus on the large painting of the golden gates of Heaven on my mother’s wall.

“How would you telling me that you drove me home ruin it?”

“I didn’t drive you home. Zed did.”

I remembered that earlier, sort of. This is so frustrating.

“So you came after? What was I doing?” I want Hardin to help me put together the sequence of events. I can’t seem to do it on my own.

“You were lying on the couch; you could barely speak.”

“Oh . . .”

“You were calling out for him,” he adds quietly, venom laced through his deep voice.

“For who?”

“Zed.” His answer is simple, but I can feel the emotion behind it.

“No, I wasn’t.” That doesn’t make sense. “This is so frustrating.” I sift through the mental mud and finally find a lump of sense . . . Hardin speaking about Dan, Hardin asking me if I can hear him, me asking him about Zed . . .

“I wanted to know about him, if you had hurt him. I think.” The memory is fuzzy, but it’s there.

“You said his name more than once; it’s okay. You were so out of it.” His eyes drop to the carpet and stay there. “I didn’t expect you to want me anyway.”

“I didn’t want him. I may not remember much, but I was afraid. I know myself enough to know that I would only call for you,” I admit without thinking.

Why did I just say that? Hardin and I broke up, again. This is our second actual breakup, but it feels like there have been so many more. Maybe because this time I haven’t jumped into his arms at the slightest sign of affection from him. This time I left the house and the gifts from Hardin; this time I’m leaving for Seattle in less than twenty-four hours.

“Come here,” he says, holding his arms open.

“I can’t.” I take a page from his book and run my fingers over my hair.

“Yes, you can.”

Whenever Hardin is around me, despite the situation, the familiarity of him always seeps into every fiber of my being. We either scream at each other or we smile and tease. There’s never any distance, no middle ground between us. It’s such a natural thing for me now, an instinct really, to let myself find comfort in his arms, laugh at his stale attitude, and ignore the issues that caused us to be in whatever terrible situation that we’re in at the time.

“We aren’t together anymore,” I say quietly, more to remind myself.

“I know.”

“I can’t pretend that we are.” I pull my bottom lip between my teeth and try not to notice the way his eyes dull at the reminder of our status.

“I’m not asking you to do that. All I’m asking is for you to come here.” His arms are still open, still long and inviting, calling for me, pulling me closer and closer.

“And if I do, we’ll only fall back into repeating the cycle that we both decided to end.”

“Tessa . . .”

“Hardin, please.” I back away. This living room is much too small for me to avoid him, and my self-control is faltering.

“Fine.” He finally sighs and his hands tug at his hair, his usual sign of frustration.

“We need this, you know that we do. We have to spend some time apart.”

“Some time apart?” He looks wounded, pissed off, and I’m a little afraid of what will come out of his mouth next. I don’t want a fight with him, and today isn’t the day for him to try to start one.

“Yes, some time alone. We can’t get along and everything seems to always be working against us. You said yourself the other day that you were sick of it. You kicked me out of the apartment.” I cross my arms in front of my chest.

“Tessa . . . you can’t be fucking—” He looks into my eyes and stops midsentence. “How much time?”

“What?”

“How much time apart?”

“I . . .” I didn’t expect him to agree. “I don’t know.”

“A week? A month?” He pushes for specifics.

“I don’t know, Hardin. We both need to get ourselves to a better place.”

“You’re my better place, Tess.”

His words swarm through my chest, and I force my eyes to move from his face before I lose whatever resistance I have left. “You’re mine, too, you know you are, but you’re so angry and I’m always on edge with you. You have to do something about your anger, and I need time to myself.”

“So this is my fault, again?” he asks.

“No, it’s me, too. I’m too dependent on you. I need to be more independent.”

“Since when does any of this matter?” The tone of his voice tells me that he hasn’t ever considered my dependency on him a problem.

“Since we had that massive blowup at the apartment a few nights ago. Actually, it started a while ago; Seattle and the argument the other night were just the icing on the cake.”

When I finally gather the courage to look up at Hardin, I see that his expression has changed.

“Okay. I get it,” he says. “I’m sorry, I know I fuck up a lot. We’ve already beaten the Seattle thing into the ground, and maybe it’s time that I start listening to you more.” He reaches for my hand, and I let him take it, momentarily baffled by his newfound agreeability. “I’ll give you some space, okay? You’ve dealt with enough shit in the past twenty-four hours alone. I don’t want to be another problem . . . for once.”

“Thank you,” I respond simply.

“Can you let me know when you get to Seattle? And get some food in your stomach, and rest, please.” His green eyes are soft, warm, and comforting.

And I want to ask him to stay, but I know it’s not a good idea.

“I will. Thank you . . . Really.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” His hands push into the tight pockets of his black jeans, and his eyes measure my face. “I’ll tell Landon you said hello,” he says and walks out the door.

I can’t help but smile at the way he lingers by Landon’s car, staring at my mother’s house for a long beat before getting into the passenger seat.

chapter

sixty-eight

TESSA

The moment that Landon’s car is out of sight, the emptiness weighs heavy on my chest, and I step back from the entryway, letting the door close.

Noah is leaning against the threshold between the living room and kitchen. “Is he gone?” he asks gently.

“Yeah, he’s gone.” My voice is distant, unfamiliar even to myself.

“I didn’t know you guys weren’t together.”

“We . . . well . . . we’re just trying to figure everything out.”

“Can you tell me one thing before you change the subject?” His eyes scan my face. “I know that look—you’re about to find a reason to.”

Even after the months we’ve been apart, Noah still reads me so well. “What do you want to know?” I ask.

His blue eyes stare into mine. He holds my gaze for a long time, a bravely long time. “If you could go back, would you, Tessa? I heard you say you want to erase the last six months . . . but if you could, would you, really?”

Would I?

I sit down on the couch to ponder his question. Would I take it all back? Erase everything that’s happened to me in the last six months? The bet, the endless fights with Hardin, the downward spiral of my relationship with my mother, Steph’s betrayal, all the humiliation, everything.

“Yes. In a heartbeat.”

Hardin’s hand on mine, the way his inked arms wrapped around me, pulling me to his chest. The way he sometimes laughed so hard that his eyes would pinch closed and the sound would fill my ears, my heart, and the entire apartment with such a rare happiness that I felt more alive than I’d ever felt before.

“No. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t,” I say, changing my answer.

Noah shakes his head. “Which is it?” He chuckles and sits on the recliner across from the couch. “I’ve never known you to be so indecisive.”

I shake my head firmly. “I wouldn’t erase it.”

“You’re sure? It’s been a bad year for you . . . and I don’t even know the half of it.”

“I’m sure.” I nod a couple of times, then take a seat on the edge of the couch. “I would do some things differently, though, with you.”

Noah gives me a slight smile. “Yeah, me, too,” he quietly agrees.

“THERESA.” A hand grasps my shoulder and shakes me. “Theresa, wake up.”

“I’m up.” I groan and open my eyes. The living room. I’m in my mother’s living room. I kick a blanket off my legs . . . a blanket Noah covered me with when I lay down after we talked a bit more and then started to watch some TV together. Just like old times.

I wriggle out of my mother’s grip. “What time is it?”

“Nine p.m. I was going to wake you up earlier.” She purses her lips.

It must have been driving her insane to let me sleep the day away. Oddly, the thought amuses me.

“Sorry, I don’t even remember falling asleep.” I stretch my arms and stand to my feet. “Did Noah leave?” I peer into the kitchen, and I don’t see him.

“Yes. Mrs. Porter really wanted to see you, but I told her it wasn’t a good time,” she says and goes into the kitchen.

I follow her, smelling something cooking. “Thank you.” I do wish I’d said a proper goodbye to Noah, especially because I know I’ll see him again.

My mother goes to the stove and says over her shoulder, “Hardin brought your car, I see,” disapproval coloring her voice. A moment later, she turns from the stove and hands me a plate of lettuce and grilled tomatoes.

I haven’t missed her idea of a good meal. But I take the plate from her hand anyway.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Hardin came here that night? I remember it now.”

She shrugs. “He asked me not to.”

Taking a seat at the table, I poke at the “meal” tentatively. “Since when do you care what he wants?” I challenge, nervous about her reaction . . .

“I don’t,” she says and prepares her own plate. “I didn’t mention it because it’s in your best interest not to remember.”

My fork slips from my fingers and hits the plate with a sharp clink. “Keeping things from me isn’t in my best interest,” I say. I’m doing my best to keep my voice cool and calm, I really am. To emphasize this, I dab the corners of my mouth with a perfectly folded napkin.

“Theresa, do not take your frustrations out on me,” my mother says, joining me at the table. “Whatever that man has done to make you this way is your own fault. Not mine.”

The moment her red lips pull into a confident smirk, I stand from the table, throw my napkin onto the plate, and storm out of the room.

“Where are you going, young lady?” she calls.

“To bed. I have to get up at four in the morning, and I have a long drive ahead of me,” I yell down the hallway and close the door to my bedroom.

I take a seat on my childhood bed . . . and immediately the light gray walls seem to be closing in on me. I hate this house. I shouldn’t, but I do. I hate the way I feel inside it, like I can’t breathe without being scolded or corrected. I never realized how caged and controlled I had been my entire life until I had my first taste of freedom with Hardin. I love having pizza for dinner, spending the entire day naked in bed with him. No folded napkins. No curled hair. No hideous yellow curtains.

Before I can stop myself, I’m calling him, and he’s answering on the second ring.

“Tess?” he says, out of breath.

“Um, hey,” I whisper.

“What’s wrong?” he huffs.

“Nothing, are you all right?”

“Come on, Scott. Get back over here,” a female voice says in the background.

My heart starts hammering against my rib cage as the possibilities flood my mind. “Oh, you’re . . . I’ll let you go.”

“No, it’s fine. She can wait.” The background noise gets softer and softer by the second. He must be walking away from whoever she is.

“Really, it’s okay. I’ll just go, I don’t want to . . . interrupt you.” Looking at the gray wall nearest my bed, I swear it’s crept closer to me. Like it’s ready to pounce.

“Okay,” he breathes.

What?

“Okay, bye,” I say quickly and hang up, holding my hand over my mouth to keep from vomiting on my mother’s carpet.

There has to be some sort of logical—

My phone buzzes next to my thigh, Hardin’s name clear on the small screen. I answer despite myself.

“I’m not doing what you think I’m doing . . . I didn’t even realize how it sounded,” he immediately states. I can hear a harsh wind blowing around him, muffling his voice.

“It’s okay, really.”

“No, Tess, it wouldn’t be,” he says, calling me out. “If I was with someone else right now, that wouldn’t be okay, so stop acting like it would be.”

I lie back on the bed, admitting to myself that he’s right. “I didn’t think you were doing anything,” I half lie. I somehow knew he wasn’t, but my imagination . . . it took me there still.

“Good, maybe you finally trust me.”

“Maybe.”

“Which would be much more relevant if you hadn’t left me.” His tone is sharp.

“Hardin . . .”

He sighs. “Why did you call? Is your mum being a bitch?”

“No, don’t call her that.” I roll my eyes. “Well . . . she kind of is being one, but it’s nothing big. I’m just . . . I don’t know why I called, really.”

“Well . . .” He pauses, and I hear a car door shut. “Do you want to talk or something?”

“Is that okay? Can we?” I ask him. Only hours ago I was telling him that I needed to be more independent, yet here I am, calling him the moment I’m upset.

“Sure.”

“Where are you, anyway?” I need to keep the conversation as neutral as possible . . . not that it’s ever possible to keep things between Hardin and me neutral.

“A gym.”

I almost laugh. “A gym? You don’t go to the gym.” Hardin is one of the few people to be blessed with an incredible body without ever having to work out. His naturally large build is perfect, tall with broad shoulders, even though he claims that he was lanky and thin as a young teenager. His muscles are hard but not too defined; his body is the perfect mixture of soft and hard.

“I know. She was kicking my ass. I was genuinely embarrassed.”

“Who?” I say a little forcefully. Calm down, Tessa, it’s obviously the woman whose voice you heard.

“Oh, the trainer. I decided to use that kickboxing shit you got me for my birthday.”

“Really?” The thought of Hardin kickboxing makes me think about things that I shouldn’t be thinking about. Like him sweating . . .

“Yeah,” he says, a little shyly.

I shake my head to try to cast out the image of him shirtless. “How was it?”

“Okay, I guess. I prefer a different type of exercise. But on the plus side, I’m a lot less tense than I was a few hours ago.”

I narrow my eyes at his response even though he can’t see me.

My fingers trace the flower-print fabric of the comforter. “Do you think you’ll go again?” I finally feel like I can breathe as Hardin begins to tell me about how awkward the first half hour of his session was, how he kept cursing at the woman until she slapped him across the back of his head, repeatedly, which, in turn made him respect her and stop being such a jerk to her.

“Wait.” I finally speak. “Are you still there?”

“No, I’m home now.”

“You just . . . left? Did you tell her?”

“No, why would I?” he asks, as if people acted like him all the time.

I like the idea that he dropped what he was doing just to talk to me on the phone. I shouldn’t, but I do. Which warms me, but also makes me sigh and say, “We aren’t doing a very good job on this space thing.”

“We never do.” I can picture his smirk even though he’s speaking from more than a hundred miles away.

“I know, but—”

“This is our version of space. You didn’t get in the car and drive here. You only called.”

“I guess so . . .” I allow myself to agree with his twisted logic. In a way, though, he’s right. I don’t know yet if it’s a good or a bad thing.

“Is Noah still there?”

“No, he left hours ago.”

“Good.”

I’m looking at the darkness beyond the ugly curtains of my room when Hardin laughs and says, “Talking on the phone is so fucking weird.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I don’t know. We’ve been talking for over an hour.”

I pull my phone from my ear to check the time, and sure enough, he’s right. “It doesn’t seem that long,” I say.

“I know, I never talk to anyone on the phone. Except when you call me to bother me about bringing something home, or a few calls to my friends, but they never last longer than like two minutes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why would I? I was never into the teenage dating shit; all my friends used to spend hours on the phone listening to their girlfriends go on about nail polish or whatever the fuck girls talk about for hours on end.” He laughs lightly, and I frown a little at the reminder that Hardin never got the chance to be a normal teenager.

“You didn’t miss out on much,” I assure him.

“Who did you used to talk to for hours? Noah?” Spitefulness is clear in his question.

“No, I never did that talking-for-hours thing either. I was busy shoving my nose into novels.” Perhaps I was never a true teenager either.