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“Hardin, please. I am begging you, if you have one decent bone in your body you will leave me be. Just save whatever mean comment you are going to say for tomorrow. Please.”
“You know nothing about me, you condescending jerk! My life is nothing like that! My alcoholic dad left us when I was ten, and my mother worked her ass off to make sure I could go to college. I got my own job as soon I turned sixteen to help with bills, and I happen to like my clothes—sorry if I don’t dress like a slut like all the girls around you! For someone who tries too hard to stand out and be different, you sure are judgmental about people who are different from you!”
“Nice? That’s the first word that comes to your mind when talking about your boyfriend? Nice is your ‘nice’ way of calling him boring.”
His eyes meet my stalker, and the creep changes from scary to frightened. He looks at me one more time before turning around and walking back down the hall.
I can’t help but note the way his muscles move under his inked skin as he walks to his bed.
“I hadn’t noticed how gray your eyes are,” he says, so low that I lean closer to hear him. His hand is still on my face, and my mind is racing. Pulling half of his bottom lip in his mouth, he takes his lip ring between his teeth. Our eyes meet, and I look down, unsure of what’s going on. But when he removes his hand, I look at his lips once more, and I can feel my conscience and my hormones battling.
As my lips touch Hardin’s I feel his sharp intake of breath. Hardin’s mouth tastes just like I had imagined. I can taste the faint hint of mint on his tongue as he opens his mouth and kisses me. Really kisses me.
“Tess,” he breathes out, then quickly brings his mouth back to mine, his tongue sliding in once more.
“You aren’t my type, just the way that I am not yours. But that’s why we are good for each other—we are so different, yet we’re the same. You told me once that I bring out the worst in you. Well, you bring out the best in me. I know you feel it, too, Tessa. And yes, I didn’t date, until you. You make me want to date, you make me want to be better. I want you to think I am worthy of you; I want you to want me the way I do you. I want to fight with you, even scream at each other until one of us admits we are wrong. I want to make you laugh, and listen to you ramble about classic novels. I
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“This has been me for so long, I have never wanted
to be any other way. Until now,...
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Relief washes over Hardin and I reach for his hands, threading my small fingers through his trembling ones.
“Tessa . . . I . . . You really do feel the same way?”
“Yeah, Hardin I do,”
I somehow know it is the calm before the storm, but right now Hardin is my anchor. I just pray that he doesn’t pull me under.
“Don’t ever leave me, Tess,” he whispers and falls back into sleep. My heart nearly explodes at his plea, and I know that as long as he wants me here, I’m here.
“I . . . I love you!”
“It’s true, I do. I know you won’t believe me, but I do. I love you.”
“That’s not what I am doing. I know I am back and forth a lot with you, and I don’t know why I do it. But if you give me one chance, one more chance, I will stop. I tried to stay away from you but I can’t. I need you . . .”
“Stop! Just stop. Aren’t you tired of this? If you needed me you wouldn’t treat me the way you do. You told me yourself it was all about the chase, remember? You can’t just show up here after everything and act like nothing happened.”
“You always push my buttons! You constantly fight with me! You go on dates with Zed—I mean, fuck! You think I like being this way? Do you think I like you having this control over me? I hate the way you get under my skin. I loathe the way I can’t seem to stop
thinking about you! I hate you . . . I really do! You’re such a pretentious little . . .”
“No, I keep coming around because I love you!”
“You love me?” he whispers and puts his busted hand under my chin to tilt my head to him. I dart my eyes away from his and nod slowly, waiting for him to laugh in my face.
“You told me you didn’t. And you went out with Zed. You always leave me; you left me on the porch earlier when I begged you for another chance. I told you I loved you, and you rejected me. Do you know how hard that was for me?”
“I know . . . I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you? I know I don’t deserve you. I don’t have the right to even be asking this . . . but please, just one chance. I am not promising not to fight with you, or get mad at you, but I am
promising to give myself to you, completely. Please, just let me try to be what you need.”
“Do you remember when you asked me who I love the most in the world?” he asks, his lips inches from mine. I nod, though it seems so long ago, and I didn’t think he was even paying attention. “It’s you. You’re the person that I love most in the world.”
I’m done with the games. I just want you. I want to be with you, in a real relationship. You’ll have to teach me what in the hell that even means, of course.”
“I have missed your laugh. I haven’t heard it enough. I want to be the one to make you laugh, not cry.
“Listen, look at me,” he says, tilting my chin. “I want to, fuck do I want to. More than anything, trust me. I have wanted to feel you around me since I met you, but I . . . I just think after everything today and . . . I just want you to be ready. I mean all the way ready, because once we do this, it’s done. You can’t take it back.”
“And I love you, too,” I tell him and he frowns.
“Don’t say too,” he says. “What? Why?” My doubt is on call, waiting for him to deny me, yet hoping that he won’t.
“I don’t know . . . it just makes me feel like you are just a...
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“Good. I have never loved anyone before.”
Loving Hardin is raw and exciting; it sparks my every nerve and I can’t get enough of him. I never want to be away from him. Even when he drove me crazy, I missed him and had to fight myself to stay away.
“No, I’m nice because I love you,”
“I am not jeopardizing my future! My future isn’t even in question here, I’ll have a four-point-oh, and I have a great internship starting tomorrow! You are beyond selfish to come here and try to make me feel bad for being happy. He makes me happy, Mother, and if you can’t accept that, then you should go.”
“But all that being said . . . I also happen to be vigorously in love with you,”
“Never Let Me Go,”
“You Found Me” by the Fray
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
