After Ever Happy (After, #4)
Rate it:
Open Preview
Read between June 29 - July 4, 2020
3%
Flag icon
You were always so much like me; every time I came over, you had your face buried between pages. I don’t know if you remember, but I would always bring books to you. I gave you my copy of The Great Gats—”
3%
Flag icon
I came back here and got a place for us, the three of us, and I took care of her in his absence, but she grew more and more distant from me.
3%
Flag icon
“After all I did, I still wasn’t enough.”
3%
Flag icon
“I thought of that little genius as my second chance to be a father. He made me whole again after his mother died. I was always reminded of you as a boy; he looks just like you did when you were young, only with lighter hair and eyes.”
3%
Flag icon
“You’ve been lying to me my entire life.”
5%
Flag icon
“We aren’t going to that damn wedding. Not after all this shit.” “Why not?” Kimberly asks with dead eyes. “Because this”—Vance gestures back and forth between the two of us—“and because both of my sons are more important than any wedding, especially this one. I don’t expect you to sit there with a smile in the same room as her.”
6%
Flag icon
the Trish in my mind doesn’t coincide with the mother who lies about the father of her only son.
8%
Flag icon
“This fucking house has been nothing but a tormentor of mine,” he grumbles, stumbling over his boots.
8%
Flag icon
his eyes piercing the present to stare into the past. “I can still hear her screaming. Her cries sounded like a wounded fucking animal. Do you know what that sounds like to a little boy?”
9%
Flag icon
“I’m nothing! I’m a fucked-up piece of shit with fucked-up parents and a fucked-up head! I tried to warn you, I tried to push you away before I destroyed you…” His voice gets lower,
9%
Flag icon
I knew Christian’s confession would be Hardin’s breaking point. One person can only handle so much, and Hardin was already so fragile.
10%
Flag icon
I look up, and he’s crying. How dare he fucking cry when he didn’t have to watch it—he didn’t have to see it each time he closed his eyes to sleep, year after year after year.
12%
Flag icon
“Kimberly may challenge you, but she cares for you, too, and Smith, you are literally the only person that little boy likes.”
13%
Flag icon
I hurt other people, and then I hurt myself before anyone can hurt me back. I’m fucked-up;
13%
Flag icon
she responds, “That I wish you could stay with me forever.” Forever. Have I ever wanted anything less with her? “Me, too,” I say,
14%
Flag icon
I should tell him just what a fucking great man his father… our father really is…
14%
Flag icon
“You don’t want me to be your brother, do you?”
15%
Flag icon
I think I would be a good mother, if I was ever given the chance, and the idea of a little brown-haired, gray-eyed little girl running into Hardin’s arms brings my heart to my throat.
16%
Flag icon
That’s what this is: she must see me as a project, someone she can fix. The conversation has come up before, more than once, but she refused to admit it.
19%
Flag icon
crying without tears is much more painful than with, and impossible to control.
24%
Flag icon
It’s been four days now, and I’m only growing stronger.
24%
Flag icon
I’m going to New York.
24%
Flag icon
You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you.
24%
Flag icon
That day, day five, is when the weight appeared on my chest. A constant reminder of what I have done, and most likely lost. I should have called her that day while staring at her pictures. Did she stare at mine? She only has one to this day, and ironically I found myself wishing I would have allowed her to take more. Day five was when I threw my phone against the wall in the hopes of smashing it, but I only managed to crack the screen. Day five is when I desperately wished she would call me. If she called me then it would be okay, everything would be okay. We would both apologize and I would ...more
24%
Flag icon
Day six I woke with swollen and bloodshot eyes. I couldn’t believe the way I broke down the previous night. The weight on my chest had magnified and I could barely see straight. Why am I such a fuckup? Why did I continue to treat her like shit? She is the first person who has ever been able to see me, inside of me, the real me, and I treated her like shit. I blame her for everything when in reality it was me. It was always me, even when I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I was. I was rude to her when she tried to talk to me about things, I yelled at her when she called me out on my bullshit, and I ...more
24%
Flag icon
It’s my father, with a needle sticking out of his arm and no color in his face. Which means half of my nightmares have been fulfilled instead.
25%
Flag icon
I’ve been fighting for something, for what I thought was everything, for too damn long and I can’t do it anymore.
27%
Flag icon
Someone who knew me before.
27%
Flag icon
Noah’s a dear, sweet person, but doesn’t he know that I have no home?
27%
Flag icon
my throat burns at the sight of Hardin.
27%
Flag icon
Why is he here? He can’t be here, I don’t want him here. He’s done enough damage, and he doesn’t get to just show up here and pick at the scraps.
27%
Flag icon
Only I can keep myself away from her—a
28%
Flag icon
Tessa’s hand hits my solid cast, and she cries out again. “I hate you!” Her words burn me, but I still hold her flailing body in my arms.
28%
Flag icon
“I know you don’t like me, but I love her. I make mistakes—way too fucking many of them—but, Carol, if you think I’m going to leave her with you after she saw what she saw, experienced what she experienced, then you’re even crazier than I thought.”
28%
Flag icon
“I wished for this—I wished he would die,” she admits through her tears. I can hear the shame in her voice. “I used to wait for him, I used to tell myself that he would come back for us. For years I did this, and now that he’s dead, I can’t even pretend anymore.”
29%
Flag icon
The burn of betrayal and the sting of rejection hurt, but nothing compares to the pain of being empty. Nothing hurts worse than not hurting at all, and that that makes no sense and perfect sense at the same time convinces me I’m going fucking crazy.
30%
Flag icon
I glance out the window and realize that I have the advantage, not him. I’m surprised he didn’t think of this himself. He may know the town, but I know my Tessa, and I know exactly where she is.
30%
Flag icon
But I’m not Noah. I’m Hardin. And being Hardin doesn’t mean shit.
32%
Flag icon
“We don’t have to be rivals either. I want the best for her, and so should you. I’m not a threat to you. I’m not stupid enough to think she would ever choose me. I’ve moved on. I still love her, because, well, I think I always will, but not in the way you love her.”
32%
Flag icon
“You’re just like him—you speak to me the same way he spoke to my parents. Richard never cared what anyone thought about him either, but look where that got him.”
32%
Flag icon
“It’s up to you. You’re the only person she seems to listen to, and my daughter loves you too much for her own good.”
33%
Flag icon
“We can get married…” he rambles, then seems surprised by his own words, but he doesn’t take them back. His long fingers wrap around both of my wrists. “Tessa, we can get married. I’ll marry you tomorrow, if you’ll agree. I’ll wear a tux and everything.”
34%
Flag icon
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t fix you,” I tell him while softly stroking his damp hair. “Me, too,” he cries against my legs.
34%
Flag icon
I would have loved to have seen the expression on Mrs. Porter’s face when Noah brought Hardin home to stay with them. I can’t imagine Hardin and Noah getting along well, or at all, so I know how hurt Hardin must have been by my rejection if he was willing to take Noah up on his hospitality.
35%
Flag icon
only thing worse than being with someone who doesn’t believe in marriage is being with someone who would marry me only to win a momentary victory, not because he truly wants to be my husband.
38%
Flag icon
“You are allowed to feel how you want to fucking feel, and no one can say shit about it.”
38%
Flag icon
I just know he’s the only one who actually understands me.
38%
Flag icon
You already have all of me, I should have said.
38%
Flag icon
There were so many things I should have said, could have said, and sure as hell would have said if I had known my days in heaven were numbered.
38%
Flag icon
Had I known that I would be cast out so soon, I would have worshipped her the way she deserves.
« Prev 1 3 4 5