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If I get anywhere near her, if I even so much as breathe the same air as my girl, no one will be able to tear me away from her.
I suppose it’s not much of a reminder, since I’ve never actually shown her the way I could be. I’ve only been selfish and afraid, letting my fear and self-loathing run the show, always taking my attention from her. I could only focus on myself and my disgusting habit of taking every ounce of her love and trust and throwing it in her face.
“I know that. I know that’s what we do, but I thought that I made myself clear about—” “Hanging all over me doesn’t exactly send that message.” His voice is flat, cold, and a set of chills run down my spine at the difference in him that has appeared in the last two minutes.
Hardin was there—you couldn’t have possibly thought that I would be affectionate with you in front of him?”
I spent so much time defending Zed against Hardin, making his worries about Zed out to be a dramatic rambling out of jealousy, when Hardin was right the entire time.
“Please, this week has been so terrible, and I can’t watch it. Please, Hardin. Just get in the cab with me. Take me away from here, please.”
If I had known it would hurt this bad, if I had known the way it would rip me apart, then sew me back together, only to tear me into pieces again, I would have stayed as far away from Hardin Scott as I possibly could.
“What sort of dream?” Hardin’s voice is nearly a whisper, and his thumbs are still gliding, slowly as ever, across the skin just under my eyes. “The kind that you have,” I reply, my voice equally hushed. A sigh leaves his lips, and he frowns. “Since when? Since when do you have my sort of dreams?” I take a moment to collect my thoughts. “Only since I found him, and it’s only been twice. I don’t know where they’re coming from.”
It’s April now:
I’m ready for this. I’m ready to live in Seattle if that’s what she wants, and my offer of marriage isn’t going anywhere. Not this time. I’ll marry that girl and live in Seattle until I die if that’s what she wants, if that’s what makes her happy.
I need to be myself. Just a version of me who is worthy of her love.
You act like you can’t remember any woman’s name except Tess.”
“You do say the right things; you always have. I just couldn’t hear you before.”
I’ve made a vow to tell her how I feel and to stop being selfish and expecting her to decipher my every word and intention.
There are over a thousand pictures of you and an entire album of your bullshit music, and if you really want to see how pathetic I am, you could check the call logs and see how many times I’ve called your old number just to hear that robotic bitch voice tell me that your number is no longer in service.”
It seems impossible that I would have anything left to give her, that she doesn’t already consume and own every single part of me, but somehow, when she smiles at me, my body comes up with a little more of myself to let her steal away. It’s all for her, and it will always be that way.
“Not really, actually, I have plenty of images up here.” I tap at my forehead with my cast, and she grimaces. “Only of you.”
I don’t trust myself around you.”
Ours is a love of the novels, better than any Austen or Brontë she has memorized.
I only live when it comes to her. She’s the only breath of life inside of me, and without it I will be nothing. I will neither survive nor live. I wouldn’t want to even if I could.
I fully believed that I would never feel anything again, but Hardin pulled me out of that; he grabbed my hand when no one else seemed to care enough to do so, and he pulled me up onto the surface.
Why did it take me finally pulling away for him to want to change?
“It’s not a last resort. I’m not playing games with you—I’ve learned my lesson there. I want to marry you because I can’t imagine living my life any other way, and you can go ahead and tell me I’m wrong, but you know we may as well get married now. We won’t be apart, and you know it.”
It’s not so easy to walk away from someone when he has made his way into every cell, when he has taken over every thought, and he has been responsible for the best and worst feelings I’ve ever had. No one, not even the doubting part of me, can make me feel bad for loving passionately and hoping desperately that I could have that great love that I’ve read about in novels.
“So it’s true, then? He’s your father, isn’t he?”
“I knew from the first time I saw you that you were his.”
You looked just like him, and as each year passed, your mum would cry a little harder, she would sneak off with him a little more. I knew. I didn’t want to admit it because you were all that I had. I didn’t have your mum; I never really did. Since I met her, she was his. You were all I had, and as I allowed my anger to take over, I ruined that, too.”
“You would have been better off with him, I know you would have been, but I loved you—I still love you as if you are my own flesh—and I can only hope that you will let me stay in your life.”
It makes sense in a way; he was always so curious about Hardin and seemed to enjoy his company when most people don’t.
Up until eight months ago, I didn’t know there could be someone like Tessa. I had no clue that this obnoxious blonde was walking around waiting to turn my entire life upside down by driving me absolutely insane and making me love her more than I love breathing.
I hold my phone up in the dark and scroll through the pictures of her. If images of memories are all I will have for a while, I’m going to need more pictures. Seven hundred and twenty-two isn’t enough.
Everything seems to be getting better for me, finally, and the last step is Tessa’s forgiveness. I just need a sliver of the hope she has always had for me to return.
“ ‘All things truly wicked start from innocence,’ ”
She fixed me; she glued the tiny fragments of my fucked-up soul into something impossible, something almost attractive even. She made me into something—she made me normal almost—but with each drop of glue she used on me, she lost that drop of herself, and me being the piece of shit I am, didn’t have anything to offer her.
“I don’t care how or why, but if you want me in any way, you don’t need to explain. I’m already yours.”
“Thank you,” I breathe into his chest when he pulls me to lie across him. “No, thank you.” He smiles down at me and presses a kiss to my bare shoulder. “Are you going to tell me what’s been bothering you?” “No.” I trace my fingertip over the black ink of the tree on his chest. “Fine. Will you marry me?” His body moves with soft laughter underneath me. “No.” I swat at him, hoping he’s only teasing. “Fine. Will you move in with me?” “No.” I move my finger to another group of tattoos, tracing the heart-shaped end of the infinity symbol drawn there. “I’ll take that as a maybe.” He chuckles,
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With all this shit going on in my life and the struggle to keep myself on the right path, the path lined with fucking rainbows and flowers and all the shit that leads to a life with Tessa, it’s nice to know Landon is there if I need him.
I don’t like kids or babies or teenagers, but then again, I don’t like adults either. I pretty much only like Tessa, so maybe a little version of her wouldn’t be so bad?
“I know what I said before, but I also never dated anyone, never loved anyone, never gave a shit about anyone, so I think this could be like that. I think after some time, I could change my mind. If you’ll give me the chance?”
“I still have work to do; you still don’t trust me, I know that. We have college to finish, and I still have to convince you to marry me first.”
“We could, though. I love you and I want a life with you. I don’t give a shit if you’re young and I’m young, and if I’m too wrong for you and you’re too right for me—I fucking love you. I know I’ve made mistakes…”
“And I also know that I’ve said this same speech probably… thirty times, but you have to know I’m not fucking around anymore. I want you, always. Fights, makeups, hell, you can even break up with me and move out of our place once a week; just promise me you’ll come back, and I won’t even complain about it.” I take a few breaths and look across the table at her. “Well, I won’t complain much.” “Hardin, I can’t believe you’re saying all of this.” She leans in, her voice a whisper. “I… it’s everything I wanted.” Her eyes fill with tears.
“I know you haven’t forgiven me yet, and I’ll be patient. I swear it—I won’t be too pushy. I just want you to know that I can be who you need, I can give you what you want, and not only because you want it, but because I want it, too.”
I want to tell her the crazy shit inside my head—I want to tell her that I want to stare at the cheesy way the sun hits her hair in the passenger seat until I can’t see anymore. I want to listen to her moan and close her eyes when she takes a bite of a taco—that I swear tastes like cardboard but she loves—until I can’t hear anymore. I want to tease her about the spot just below her knee—that she always misses when she shaves her legs—until I lose my voice.
“It’s possible, I mean, there’s a very slim chance. And there would be a high risk for miscarriage, and my hormone levels are all messed up, so I don’t think I could ever torture myself by trying. I wouldn’t be able to handle losing a baby, or trying for years with no result. It’s just not in the cards for me to be a mother, I guess.” She’s spitting this shit out,
It’s fucked-up how something you never wanted can hurt this way.
“I have wanted to be a mother since I can remember. I was just like every other girl with her dolls, maybe more so. Being a mother was so important to me. I never, ever questioned or worried that I may not be able to be one.”
It’s hard to focus on just one of the many problems that have cropped up of late: Hardin’s behavior in London, Vance and Trish, my father’s death, my fertility issues.
I’ve loved this girl with every ounce of me for so long. I hate that she feels this way, that she has forgotten how deep my love for her is and has reduced it to this one fuckup of mine. Not that I can blame her. It is my fault that she feels this way.