After Ever Happy (After, #4)

by Anna Todd

Hardin Scott is anything but typical.

“What’s the worst thing I’ve done to you? What’s the most disgusting, terrible thing that I’ve put you through since we met?” I begin to think through the last eight months, but he clears his throat, reminding me that he wanted me to say the first thing that came to mind. I fidget in the chair, not wanting to open that vault right now, or anytime in the future, really. But finally I spit it out. “The bet. The fact that you had me completely fooled when I was falling in love with you.”

“Would you take it back? Would you change that mistake of mine if you could?”

“No. I wouldn’t take it back,” I say, mostly to myself.

“You have this idea in your head, baby, an idea that someone planted there, or maybe you saw it on some shitty television show, or maybe in one of your books, I don’t know. But real life is fucking hard. No relationship is perfect, and no man is ever going to treat a woman exactly how he should.”

Hardin Scott walked away from violence, even in the heat of the moment.

Tessa is the only person in my entire life that ever took the time to care about me, care for me, and make me feel like I’m actually worth someone’s time.

“Between the two of us, we keep running.”

“ ‘You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.’ ”

“It’s not that. I just thought New York was going to be a fresh start for both of us, Tessa. Not just another place for you and Hardin to fight.”

Landon doesn’t want me to go to New York with him.

I have been so selfish, and I haven’t even realized it until now. I have ruined so many relationships in the past eight months. I started college in love with my Noah, my childhood boyfriend, only to cheat on him, more than once, with Hardin.

I made friends with Steph, who betrayed me and tried to hurt me. I judged Molly when she wasn’t even the one I should have been worried about. I forced myself to believe that I could fit in at college—that this group of people were actually my friends, when in reality I was a joke to them.

I gave my virginity to him as part of a bet.

I have been through hell and back in the last eight months, and now here I sit, on this bed, alone. I’ve spent my entire life planning and scheduling, organizing and anticipating, yet here I am with nothing but mascara-stained cheeks and broken plans. Not even broken—none of them ever had enough backing in the first place to end up broken. I don’t have a clue where my life is headed. I don’t have a college to be in, a place to belong in, or even the romantic notion of love from the books I’ve always loved and used to believe in. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing with my life.

I’ve watched him change so much since the day I met the rude, tattooed boy with the piercings and the messiest hair I had ever seen. He’s not that boy anymore; he’s a man now, a man recovering.

“We are Catherine and Heathcliff,”

“You aren’t the one who was ruining me; I did it myself. I changed, and you changed. But you changed for the better. I did not.”

“Fine, you can have it. I’m giving this to you, not because I want to, but because this will be the last doubt I will ever entertain from you. After I give you this time and you come back to me, that’s it. You aren’t leaving again, and you will marry me. This is what I want in return for this time you need.”

If we make it through this, I will marry this man.

I close my eyes, wishing, wanting, hoping that this won’t be the last time I feel his lips against mine, that this won’t be the last time I ever feel this way.

Hardin’s graduation.

That night in April, the night that Landon handed me a reality check on a silver platter, I drove straight to my mother’s house. I called Kimberly and cried into the phone until she told me to suck it up, stop crying, and do something about the direction my life was headed in.

My mother and I are on the path to the relationship I always dreamed we would have.

Nothing and no one would ever provide what Tessa has provided for me; I will always need her. Everything I do, every single day since she left me, is only to be better for her. I’ve made some new friends—okay, two friends. Luke and his girlfriend, Kaci, are the closest things I have to friends, and they are okay company. Neither of them drinks much, and they definitely don’t come close to spending their time at shitty parties or making bets. I met Luke, who is a few years older than me and being dragged to couple’s therapy once a week, during my weekly session with Dr. Tran, mental health professional extraordinaire.

I’m not sure how many hours have passed—it feels like four—when my name is finally called. It’s awkward and vomit inducing, the way everyone is staring at me, and I rush off the stage as soon as I notice Ken’s eyes starting to tear up.

I know she’s here, I can feel it somehow. I haven’t seen her in two months—two fucking long-ass months—and I am buzzing, high on adrenaline, when I finally spot her near the exit. I had a feeling she would do this, come here and try to sneak off before I could find her, but I won’t allow it. I’ll chase her car down the street if need be.

Afterward, wandering around to every bathroom and calling her phone twice, I realize that Tessa has left without saying goodbye.

It’s the second Friday in September, and Hardin’s flight will be landing any minute. I

Our friendship bounced back quickly, and we haven’t had an awkward moment since I arrived four weeks ago. I spent the summer with my mother, her boyfriend, David, and his daughter, Heather.

Everyone seems so important, so official, and I love guessing at people’s life stories, where they came from, why they are here.

I just hated the way he walked off when I took too long coming back from the restroom. I’d left my phone on the counter by the sink, but when I remembered it and returned, it was already gone. Then I’d spent a half hour trying to find the lost and found, or a guard to help me find it. Eventually I saw it sitting on a trash can, like someone realized it wasn’t theirs, but didn’t bother to put it back where they found it. In any event, the battery was already dead. I tried to find Hardin at the spot where I’d left him, but he was gone. Ken said he’d left with his friends, and something clicked then—that this was over. It was really over.

“Tess.” A hand touches my arm and I jump back. It’s that voice, that deep, beautiful, accented voice that I have played in my head for months and months. “Tessa?” Hardin touches me again; this time his hand wraps around my wrist, the way it always used to.

Hardin is staring at me just the same, his fingers still pressing against the skin on my wrist. I should pull away before the pounding of my pulse betrays my reaction to seeing him after three months.

I need to talk to her about walking home this late. I have spent night after night, week after week, trying to imagine how she’s living her life here. Her working long days as a waitress and wandering home in the darkness of New York City was not something that crossed my mind.

“What you really wanted was something that wasn’t tied to me. Am I correct?”

I “need to find the balance between control and guidance.”

I haven’t shared a bed, or couch, with anyone since Hardin.

“It’s our anniversary month, you know?” he says

“I won’t be doing any of that until the day you marry me.”

“You heard me. I won’t be fucking you until you marry me.”

“Oh, you didn’t think I would give up so easily, did you?” He leans in and touches his lips to my burning cheek. “Don’t you know me at all?” His smile makes me want to slap him and kiss him at the same time. “But you did give up.” “No, I’m giving you space just like you forced me to do. I’m trusting your love for me to bring you back to center, eventually.”

It’s always so easy to fall back into the dysfunctional pattern that is Hessa, but I have to keep my head clear here.

“There’s the sassy Theresa I know and love,”

“So will you please do me the honor of granting me your time to have a meal in a common place tonight?”

Walking through the streets of New York with Hardin is slightly on the strange side.

I’ve been trying to make sense of the way I feel about him since he crashed into my life a year ago.

I have suffered through months without looking at him, and now I don’t want to look away.

“I haven’t been fucked in five months, Theresa. You’re pushing every ounce of my self-control,”

“I’ve craved you every second of every fucking day,”