After We Collided (After, #2)

by Anna Todd

I couldn’t have imagined this—never in my wildest fucking dreams would I have thought that I’d feel this type of pain. The sting of loss, I’ve heard it called.

It was supposed to be easy: sleep with her, get my money and my bragging rights over Zed. Pretty cut-and-dried.

I didn’t realize just how

much I loved her until I was vomiting into a sink after showing my fucked-up friends the proof of her stolen virginity.

I won the bet, but I lost the only thing that has ever made me happy. And along with that, I lost every ounce of goodness she made me see in myself.

Hell, I want to blame everyone. But I can’t. I did this. I ruined her and everything we had. But I’ll do whatever it takes to make up for my mistakes. Where is she going now? Is it someplace where I’ll ever find her?

“He convinced me to move in with him, just a week ago.” “He didn’t,” Zed gasps.

“I didn’t know it was going this far. I thought once we saw the… you know, the proof… he’d be back to normal, seeing a different girl every night. But then he disappeared. He’s barely come around us at all, except the other night he showed up at the docks and was trying to get Jace and me to agree not to tell you. He offered Jace a shitload of money to keep quiet.”

My most intimate moments. My only intimate moments aren’t mine at all.

Landon is my only friend, but he lives at Hardin’s father’s house. The irony of this is not lost on me.

As soon as Landon finishes speaking, his head snaps to the side. And then I, too, notice it: footsteps rushing up the staircase. Not just footsteps, but heavy boots slamming against the wooden steps in a frenzy. “He’s here,”

“Talk to me,” he begs. But I shake my head and stand next to Landon. “No—I’ll never be talking to you again!” I shout. “You don’t mean that…” Hardin steps closer. “Get away from me!” I scream as he grabs my arm.

I utterly shrink. I’ve never felt so naked and small. I didn’t want Ken and Karen to know… but it may not make much of a difference, since after tonight they surely won’t really want to see me again.

“He had nothing to lose, but I did. I let him take everything from me. My life before him was so simple and decided. Now… after him… it’s just… after.”

He somehow became the string that held everything in my life together, and in his absence I’m left with the rubble that once was my life.

Memories begin to creep into my mind as we pull into the parking lot. Hardin on his knees in the snow. Zed’s explanation of the bet.

“Thank you, that means a lot to me,” I say, and immediately the voice in my head reminds me that I only have this internship because of Hardin.

He has tainted every aspect of my life, including the entire state of Washington.

That he would take everything in me and spin it around, tearing me into tiny pieces before blowing on the pile and scattering me across the sky and beneath his friends’ heels.

I scold myself for being so stupid, for even considering him, when he clearly wouldn’t do the same for me.

“It’s not always about love, Theresa; it’s about stability and security.”

“Okay…” I say and tell him basically everything. I leave out the sex details, since those are private. Well, they aren’t. But to me they are.

Even worse than showing the sheets is the fact that after telling me that he loved me, and making love, he could apparently turn around and make a mockery of what had happened between us in front of everyone.

The campus isn’t big enough for me to be able to avoid Hardin and all of his friends, and I don’t want the constant reminder of what I had with Hardin.

My eyes flicker to the bedside table, where a small frame stands, displaying the picture of Hardin and me smiling together before Ken’s wedding. Too bad it was all fake.

He doesn’t see me, since he’s looking over his shoulder. At a brunette in a black sweater dress. “So this is it…” he begins, and then stops when he notices my bags on the ground.

“Tessa, what are you doing here?” he asks. As I wipe at the makeup around my eyes, he asks his new girl, “Can you give us a minute?”

“I… I was just leaving.” I manage to say. He looks so perfect, so beautiful. Such a beautiful disaster.

Something in me is slightly relieved, but then immediately a more defensive part of me notes that just because he isn’t sleeping with the brunette doesn’t mean he won’t be sleeping with someone else soon.

“You think I would bring someone back here to our apartment? It’s only been two days—is that how you think of me?” He has some nerve. “Yes! Of course it is—now!”

Despite the whirlwind of my emotions, I won’t allow myself to come undone any further in front of him.

“Fine isn’t happy,” he says. “Happy?” I scoff. “And what, am I happy now?” How dare he try to claim he makes me happy.

“I know you don’t, it was all a game to you. While I was falling in love with you, you were using me.”

“This isn’t about what you want! This is about how you hurt me.”

“I said I wouldn’t leave you if you didn’t give me a reason to. But you did.”

you with every fiber of my being—I depended on you, I loved you, and you were using me all along. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? That everyone around me was mocking me and laughing behind my back, including you, the person I trusted the most.”

“I thought you would sleep with me and that would be the end of it. But you were so headstrong and so… intriguing that I found myself thinking of you constantly. I would sit in my room and try to plot ways that I could see you, even if it was just to fight with you. I knew it wasn’t just a bet anymore after that day at the stream, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it.

And when I told everyone about the things we did, I didn’t tell them what we were actually doing… I couldn’t do that to you, even in the beginning. I would just make up shit that didn’t actually happen, and they bought it.”

“I swear, I started telling Nate and Logan about the stream, but I found myself getting irritated, jealous even, over the idea of them knowing what I did with you… how I made you feel, so I told them that you gave me… well, I just made shit up.”

“Even if I believed you, I can’t forgive you,”

“Then why can’t you forgive me?” “Because this is unforgivable, you didn’t just lie. You took my virginity to win a bet—and then showed people my blood on the sheets. How could anyone forgive that?”

“Well, you should have thought about that when you were bragging about your conquest,” I say steadily.

I want to tell him that I love him more than I want to breathe, but I can’t. I refuse to get pulled back in and be that girl who lets guys do whatever the hell they want to her.

Why did it all have to start with a lie? If we’d met in some different way, we could be inside that apartment right now, laughing on the couch or kissing in the bedroom. Instead, I’m in my car alone with nowhere to go.

I am someone staying in a motel, alone, all my belongings stuffed frantically into bags. I am someone who has no one to lean on instead of someone who always had a plan.

“Yeah, why else would he invite you to the conference? Only the four of us are going.” “Four of us?” I ask. “Yeah. Me, you, Christian, and Kim.”

“She isn’t going to come here, Hardin—she knows you’ll find her.”

Punching the drywall did more damage to my hands than I thought. It’s nothing compared to how I feel inside. I never knew this type of pain existed; it’s so much worse than any physical pain I could cause myself.

Where the hell is she? As mad as I am, I’m worried as hell about her. Is she alone, or afraid? Of course, knowing Tessa, she isn’t afraid at all; she’s probably going over the reasons she hates me. Actually, she’s probably writing them down.

“Hardin… go upstairs!” she shouts, but I’m not leaving my mummy with these bad men.