After Ever Happy (After 4)

“You’ll see, Carol, you’ll see . . .” I say and pull an empty glass from the cabinet. Filling it with water for Tessa, I tell myself I can change our course and prove everyone wrong, myself included. I know that I can.

Chapter thirty

TESSA

I feel slightly less insane after the shower, or maybe the short nap in the greenhouse, or maybe the silence I was finally granted. I don’t know, but I can see the world with more clarity, only slightly more, but it’s helping me not feel so delusional and giving me a little hope that each day will bring more clarity, more peace.

“I’m coming in,” Hardin says and opens the door before I can respond. I pull a clean T-shirt down over my stomach and sit on the bed. “I brought you more water.” He places a full glass on the small nightstand and sits on the opposite side of the bed.

I came up with a speech in the shower, but now that he’s here in front of me, I can’t remember any of it. “Thank you” is all I can think to say.

“Are you feeling better?”

He’s being cautious. I must look so frail, so weak to him. I feel it, too. I should feel defeated and angry and sad and confused and lost. The thing is, there’s still nothing. There’s the deep throb of nothing, though I’m growing used to it as each minute passes.

During each long minute in the shower while the water turned cold, I thought of things from a new perspective. I thought of the way my life has turned into this dark hole of absolutely nothing, and I thought about how much I hated feeling that way, and I thought of the perfect solution, but now I can’t get the jumbled words into a proper sentence. This must be what it feels like to lose your mind.

“I hope you are.”

He hopes I’m what . . . ?

“Feeling better,” he adds, answering my thoughts. I hate the way he’s so connected to me, the way he knows what I’m feeling and thinking even when I don’t.

I shrug and focus on the wall again. “I am, sort of.”

The wall is easier to focus on than the brilliant green of his eyes, the green that I was always so terrified of losing. I remember that when we would lie in bed together, I was always hoping I would get another hour, another week, maybe even another month, with those eyes. I would pray that he would come around and want me permanently, the way I wanted him. I don’t want to feel that anymore, I don’t want that desperation rolling off me when it comes to him. I want to sit here with my nothing and be content and quiet, and maybe, one day, I can become someone else, someone I thought I would be before I started college. If I’m lucky, I could at least once again be the girl I was before I left home.

That girl is long gone, though. She took a ticket straight to hell, and here she sits, silently burning.

“I want you to know how sorry I am for everything, Tessa. I should have come back here with you. I shouldn’t have ended things with you because of my own problems. I should have let you be there for me like I want to be for you. Now I know how you must feel, constantly trying to help me when I pushed and pushed you away.”

“Hardin,” I whisper, not sure what I will say next.

“No, Tessa, let me say this. I promise you, this time it will be different. I’ll never do that again. I’m sorry that it took your dad dying to make me realize how much I need you, but I won’t run off again, won’t neglect you again, won’t disappear into myself again—I swear it.” The desperation in his voice is all too familiar: I’ve heard this same tone and these same words many, many times from him.

“I can’t,” I say calmly. “I’m sorry, Hardin, but I really can’t.”

He moves to my side in a panic and drops to his knees in front of me, ruining the carpet there. “Can’t what? I know it will take some time, but I’m prepared to wait for you to come out of this, this state of grief you’re in. I’m willing to do everything; I mean everything.”

“We can’t, we never could.” My voice is flat again. I guess robotic Tessa is here to stay. I don’t have enough energy to push any emotion into my words.

“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.”

The words that I’ve been hysterically wishing and waiting for have finally fallen from his lips, but I can’t feel them. I heard them clear as day, but I can’t feel them.

“We can’t.” I shake my head.

He grows more desperate. “I have money, more than enough money to pay for a wedding, Tessa, and we could have it wherever you choose. You can get the most expensive dress and flowers, and I won’t complain about any of it!” His voice is loud now, echoing through the room.

“It’s not about that—it’s not right.” I wish I could engrave into my heart his words and the way his voice sounds so frantic—excited even—and take them with me into the past. A past where I couldn’t see how destructive our relationship really was, when I would have given anything to hear those words from him.

“What is it, then? I know you want this, Tessa; you’ve told me so many times.” I can see the battle behind his eyes, and I wish I could do something to ease his pain, but I can’t.

“I don’t have anything left, Hardin. I don’t have anything left to give you. You’ve already taken it all, and I’m sorry, but there’s just nothing left.” The hollowness inside me grows, taking my entire being with it, and I’ve never been so thankful to feel nothing. If I could feel this, any of this, it would kill me.