chapter

one hundred and forty-one

HARDIN

W here are you?” His angry voice booms down the hall, creeping into the kitchen. The front door slams, and I jump down from the kitchen chair, grabbing my book. My shoulder knocks into the bottle on the table, sending it crashing to the ground into too many pieces. The brown liquid covers the floor, and I hurry to hide it before he finds me and sees what I did.

“Trish! I know you’re here!” He yells again. His voice is closer now. My small hands pull the towel from the stove and throw it onto the floor to cover the mess I made.

“Where’s your mum?”

I jerk back at the sound of his voice. “She’s . . . she’s not here,” I tell him, standing to my feet.

“What the fuck did you do?” he shouts, pushing past me and seeing the big mess I made. I didn’t mean to make the mess. I knew he would be angry.

“That bottle of scotch was older than you,” he says. I look up to his red face and he stumbles. “You broke my fucking bottle.” My dad’s voice is slow. It always sounds like this when he comes home lately.

I back away, taking small steps. If I can just get to the stairs, I can get away. He’s too drunk to follow me. He fell down them last time.

“What’s that?” His angry eyes focus on my book.

I hug it tighter to my chest. No. Not this one, too.

“Come here, boy.” He circles around me.

“Please don’t,” I beg the man as he rips my favorite book from my hands. Miss Johnson says that I’m a good reader, better than anyone else in fifth year.

“You broke my bottle, so I get to break something of yours.” He smiles. I back away as he tears the book in two and rips out the pages. I cover my ears and watch as Gatsby and Daisy float around the room in a white storm. He grabs some of the pages in the air and rips them into small pieces.

I can’t be a baby, I can’t cry. It’s just a book. It’s just a book. My eyes are burning, but I’m not a baby, so I can’t cry.

“You’re just like him, you know? With your stupid fucking books,” he slurs.

Just like who? Jay Gatsby? He doesn’t read as much as me.

“She thinks I’m stupid, but I’m not.” He grabs the back of the chair to keep from falling. “I know what she did.” Suddenly his face goes still, and I think my dad is going to cry.

“Clean up this shit,” he groans and leaves me alone in the kitchen, kicking the binding of my book as he leaves.

“HARDIN! HARDIN, WAKE UP!” A voice calls me from my mum’s kitchen. “Hardin, it’s only a dream. Please wake up.”

When my eyes fly open, I’m met with worried eyes and an unfamiliar-looking ceiling above my head. It takes me a moment to realize that I’m not in my mum’s kitchen after all. There’s no spilled scotch or ripped-up novel.

“I’m so sorry for leaving you in here alone. I just went to get some breakfast. I didn’t think—” Her voice breaks off into a sob, and she wraps her arms around my sweat-covered back.

“Shh . . .” I smooth her hair. “I’m fine.” I blink a few times.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she quietly asks.

“No, I can’t even remember it, really,” I tell her. The dream has turned blurry, fading out more with each stroke of her hand across the bare skin between my shoulder blades.

I let her hold me for a few minutes before breaking away. “I got breakfast for you,” she says, wiping her nose with the sleeve of my sweatshirt she’s wearing. “Sorry.” She smiles shyly, holding the snot-covered sleeve up in front of me.

I can’t help but laugh, my nightmare forgotten. “There have been worse things on that sweatshirt,” I cheekily remind her, trying to make her laugh. My thoughts travel back to when she jacked me off in the apartment while I was wearing said sweatshirt, and quite the mess was made.

Her cheeks flush, and I reach for the tray of food next to her. She has piled it high with different types of bread, fruit, cheese, and even a small box of Frosted Flakes.

“I had to fight an old woman for that.” She grins, nodding toward the cereal.

“You did no such thing,” I tease her as she brings a grape to her lips.

“I would have,” she insists.

The mood has shifted drastically since our arrival in the middle of the night. “Did you change the flight?” I ask her and tear into the Frosted Flakes, not bothering to pour them into the small bowl she put on the tray.

“I wanted to talk about that with you.” Her voice lowers. She didn’t change the flight. I sigh and wait for her to finish. “I talked to Christian last night . . . well, this morning.”

“What? Why? I told you—” I stand up, knocking the cereal box onto the tray.

“I know you did, but just hear me out,” she begs.

“Fine.” I sit back on the bed and wait for her explanation.

“He said he’s really sorry and that he needs to explain all of this to you. I understand if you don’t want to hear it. If you don’t want to talk to either of them, Christian or your mother, I’ll get online and change the flight now. I just wanted to give you the option first. I know you care for him . . .” Her eyes begin to water again.

“I don’t,” I assure her.

“Do you want me to change the tickets?” she asks.

“Yes,” I tell her. She frowns and leans over to lift my laptop from the nightstand next to the bed. “What else did he say?” I ask hesitantly. It doesn’t matter, but I’m curious.

“The wedding is still on,” she informs me.

What the fuck?

“And he says he’s going to tell Kimberly everything and that he loves her more than his own life.” Tessa’s bottom lip begins to tremble at the mention of her betrayed friend.

“Mike is fucking stupid, then—maybe he does belong with my mum after all.”

“I don’t know what made him forgive her so quickly, but he did.” Tessa pauses and looks at me like she’s trying to gauge my mood. “Christian asked me to have you at least say goodbye to your mother before we leave. He knows you won’t go to the wedding, but he wants you to tell her goodbye.” She rushes the words.

“Hell, no. No fucking way. I’m getting dressed and we’re getting the fuck out of this shithole.” I wave my hand around the overly expensive motel room.

“Okay,” she agrees.

That was easy. Too easy. “What do you mean, okay?” I ask her.

“Nothing. I just meant okay. I understand if you don’t want to say goodbye to your mom.” She shrugs her shoulders and tucks her messy hair behind both ears.

“You do?”

“Yes.” She smiles a weak smile. “I know I’m hard on you sometimes, but I’m going to support you on this. You’re completely justified here.”

“Okay,” I say, more than a little relieved. I thought she’d fight me and even try to force me to go to the wedding. “I can’t wait to go back.” I rub my fingers over my temples.

“Yeah, me, too,” Tessa weakly replies.

Where the fuck is she going to live? After what happened here she can’t just go back to Vance’s house, but she won’t come to my place either. I don’t know what she’s going to do, but I do know that I want to rip Vance’s fucking head from his body for making her return to the States complicated.

I wish I could get her a job with me at Bolthouse, but it’s impossible. She’s not even a sophomore, and paying internships at publishing houses don’t come along every day, even to graduates. There’s no way she’ll find another, especially in Seattle, not until she’s further along in her degree, or even finished with it.

I take the laptop from her hands to finish the task of changing our flight. I shouldn’t have agreed to come to the UK in the first place. Vance talked me into bringing Tessa, only to ruin the entire damn trip himself.