The breath is knocked out of me when he does. His eyes are bloodshot and his cheeks are soaked with tears. I try to take his hands in mine, but he jerks away. “Just go, Tessa,” he says.
I’ve heard him say that too many times. “No,” I say and kneel down between his opened legs.
He wipes his eyes with the back of his hands. “This was a bad idea. I’m going to tell my mum in the morning.”
“You don’t have to.” I’ve seen him let out a few tears before, but never full-on, body-shaking, tears-streaming-down-his-face crying.
“Yeah, I do. This is torture for me to have you so close but so far. It’s the worst possible punishment. Not that I don’t deserve it, because I know I do, but it’s too much,” he sobs. “Even for me.” He draws in a deep, desperate breath. “When you agreed to stay . . . I thought that maybe . . . maybe you still cared for me the way I do for you. But I see it, Tess, I see the way you look at me now. I see the pain I’ve caused. I see the change in you because of me. I know that I did this, but it still kills me to have you slip through my fingers.” The tears come much faster now, falling against his black T-shirt.
I want to say something—anything—to make this stop. To make his pain go away.
But where was he when I was crying myself to sleep night after night?
“You want me to go?” I ask, and he nods.
His rejection hurts, even now. I know I shouldn’t be here, we shouldn’t be doing this, but I need more. I need more time with him. Even dangerous, painful time is better than no time. I wish I didn’t love him, that I had never met him.
But I did. And I do love him.
“Okay.” I swallow and stand up.
His hand grips my wrist to stop me. “I’m sorry. For everything, for hurting you, for everything,” he says, goodbye thick in his tone.
As much as I resist this, I know deep down that I’m not ready for him to give up on me. On the other hand, I’m not ready to easily forgive him either. I’ve been in a constant state of confusion for days, but today takes the cake.
“I . . .” I stop myself.
“What?”
“I don’t want to go,” I say so low that I’m not sure he even heard me.
“What?” he asks again.
“I don’t want to go. I know I should, but I don’t want to. Not tonight at least.” I swear I can see the pieces of the broken man in front of me slowly come back together, one by one. It’s a beautiful sight, but terrifying deep in my soul, too.
“What does this mean?”
“I don’t know what it means, but I’m not ready to find out either,” I say, hoping to be able to get at this feeling by talking about it.
Hardin looks at me blankly, his earlier sobs nowhere to be find. Robotically, he wipes his face with his shirt and says, “Okay. You can sleep on the bed, I’ll take the floor.”
As he grabs two pillows and the throw blanket from the bed, my mind can’t help but entertain the thought that maybe, just maybe, all those tears were for show. Still, somehow I know that they couldn’t have been.
Chapter twenty-five
TESSA
Tucked like I am under our comforter, the thought that keeps going through my mind is that I never, ever would have thought I’d witness anything like that from Hardin. He was so raw, so vulnerable, as his body shook with tears. I feel like the dynamic between Hardin and me is constantly shifting, so that one of us is always gaining an upper hand over the other. Right now, I would be the one in control.
But I don’t want to be. And I don’t like this dynamic. Love shouldn’t be such a battle. Besides, I don’t trust myself to be in control of what happens between us. Up until a few hours ago I had it all figured out, but now, after seeing him so shaken up, my mind is muddled and my thoughts clouded.
Even in the darkness, I can feel Hardin’s eyes on me. When I let out the breath I realized I was holding, he quickly asks, “Do you want me to turn the television on?”
“No. If you want to, you can, but I’m okay,” I answer.
I wish that I had grabbed my e-reader so I could read until I fell asleep. Maybe observing the ruination of Catherine and Heathcliff’s lives would make mine seem easier, less traumatic. Catherine spent her whole life trying to fight her love for that man, on and off until the day she begged for his forgiveness and claimed she could not live without him—only to die hours later. I could live without Hardin, couldn’t I? I won’t spend my entire life fighting this. This is only temporary . . . Right? We won’t bring ourselves and others misery because of our stubbornness and hard heads, right? I’m bothered by the uncertainty of this parallel, especially since it means I start comparing Trevor to Edgar. I don’t know how to feel about this. It’s awkward.
“Tess?” my very own Heathcliff calls, wresting me away from my thoughts.
“Yeah?” I croak.
“I didn’t fuck . . . sleep with Molly,” he says, as if correcting his foul language makes the statement any less shocking.
I stay silent, partly stunned by him talking about this, partly because I want to believe him. But I can’t allow myself to forget that he’s a master of deception.
“I swear it,” he adds.
Oh, well, if he “swears” it . . . “Why did you say that, then?” I ask harshly.
“To hurt you. I was just so mad because you said you kissed someone, so I just said the thing that I knew would hurt you the most.”
I can’t see Hardin, but somehow I know that he’s lying on his back, his arms crossed, hands under his head, staring at the ceiling. “Did you really kiss someone?” he asks before I can respond.