After (The After Series)

laughing at me?
“So? It’s just a dare. Just do it,” Molly says, pressuring me.
“No, I’m not kissing anyone,” I snap and stand up. Without looking at me,
Hardin just takes a drink from his cup. I hope he’s offended. Actually, I don’t
care if he is. I’m through interacting with him like this. He hates me and is just
too rude.
As I get to my feet, the full effect of the alcohol hits me. I stumble but manage
to pull myself together and walk away from the group. Somehow I find the front
door through the crowd. As soon as I’m outside, the fall breeze hits me. I close
my eyes and breathe in the fresh air before going to sit on the familiar stone
wall. Before I realize what I am doing, my phone is in my hands, dialing Noah.
“Hello?” he says. The familiarity of his voice and the vodka in my system
make me miss him more.
“Hey . . . babe,” I say and bring my knees to my chest.
A beat of silence passes. “Tessa, are you drunk?” His voice is full of
judgment. I shouldn’t have called him.
“No . . . of course not,” I lie and hang up the phone. I press my finger down on
the power button. I don’t want him to call back. He’s ruining the good feeling
from the vodka, worse than even Hardin did.
I stumble back inside, ignoring whistles and crude comments from drunk frat
guys. I grab a bottle of brown liquor off the counter in the kitchen and take a
drink, too big of a drink. It tastes worse than the vodka and my throat feels like
it’s on fire. My hands fumble for a cup of anything to get the taste out of my
mouth. I end up opening the cabinet and using a real glass to pour some water
from the sink. It helps the burn a little, but not much. Through a break in the
crowd, I see that the group of my “friends” are still sitting in a circle playing
their stupid game.
Are they my friends? I don’t think they are. They only want me around so they
can laugh at my inexperience. How dare Molly tell Hardin to kiss me—she
knows that I have a boyfriend. Unlike her, I don’t go around making out with
everyone. I’ve kissed only two boys in my life, Noah and Johnny, a freckle-faced

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kid in third grade who kicked me in the shin afterward. Would Hardin have gone
along with the dare? I doubt it. His lips are so pink and full, and my head plays
an image of Hardin leaning over to kiss me and my pulse begins to race.
What the hell? Why am I thinking about him like that? I am never drinking
again.
Minutes later, the room begins to spin and I feel dizzy. My feet lead me
upstairs to the bathroom and I sit in front of the toilet, expecting to throw up.
Nothing happens. I groan and pull myself up. I am ready to go back to the
dorms, but I know Steph won’t be ready for hours. I shouldn’t have come here.
Again.
Before I can stop myself, my hand is turning the knob on the only room I’m
somewhat familiar with in this oversize house. Hardin’s bedroom door opens
without a problem. He claims to always lock his door, but he’s proving
otherwise. It looks the same as before, only this time the room is moving around
beneath my unsteady feet. Wuthering Heights is missing from where it was on
the shelf, but I find it on the bedside table, next to Pride and Prejudice. Hardin’s
comments about the novel replay in my mind. He has obviously read it before—
and understood it—which is rare for our age group, and for a boy especially.
Maybe he had to read it for class before, that’s why. But why is this copy of
Wuthering Heights out? I grab it and sit on the bed, opening the book halfway
through. My eyes scan the pages and the room stops spinning.
I’m so lost in the world of Catherine and Heathcliff that when the door opens,
I don’t hear it.
“What part of ‘No One Comes Into My Room’ did you not understand?”
Hardin booms. His angry expression scares me, but somehow humors me at the
same time.
“S-sorry. I . . .”
“Get out,” he spits, and I glare at him. The vodka is still fresh in my system,
too fresh to let Hardin yell at me.
“You don’t have to be such a jerk!” My voice comes out much louder than I
had intended.
“You’re in my room, again, after I told you not to be. So get out!” he yells,
stepping closer to me.
And with Hardin looming in front of me, mad, seething with scorn and
making it seem like I’m the worst person on earth to him, something inside me
snaps. Any composure I had snaps in half, and I ask the question that’s been at
the front of my brain without my wanting to acknowledge it.
“Why don’t you like me?” I demand, staring up at him.
It’s a fair question, but, to be honest, I don’t really think my already wounded

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ego can take the answer.

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chapter seventeen
H
ardin glares at me. It’s aggressive. But unsure. “Why are you asking me this?”
“I don’t know . . . because I have been nothing but nice to you, and you’ve
been nothing but rude to me.” And then I add, “And here I actually thought at
one point we could be friends,” which sounds so stupid that I pinch the bridge of
my nose with my fingers while I wait for his answer.
“Us? Friends?” He laughs and throws up his hands. “Isn’t it obvious why we
can’t be friends?”
“Not to me.”
“Well, for starters you’re too uptight—you probably grew up in some perfect
little model home that looks like every other house on the block. Your parents
probably bought you everything you ever asked for, and you never had to want
for anything. With your stupid pleated skirts, I mean, honestly, who dresses like
that at eighteen?”
My mouth falls open. “You know nothing about me, you condescending jerk!
My life is nothing like that! My alcoholic dad left us when I was ten, and my
mother worked her ass off to make sure I could go to college. I got my own job
as soon I turned sixteen to help with bills, and I happen to like my clothes—sorry
if I don’t dress like a slut like all the girls around you! For someone who tries too
hard to stand out and be different, you sure are judgmental about people who are
different from you!” I scream and feel the tears well up in my eyes.
I turn around so he won’t get to remember me like this, and I notice that he’s
balling his fists. Like he gets to be angry about this.

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“You know what, I don’t want to be friends with you anyway, Hardin,” I tell
him and reach for the door handle. The vodka, which had made me brave, is also
making me feel the sadness of this situation, of our yelling.
“Where are you going?” he asks. So unpredictable. So moody.
“To the bus stop so I can go back to my room and never, ever come back here
again. I am done trying to be friends with any of you.”
“It’s too late to take the bus alone.”
I spin around to face him. “You are not seriously trying to act like you care if
something happened to me.” I laugh. I can’t keep up with his changes in tone.
“I’m not saying I do . . . I’m just warning you. It’s a bad idea.”
“Well, Hardin, I don’t have any other options. Everyone is drunk—including
myself.”
And then the tears come. I am beyond humiliated that Hardin, of all people, is
seeing me cry. Again.
“Do you always cry at parties?” he asks and ducks his head a little, but with a
small smile.
“Apparently, whenever you’re at them. And since these are the only ones I’ve
ever been to . . .” I reach the door again and open it.