After (The After Series)

How could he be so cruel? I run down the stairs on the sidewalk. I have to get
away from here. I wish I had never met him, I wish I had had a different
roommate. I even wish I had never come to WCU.
“Tessa!” I hear and I turn around, convinced I am imagining it until I see
Hardin running after me.

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chapter sixty
I
have never been very athletic, but my adrenaline is in full effect and I push my
legs to go faster. I reach the end of the street, but begin to tire. Where the hell am
I going to go? I don’t remember the path that I walked back to my dorm last
time, and I stupidly left my phone in my room. To prove a point. About my
independence from Hardin. Hardin, who’s chasing me and yelling, “Tessa, stop!”
And I do stop. I stop dead in my tracks. Why am I even running from him? He
needs to explain why he keeps playing games with me.
“What did Zed say to you?”
What? When I turn around to face him, he is only a few feet away and has a
shocked expression; he didn’t actually expect I would stop.
“What, Hardin! What could you possibly want from me?” I scream. My heart
is pounding from running, and from his breaking it.
“I . . .” He seems to be at a loss for words for once. “Did Zed say something to
you?”
“No . . . why would he?” I take another step forward so I am face-to-face with
him, my anger rolling off me in waves.
“I’m sorry, okay?” he says quietly. He looks into my eyes and reaches his
hand out to take mine, but I swat it away. He ignores my question about Zed but
I am too mad to care.
“You’re sorry? You’re sorry?” I repeat, my voice coming out in a laugh.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Go to hell, Hardin.” I begin to walk away, but he grabs my arm again. My

---

anger boils over and my hand flies up and smacks him, hard. I am as surprised
by my own violence as he is, and I almost want to apologize for hitting him, but
the pain he has caused me is so much more than a cuff on the cheek.
His hand moves to his face, slowly rubbing over the red skin of his cheek. He
looks at me, anger and confusion stirring behind his eyes.
“What the hell is your problem? You were the one kissing Zed!” he yells. A
car passes and the driver stares but I ignore him. I don’t care about causing a
scene right now.
“You’re not seriously trying to blame me! You lied to me and played me like a
fool, Hardin! Just when I thought I could trust you, you humiliate me! If you
wanted to be with Molly, why not just tell me to leave you alone? No, instead,
you feed me that bullshit about wanting more and beg me to stay the night with
you just so you can use me! What was the point—what did you get out of it—oh,
besides a blow job?” I scream. The word tastes odd coming out of my mouth.
“What? You think that’s what I am doing? You think I’m using you?” he
shouts.
“No, that’s not what I think, Hardin—that’s what I know. But guess what? I’m
done, I am so beyond done. I will change dorms if I have to so I don’t have to
see you again!” I say, and mean it. I don’t need any of these people making my
life worse.
“You’re overreacting,” he says flatly, and it takes everything in me not to slap
him again.
“I’m overreacting? You didn’t tell your friends about us—you didn’t tell me
about this party, and then you left me standing in the parking lot like a dumbass
while you left with Molly, of all people! Then I show up here to find Molly on
your lap, and then you kiss her. Right in front of me, Hardin. I’d say my reaction
is quite justified,” I say, my voice drawing to a whisper at the end, exhausted. I
wipe fresh tears from my face and blink up at the night sky.
“You kissed Zed right in front of me! And I didn’t tell you about the party
because I don’t have to! You wouldn’t have wanted to come anyway—you
would have been too busy studying or watching the damn paint dry,” he barks.
I look at his blurry form through my watery eyes and ask him simply, “So why
even waste your time with me? Why even follow me out here, Hardin?” When
he doesn’t say anything, I have my answer. “That’s what I thought. You thought
you could come out here and say sorry and I would accept and stay a secret, your
boring little hidden girlfriend. You’re wrong; you took my kindness for
weakness and you were sadly mistaken.”
“Girlfriend? You thought you were my girlfriend?” he howls.
The pain in my chest is magnified by a thousand and I can barely stand.

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“No . . . I,” I start to say. I don’t know what to say.
“You did, didn’t you?” he says, laughing.
“You know . . . I did,” I admit. I am already humiliated, so I have nothing to
lose. “You fed me that bullshit about wanting more, and I believed you. I
believed all the shit you said to me, all the things you claimed to never tell
anyone, but I’m sure that was all bullshit, too. I’m sure none of that even
happened.” I shrug, giving up completely. “But you know what? I’m not even
mad at you; I’m mad at myself for believing it. I knew how you were before I
started to fall for you. I knew you would hurt me. What were your words, You’ll