After (The After Series)

so nervous?
“Hey, Tessa, how was your day today?” he asks softly. He doesn’t sound like
the same distant Noah that I’ve gotten all week. I sigh in relief.
“It was okay, actually, I am just hanging out in my room tonight. What are you
doing?” I purposely leave out my dinner with Steph and everyone, including
Hardin. That will not help my “please forgive me” campaign.
“I just got out of practice. I’m thinking I’ll study tonight because I’m helping
the new neighbors cut a tree down tomorrow.”
He is always helping everyone. He is too good for me.
“I’m just studying tonight, too.”
“I wish we could study together,” he says, and I smile while picking at the tiny
lint balls on my fuzzy socks.
“You do?”
“Yeah, of course, Tessa. I still love you and I miss you. But I have to know
that nothing like this will ever happen again. I’m willing to try to put this past us,
but you have to promise me you will stay away from him,” he says. He doesn’t
have to say his name.
“Of course I will, I swear—I love you!” Part of me knows that I am desperate
to have Noah forgive me only because I don’t want to be completely alone and
fawning over Hardin, but I ignore it.

---

After exchanging more “I love you’s” with Noah, he agrees to accompany me
to the bonfire next weekend and we get off the phone. I look online for the
closest car dealerships to campus, and lucky for me there appears to be a good
number of used-car lots ready to rip off college students. After noting the
addresses of a few, I dig through Steph’s makeup bag and finally find the wipes
to remove all my makeup. It takes forever, and this obnoxious process alone
makes me never want to wear it again, regardless of how good it looked.

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chapter forty-one
I
take out my notes and textbooks and dive into my studies. I am working on
next week’s assignments. I like to stay ahead one week at least so there is no
chance I fall behind. But my thoughts drift to Hardin and his moodiness, so I’m
not really paying attention to the essay I’m supposed to be writing. It has been
only two hours since I got off the phone with Noah, but it seems like four.
I decide to find a movie and lie in bed until I fall asleep, settling on The Vow
despite the fact that I have seen it numerous times. Less than ten minutes into the
movie I hear someone cursing outside in the hall. I turn the volume up on my
laptop and ignore the cursing; it’s Friday, which means drunk people all over the
dorms tonight. A few minutes later, I hear the cursing again—a male voice, then
a female voice joins in. The guy shouts louder, and then I recognize the accent.
It’s Hardin.
I jump off my bed and swing open the door to find him sitting on the floor
with his back against the wall outside my room. An angry girl with bleach-blond
hair is standing over him, scowling with her hands on her hips.
“Hardin?” I say, and he looks up.
A huge grins slides over his face. “Theresa . . .” he says and begins to stand.
“Can you please tell your boyfriend to get away from my door—he spilled
vodka all over the floor!” the girl yells.
I look at Hardin. “He’s not my . . .” I start to say, but Hardin grabs my hand
and pulls me toward my door.
“Sorry for the spill,” he says and rolls his eyes at the blonde. She huffs and

---

storms into her room, slamming her door.
“What are you doing here, Hardin?” I ask him. He tries to walk past me and
into my room but I block the entrance.
“Why can’t I come in, Tessa? I will be nice to your grandpa.” He laughs and I
roll my eyes. I know he is making fun of Noah.
“He isn’t here.”
“Why not? Okay, so let me in then,” he says, slurring his words.
“No, are you drunk?” My eyes scan his face. His eyes are red, and his smirk
gives it all away. He takes his lip between his teeth and puts his hands into his
pockets.
“I thought you didn’t drink, but now you have been drinking a lot.”
“It’s only been twice. Chill out,” he says, and pushes past me and flops down
on my bed. “So why didn’t Noah come?”
“I don’t know,” I lie.
He nods several times, like he’s considering this seriously. “Sure. The Gap
probably had a sale on cardigans, so he canceled on you.” He bursts out
laughing, and the energy in the room is such that I can’t help but join him.
“So where is Molly?” I ask. “At a Skanks ‘R’ Us sale?”
Hardin stops for a second and then laughs harder. “That was a terrible attempt
at a comeback, Theresa,” he jokes, and I kick my foot at where his shins dangle
over the bed.
“Either way, you can’t stay here. Noah and I are back together, officially.”
I notice his smile fade and he rubs his hands against his knees. “Nice
pajamas,” he says, and I look down.
Why is he being so cavalier? We haven’t resolved anything, and the last time I
checked we were both staying away from each other.
“Hardin, you have to go.”
“Let me guess: one of Noah’s conditions for reconciliation was that you have
to stay away from me?” His tone is more serious now.
“Yeah, and the last time I checked you and I weren’t friends or even speaking.
Why did you drop Literature and why did you hit Landon?”
“Why do you always ask so many questions?” he whines. “I don’t want to talk
about any of that! What were you and your cool pajamas doing before I came in
—and why is your light off?” Hardin is much more playful when he has been
drinking but I am beginning to wonder why he’s begun drinking when he didn’t
before.
“I was watching a movie,” I tell him; maybe if I am nice to him he will answer
some of my questions.
“What movie?”

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