After We Fell

by Anna Todd

  I immediately call Tessa, but she doesn’t pick up. Her phone rings . . . and rings . . . and rings. She did tell me that she was going to sleep, but I know damn well that her phone is always on vibrate and that woman can’t sleep through shit.

  “Come on, Tess, pick up the phone,” I groan and toss my cell onto the passenger seat. I need to get as far away from Target as possible before the cops check the parking-lot cameras and get my plate number or some shit.

  The freeway is a fucking nightmare, and I keep trying to call Tessa. If she doesn’t get back to me within the hour, I’m calling Christian.

  I should have stayed in Seattle another night. Hell, I should have moved there in the fucking first place. All of my reasons for not wanting to go seem so fucking pointless now. All of the fears I had, and still have, are only being kept alive by the distance between where she lives and where I live.

  “Deep down you know it won’t work.”

  “You’re covered in ink, and it’s only a matter of time before she’s sick of being embarrassed to be seen with you.”

  “Bad-boy fetish.”

  “Marry a banker or some shit.”

  Steph’s voice pierces my ears over and over again. I’m going insane—I’m literally losing my fucking mind on this wide-open road. All the efforts that I made all week mean nothing now. The two days that I spent with Tessa have been ruined by that viper.

  Is all of this worth it? Is all of this constant trying worth it? Will I always have to stop myself from saying or doing the wrong shit? And if I do continue this potential transformation, will she really love me after, or just feel like she finished some kind of project for a psych class?

  After all this, will there be enough of me left for her to love? Will I even be the same man that she fell in love with, or is this her way of transforming me into someone she wishes I could be—someone she will tire of?

  Is she trying to make me more like him . . . more like Noah?

  “You can’t compete with that . . .” Steph is right. I can’t compete with Noah and the simple relationship Tessa shared with him. She never had to worry about anything when she was with him. They were good together. Good and simple.

  He isn’t broken the way that I am.

  I remember the days when I used to sit in my room and wait hours for Steph to tell me when Tessa returned after she’d spent some time with him. I interfered as much as I could and, surprisingly enough, it worked out for me. She chose me over him, over the boy she grew up loving.

  The idea of Tessa telling Noah she loves him makes me sick to my stomach.

  “Bad-boy fetish . . .” I’m more than a fetish to Tessa. I have to be. I’ve fucked more than my share of girls who were only looking to frighten their daddies, but Tessa isn’t one of them. She’s put up with enough shit from me to prove that.

  My thoughts are jumbled and frantic, and I can’t keep up with them.

  Why am I letting Steph get inside my head? I shouldn’t have listened to a word that bitch said. Now that I have, though, I can’t get her words out of me. I wipe my bloody and busted knuckles across the legs of my blue jeans and park the car.

  When I look up, I find myself parked in the lot at Blind Bob’s. I’ve driven all the way here without so much as a thought about it. I shouldn’t go inside . . . but I can’t stop myself.

  And behind the bar, I see an old . . . friend. Carly. Carly, wearing minimal clothing and deep red lipstick.

  “Well . . . well . . . well . . .” She grins at me.

  “Save it.” I groan and slide onto a bar stool directly in front of her.

  “Not a chance.” She shakes her head, her blond ponytail whipping back and forth. “The last time I served you, it spiraled into one big drama-fest, and I have neither the time nor the patience for a repeat performance tonight.”

  The last time I was here, I got so shit-faced that Carly forced me to spend the night on her couch, which only led to a huge misunderstanding with Tessa, who got into a car accident that day because of me. Because of the shit I bring into her otherwise clean life.

  “Your job is to get me a drink when I order one.” I point at the bottle of dark whiskey on the shelf behind her.

  “There’s a sign right there that states otherwise.” She leans her elbows onto the bar top, and I sit back on my bar stool, creating as much space between us as possible.

  The small WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO ANYONE is taped to the wall, and I can’t help but laugh.

  “Easy on the ice, I don’t want it watered down.” I ignore another of her eye rolls as she pushes herself up and grabs an empty glass.

  A thick stream of dark liquor pours into my glass, and Steph’s voice replays again and again in my brain. This is the only way to rid myself of her accusations and lies.

  Carly’s voice breaks me from my daze. “She’s calling.”

  Glancing down, I see the picture that I snapped while Tessa was asleep this morning; it’s flashing on my phone’s screen.

  “Fuck.” I instinctively push the glass away, spilling its freshly poured contents onto the bar top. I ignore Carly’s high-pitched cursing and leave the bar just as quickly as I arrived.

  Outside, I swipe my thumb across the screen. “Tess.”

  “Hardin!” she says, panicked. “Are you okay?”

  “I called you so many times.” I let out a breath of relief at the sound of her voice through the small speaker.

  “I know, I’m sorry. I was asleep. Are you okay? Where are you?”

  “Blind Bob’s,” I admit. There’s no use in lying—she always finds out the truth one way or another.

  “Oh . . .” she barely whispers.

  “I ordered a drink.” I may as well tell her everything.

  “Only one?”

  “Yes, and I didn’t get the chance to even taste it before you called.” I can’t decide how I feel about that. Her voice is my lifeline, but I can feel a thread of something calling me back to the bar as well.

  “That’s good, then,” she says. “Are you leaving there?”

  “Yes, right now.” I pull the handle on my car door and climb into the driver’s seat.

  After a few beats, Tessa asks, “Why’d you go there? It’s okay that you did . . . I’m just wondering why.”

  “I saw Steph.”

  She gasps. “What happened? Did you . . . did anything happen?”

  “I didn’t hurt her, if that’s what you mean.” I turn on my car but keep it in park. I want to talk to Tessa without the distraction of driving. “She said some shit to me that really . . . it really set me off. I lost my temper in Target.”

  “Are you okay? Wait, I thought you hated Target.”

  “Out of all the things . . .” I begin.

  “Sorry. I’m half asleep.” I can hear the smile in her voice, but it’s quickly replaced by worry. “Are you okay? What did she say?”

  “She said that you fucked Zed,” I tell her. I don’t want to repeat the other shit she said about Tessa and me not being good for each other.

  “What? You know that’s not true. Hardin, I swear nothing happened between us that you don’t already—”

  I tap a finger on the windshield, watching my fingerprints accumulate. “She said his roommate heard you.”

  “You don’t believe her, right? You couldn’t possibly believe her, Hardin; you know me—you know I would have told you if anyone else had touched me—” Her voice cracks, and my chest aches.

  “Shhh . . .” I shouldn’t have let her go on about it for so long. I should have told her that I knew it wasn’t true, but being the selfish bastard that I am, I needed to hear her say it.

  “What else did she say?” She’s crying.

  “Just bullshit. About you and Zed. And she played on every fear and insecurity that I have about us.”

  “Is that why you went to the bar?” There’s no judgment in Tessa’s voice, only an understanding that I wasn’t expecting.

  “I guess so.” I sigh.
“She knew things. About your body . . . things that only I should know.” A shiver rakes down my spine.

  “She was my roommate. She saw me change any number of times, not to mention she’s the one who undressed me that night,” she says with a sniffle.

  Anger ripples through me again. The thought of Tessa, unable to move while Steph forcefully undressed her . . .

  “Don’t cry, please. I can’t bear it, not when you’re hours away,” I beg her.

  Now that Tessa’s soft voice is on the line, Steph’s words seem to hold no truth, and the madness—the pure fucking madness—that I felt only minutes ago has dissolved.

  “Let’s talk about something else while I drive home.” I shift my car into reverse and put Tessa on speakerphone.

  “Okay, yeah . . .” she says, then hums a little while she thinks. “Um, Kimberly and Christian invited me to join them at their club this weekend.”

  “You aren’t going.”

  “If you would let me finish,” she scolds me. “But since you will hopefully be here, and I knew you wouldn’t come along, we agreed on me going Wednesday night instead.”

  “What kind of club is open on a Wednesday?” I glance into my rearview mirror, answering my own question. “I’m going,” I say.

  “Why? You don’t like clubs, remember?”

  I roll my eyes. “I’ll go with you this weekend. I don’t want you to go Wednesday.”

  “I’m going on Wednesday. We can go again this weekend if you’d like, but I already told Kimberly that I’m coming, and there’s no reason that I shouldn’t.”

  “I would rather you not go,” I say through my teeth. I’m already on edge, and she’s testing me. “Or I can come Wednesday, too,” I offer, trying my best to be reasonable.

  “You don’t have to drive all the way here on Wednesday when you’ll already be coming for the weekend.

  “You don’t want to be seen with me?” The words are out before I can stop them.

  “What?” I hear the click of her lamp turning on in the background. “Why would you say that? You know it’s not true. Don’t let Steph in your head. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

  I pull into the parking lot of the apartment and park the car before I respond. Tessa waits in silence for an explanation. Finally I sigh. “No. I don’t know.”

  “We have to learn to fight together, not against one another. It shouldn’t be Steph versus you versus me. We have to be in this together,” she continues.

  “That’s not what I’m doing . . .”

  She’s right. She’s always fucking right. “I’ll come on Wednesday and stay until Sunday.”

  “I have classes and work.”

  “It sounds like you don’t want me to come.” My paranoia seeps through my already broken confidence.

  “Of course I do. You know I do.”

  I savor the words; fuck, I miss her so much.

  “Are you home yet?” Tessa asks just as I turn off the ignition.

  “Yes, I just got here.”

  “I miss you.”

  The sadness in her voice stops me in my tracks. “I miss you too, baby. I’m sorry—I’m going crazy without you, Tess.”

  “I am, too.” She sighs, and it makes me want to apologize again.

  “I’m a dumb-ass for not coming to Seattle with you in the first place.”

  Coughing sounds through the speaker. “What?”

  “You heard me. I’m not repeating it.”

  “Fine.” She finally stops coughing as I step onto the elevator. “I know I couldn’t have heard you correctly anyway.”

  “Anyway, what do you want me to do about Steph and Dan?” I change the subject.

  “What can you do?” she quietly asks.

  “You don’t want me to answer that.”

  “Nothing, then, just leave them be.”

  “She’s probably going to tell everyone about tonight and continue to spread the rumor about you and Zed.”

  “I don’t live there anymore. It’s okay,” Tessa says, trying to convince me. But I know how much a rumor like this will hurt her feelings, whether she admits it or not.

  “I don’t want to leave it alone,” I confess.

  “I don’t want you getting in any trouble over them.”

  “Fine,” I say, and then we exchange our good nights. She’s not going to agree to my ideas on how to stop Steph, so I’ll just drop it. I unlock the door to my apartment and walk in to find Richard sprawled out asleep on the couch. Jerry Springer’s voice fills the entire apartment. I turn the television off and go straight to my bedroom.

  chapter

  one hundred and eight

  HARDIN

  The entire morning I’m dead on my feet. I don’t remember walking into my first class, and I begin to wonder why I even bother.

  When I walk past the administration building, Nate and Logan are standing at the bottom of the steps. I pull my hood up and pass them by without a word. I have to get the hell away from this place.

  In a split-second decision, I turn back around and take the steep flight of stairs up to the front of the building. My father’s secretary greets me with the fakest smile I’ve seen in a while.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Ken Scott.”

  “Do you have an appointment?” the woman sweetly asks, knowing damn well that I don’t. Knowing damn well who I am.

  “Obviously not. Is my father in there or not?” I gesture to the thick wooden door in front of me. The fogged glass in the center of it makes it hard to tell if he’s inside.

  “He’s in there, but he’s on a conference call at the moment. If you have a seat, I’ll—”

  I walk past her desk and go straight to his door. When I turn the knob and push it open, my father’s head turns my way, and he calmly raises a finger to ask me to give him a moment.

  Being the polite gentleman that I am, I roll my eyes and take a seat in front of his desk.

  After another minute or so, my father returns the phone to its base and rises to his feet to greet me. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I wasn’t expecting to be here,” I admit.

  “Is something wrong?” His eyes move to his closed door behind me and back to my face.

  “I have a question.” I rest my hands on his almost maroon cherrywood desk and look up at him. Dark patches of stubble are visible on his face, making it obvious that he hasn’t shaved in a few days, and his white button-down shirt is slightly wrinkled at the cuffs. I don’t think I’ve seen him wearing a wrinkled shirt since I moved to America. This is a man who comes to breakfast in a sweater vest and pressed khakis.

  “I’m listening,” my father says.

  The tension between us is abundant, but even so, I have to struggle to remember the searing hate that I once felt toward this man. I don’t know how to feel about him now. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive him completely, but holding on to all that anger toward him simply takes too much fucking energy. We’ll never have the relationship that he has with my stepbrother, but it’s sort of nice to know that when I need something from him, he usually tries his best to help. The majority of the time, his help doesn’t get me anywhere, but the effort is appreciated, somewhat.

  “How hard do you think it will be for me to transfer to the Seattle campus?”

  His brow rises dramatically. “Really?”

  “Yes. I don’t want your opinion, I want an answer.” I make it clear that my sudden change of mind isn’t open for discussion.

  He eyes me thoughtfully before answering. “Well, it would set your graduation back. You’re better off staying at my campus for the remainder of this semester. By the time you apply to transfer, register, and move to Seattle, it wouldn’t be worth the hassle and time . . . logistically speaking.”

  I sit back against the leather chair and stare at him. “Couldn’t you help speed the process along?”

  “Yes, but it would still put off your graduation date.” />
  “So basically I have to stay here.”

  “You don’t have to”—he rubs the dark stubble on his chin—“but it makes more sense for now. You’re so close.”

  “I’m not attending that ceremony,” I remind him.

  “I had hoped you changed your mind.” My father sighs, and I look away.

  “Well, I haven’t, so . . .”

  “It’s a very important day for you. The last three years of your life—”

  “I don’t give a shit. I don’t want to go. I’m fine with having my diploma mailed to me. I’m not going, end of discussion.” My eyes travel up the wall behind him to focus on the frames hanging heavily on the dark brown walls of his office. The white-framed certificates and diplomas mark his achievements, and I can tell by the way he proudly stares up at them that they mean more to him than they ever would to me.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” He continues to stare at the frames. “I won’t ask again.” My father frowns.

  “Why is it so important to you for me to go?” I dare to ask.

  The hostility between us has thickened, and the air has grown heavier, but my father’s features soften tremendously as the moments of silence between us go by.

  “Because”—he draws in a long breath—“there was a time, a long time, when I wasn’t sure . . .”—another pause—“how you would turn out.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Are you sure you have time to talk right now?” His eyes move to my busted knuckles and bloodstained jeans. I know he really means: Are you sure you’re mentally stable enough to talk right now?

  I knew I should have changed my jeans. I didn’t feel like doing much of anything this morning. I literally rolled out of bed and drove to campus.

  “I want to know,” I sternly reply.

  He nods. “There was a time when I didn’t think you’d even graduate high school, you know, given the trouble you always got into.”