After Ever Happy (The After Series)

by Anna Todd

  He’s still crying; too many tears roll down his face, and I find myself feeling for him. Some of the weight on my chest has lifted, and I can feel years of anger dissolving inside me. I don’t know what this feeling is; it’s strong and it’s freeing. By the time he looks up at me, I don’t even feel like myself. I’m not myself—that’s the only explanation for why my arms are touching his shoulders and wrapping around his back to comfort him.

  As I do so, I feel him shake, and then he really begins sobbing with his whole body.

  chapter forty-seven

  TESSA

  The drive was just about as terrible as I had anticipated. The road never seemed to want to end; each yellow line was one of his smiles, one of his scowls. Every endless line of traffic seemed to be mocking every mistake I’ve ever made, and each car on the road was yet another stranger, another person with his or her own problems. I felt alone, too alone, in my small car as I drove farther and farther from where I wanted to be.

  Am I foolish to even fight this? Could I possibly be strong enough to fight the current this time? Do I even want to?

  What are the chances that this one time, out of what feels like hundreds of times, will be so different? Is he just using the words I’ve always wanted to hear out of desperation because he knows how detached I’ve become?

  My head feels like a two-thousand-page novel full of deep thoughts, mindless chatter, and a bunch of crap questions that I don’t know the answers to.

  When I’d pulled up in front of Kimberly and Christian’s house only minutes ago, the tension in my shoulders was nearly unbearable. I could literally feel the muscles underneath my skin tightening to the point of snapping, and as I stand in the living room now, waiting for Kimberly to come down, that tension only continues to grow.

  Smith descends the stairs and crinkles his nose in disgust. “She said she will be down when she’s done rubbing my dad’s leg.”

  I can’t help but laugh at the dimpled little boy. “Okay. Thank you.” He didn’t say a word when he opened the door for me minutes ago. He just looked me up and down and waved me inside with a small smile. I was impressed by the smile, small or not.

  He sits down on the edge of the couch without a word. He focuses on a gadget in his hand while I focus on him. Hardin’s little brother. It’s such a weird idea that this adorable little boy who seems to dislike me for some reason has been Hardin’s biological brother all along. It makes sense in a way; he was always so curious about Hardin and seemed to enjoy his company when most people don’t.

  He turns, catching me staring at him. “Where’s your Hardin?”

  Your Hardin. It feels like every single time he asks that question, my Hardin is far away. Farther than ever, this time. “He’s—”

  Then Kimberly enters the room, barreling toward me with outstretched arms. Of course she would be wearing heels and makeup. I suppose the outside world is still revolving even though mine has stopped.

  “Tessa!” she screeches, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and squeezing so tight that I let out a cough. “Gah! It’s been too long!” She squeezes one more time before pulling back and dragging me by the arm into the kitchen.

  “How is everything?” I ask and climb up on the same stool I always seem to find myself on.

  She stands in front of the breakfast bar and runs her hands through her shoulder-length, blond hair, pulling it back and tying it into a messy bun on top of her head. “Well, we all survived that damned trip to London.” She grimaces, and I do the same. “Barely, but we did.”

  “How is Mr. Vance’s leg?”

  “Mr. Vance?” She laughs. “No, you’re not reverting to that because of all that weirdness. I’d say you can go ahead and say Christian, or Vance. His leg is healing; luckily the fire mostly caught his clothes, not skin.” A frown takes over her face, and a shiver rakes her shoulders.

  “Is he in trouble? Legal trouble?” I ask, trying not to be pushy.

  “Not really. He fabricated a story about a group of punks who broke in there and vandalized the house before burning it. It’s now an arson case with no leads.” She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. She brushes her hands on her dress and looks back to me. “How are you, though, Tessa? I’m really sorry to hear about your dad. I should have called you more—I’ve just been busy and trying to figure all this out.” Kimberly reaches across the granite and places her hand over mine. “Though that’s not really a good excuse . . .”

  “No, no. Don’t apologize. You’ve had so much going on, and I haven’t been the best company anyway. If you had called, I might not have even been able to answer it—I’ve been going out of my mind, literally.” I try to laugh, but even I catch how false and dry the awkward noise comes out.

  “I can tell.” She eyes me skeptically. “What’s with this?” Her hands wave in front of me, and I look down at my sloppy sweatshirt and dirty jeans.

  “I don’t know; it’s been a long two weeks.” I shrug and tuck my unbrushed hair behind my ears.

  “You’re obviously going through a funk again. Hardin did something new, or is it still from London?” Kimberly raises an arched brow, reminding me of how overgrown mine must be. Plucking and waxing have been the farthest thing from my mind, but Kimberly is one of those women that make you want to be pretty all the time to keep up with her.

  “Not exactly. Well, he just did what he always does in London, but I finally told him we are done.” Seeing the skepticism in her blue eyes, I add, “I mean it. I’m thinking of moving to New York.”

  “New York? What the hell? With Hardin?” Her mouth falls open. “Oh, never mind—you just told me you broke up.” She smacks her hand to her forehead in a dramatic display.

  “With Landon, actually. He’s going to NYU, and he asked me to come along. I’m going to take the summer and hopefully be able to get into NYU in the fall.”

  She laughs. “Wow, I need a minute.”

  “It’s a big change. I know. It’s just that I . . . well, I need to get away from here, and with Landon already going, it just made sense.” It’s insane, completely insane, to just move across the country, and Kimberly’s reaction proves that.

  “You don’t have to explain to me. I think it’s a really good idea—I’m just surprised.” Kim doesn’t even try to control her smirk. “You, moving across the country without a schedule or taking a year to plan things out.”

  “It’s stupid, right? Isn’t it?” I ask, not sure of what I’m hoping to hear.

  “No! Since when are you so unsure about yourself? Girl, I know you’ve been through a lot of shit, but you need to get it together. You’re young, brilliant, and beautiful. Life is not that bad! Hell, try cleaning the burn wounds of your fiancé after he covered for his surprise grown-ass son because he’d just cheated on you with his”—she curls her fingers into air quotes and rolls her eyes—“ ‘long-lost love’ and having to nurse him while you really just want to choke him out.”

  I don’t know if she meant to be funny, but I have to bite my tongue to stop from laughing at the picture she’s created in my head. But when she chuckles a little, I follow suit.

  “Seriously, it’s okay to be sad, but if you let sadness control your life, you’ll never have one.” Her words hit me somewhere between my selfish whining and my nerves over moving to New York without a solid plan.

  She’s right; I’ve been through a lot in the last year, but what good will it do to be this way? To feel the sadness and sting of loss with every thought? As much as I loved the ease of feeling nothing, I didn’t feel like myself. I felt my being slipping with each negative thought, and I was beginning to fear that I would never be myself again. I’m still not now, but maybe one day?

  “I know you’re right, Kim. I just don’t know how to stop. I’m just so mad all the time.” I ball my fists, and she nods. “Or sad. There’s a lot of sad, and pain. I don’t know how to separate it, and now it’s eating away at me, taking over my mind.”

  “Well, it’s not as e
asy as I just tried to make it sound, but, first of all, you need to get excited. You are moving to New York, girl! Act like it. If you go around moping up the streets of New York City, you’ll never make any friends.” She smiles, softening her words.

  “And what if I can’t? Like, what if I just always feel this way?”

  “Then you’ll always feel that way. That’s that, but you can’t think that way right now. I’ve learned in my years”—she grins—“not too many years, mind you, but I’ve learned that shit happens and you move on. It sucks, and trust me, I know this is about Hardin. It’s always about Hardin, but you need to accept the fact that he won’t give you what you want and need, and try your best to pretend you are moving on. If you can fool him and everyone else, you will eventually believe it, too, and it’ll become real.”

  “Do you think I could? You know, ever really get over him?” I twist my fingers in my lap.

  “I’ll go ahead and lie to you because it’s what you need to hear right now.” Kimberly walks over to the cabinet and pulls out two wineglasses. “You need to hear a lot of bullshit and praise at this point. There is always time to face the truth later, but for now . . .” She rummages through the drawer just below the sink and pulls out a corkscrew. “Now, we drink wine and I’ll tell you all kinds of breakup stories that will make yours seem like child’s play.”

  “The horror movie?” I ask, knowing she meant the opposite of that creepy redheaded doll.

  “No, smart-ass.” She smacks my thigh. “I’m talking I know women who were married for years and their husbands banged their sisters. That kind of crazy shit will make you realize you don’t have it that bad.”

  A glass full of white wine is placed in front of me, and just as I am about to object, Kimberly raises it and presses it to my lips.

  A bottle and a half later, I am laughing and leaning on the counter for support. Kimberly has gone through an amazing array of crazy relationships, and I’ve finally stopped checking my phone every ten seconds. Hardin doesn’t have my phone number anyway, I keep reminding myself. Of course, this is Hardin we are talking about; if he wants the number, he will find a way to get it.

  Some of the stories Kimberly has told in the last hour seem too crazy to be true. I’m convinced that the wine has made her embellish each one just to make them worse.

  The woman who came home to find her husband naked in bed with the neighbor . . . and her husband.

  The too-detailed story about the woman who tried to put a hit on her husband but gave the wrong picture to the hired gun so he tried to kill her brother. Her husband ended up with a much better life than her.

  Then there was the man who left his wife of twenty years for a woman half his age only to find out she was his great-niece. Yuck. (Yes, they stayed together.)

  A girl was sleeping with her college professor and bragged about it to her manicurist, who (surprise) was the professor’s wife. The girl failed that term.

  The man who married the sexy French girl who he met at the grocery store only to find out she wasn’t French. She was from Detroit and was a pretty convincing con artist.

  The one about the woman who, for over a year, was cheating on her husband with a man she met online. When she finally met the man, she was surprised when he turned out to be her husband.

  There is no way a woman caught her husband sleeping with her sister, then her mother, then her divorce attorney. There is no possible way that she then chased him around the law office, hurling her heels at his head while he ran, pantless, through the halls.

  I’m laughing, really laughing now, and Kimberly is holding her stomach, claiming that she saw the man a few days later, with the imprint of his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s heel glowing in the middle of his forehead.

  “I’m not even joking! It was a mess! The best part of this entire story is that they are remarried now!” She smacks her hand against the counter, and I shake my head at the volume of her voice now that she’s drunk. I’m happy to see that Smith has gone upstairs and left the loud, wine-drinking women alone so I don’t have to feel bad about confusing him with our laughter at other people’s misery.

  “Men are assholes. Every single one of them.” Kimberly raises her freshly refilled glass to my empty one. “But truth be told, women are assholes, too, so the only way for it to work is if you find an asshole you can deal with. One that makes you a little less of an asshole.”

  Christian chooses this moment to enter the kitchen. “All this talk about assholes is traveling down the hallway.” I’d basically forgotten he was around at all. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s in a wheelchair. I hear myself gasp and Kimberly looks at me, a small smile playing on her lips.

  “He will be fine,” she assures me.

  He smiles at his fiancée and she squirms in the way she always does when he looks at her like that. I’m surprised by this. I knew she was forgiving him; I just didn’t know it was such a done deal or that she could look so happy doing it.

  “Sorry.” She smiles down at him and he reaches for her hips, pulling her onto his lap. He winces when her thigh touches his injured leg, and she quickly adjusts herself on the opposite leg.

  “It looks worse than it is,” he tells me when he notices me staring back and forth between the metal chair and the burned flesh on his leg.

  “It’s true. He’s really milking this whole thing,” Kimberly teases, poking the dimple on his left cheek.

  I look away.

  “You’re here alone?” Vance asks, ignoring the glare Kimberly sends him when he bites at her finger. I can’t stop watching them even though I know I won’t be in their position anytime soon, if ever.

  “Yeah. Hardin is back at his”—I stop to correct myself—“at Ken’s.”

  Christian looks disappointed, and Kimberly has stopped her glaring, but I feel like the hole inside me that has been covered for the last hour is starting to show itself at the mention of Hardin’s name.

  “How is he? I really wish he would answer my calls, the little asshole,” Christian mutters.

  I blame the wine, but I snap at him, “He has a lot going on right now.” The bite in my tone is evident and I instantly feel like a jerk. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound that way. I just know he is going through a lot right now. I don’t mean to be rude.”

  I choose to ignore the smirk covering Kimberly’s face as I defend Hardin.

  Christian shakes his head and laughs. “It’s fine. I deserve it all. I know he is. I just want to talk to him, but I know he will come around when he’s ready. I’ll leave you ladies to it; I just wanted to see what all the laughing and screeching was about. Make sure it wasn’t too much at my expense.”

  With that, he kisses Kimberly, swiftly but tenderly, and he wheels himself out of the room. I hold my glass out, asking for a another refill.

  “Wait, so that means you won’t be working with me anymore?” Kimberly asks. “You can’t leave me with all those bitchy women! You’re the only one I can stand, aside from Trevor’s new girlfriend.”

  “Trevor has a girlfriend?” I sip the cool wine. Kimberly was right; the wine and laughter are helping. I can feel myself peering out of this shell, trying to come back to life; with each joke and absurd story, I’m finding it a little easier.

  “Yes! The redhead! You know, the one who runs our social media?”

  I try to place the woman but I can’t see past the wine dancing in my mind. “I don’t know her. How long have they been dating?”

  “Only a few weeks. Get this, though.” Kimberly’s eyes light up at her favorite thing: office gossip. “Christian heard them together.”

  I take another drink of wine, waiting for her to explain.

  “As in together together. As in, they were banging in his office! And what’s even crazier is that the things he heard . . .” She stops to laugh. “They were kinky. I’m talking, Trevor is a total badass in bed. There was spanking, some kinky name-calling, all of that stuff.”

  I burst int
o laughter like a giddy schoolgirl. A schoolgirl who has consumed too much wine. “No way!”

  I can’t imagine sweet Trevor spanking anyone. The image alone makes me laugh harder, and I shake my head trying not to think too much into it. Trevor is handsome, very handsome, but he’s just so well mannered and sweet.

  “I swear! Christian was convinced he had her like tied to the desk or something, because when he saw him next, he was detaching something from its corners!” Kimberly waves her hands through the air, and a burst of cold wine shoots up and out my nose.

  After this glass, I’m cutting myself off. Where is Hardin, the alcohol authority, when I need him?

  Hardin.

  My heart begins to race, and my laughter is quickly derailed until Kimberly adds another dirty detail to the story.

  “I’ve heard he keeps a crop in his office.”

  “Crop?” I ask, lowering my voice.

  “Riding crop. Google it.” She laughs.

  “I can’t believe it. He’s so sweet and gentle. He couldn’t possibly tie a woman to his desk and have his way with her!” I just can’t picture it. My traitorous and wine-controlled mind starts imagining Hardin and desks and ties and spanking.

  “Who has sex in their office, anyway? My god, those walls are paper thin.”

  I feel my mouth fall open. Real images, memories of Hardin bending me over my desk, flash through my mind, and my already-heated skin flushes and burns.