After We Fell (67 page)

“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.

T
he 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.”

Flashes of bar fights, burglarized convenience stores, crying half-naked girls, complaining neighbors, and one very disappointed mother play before my eyes. “I know,” I agree. “Technically, I'm still into trouble.”

My father gives me a look that says he's not at all pleased to hear me being a little flippant over what was a substantial headache for him. “Not nearly as much,” he says. “Not since . . . her,” he adds softly.

“She causes most of my trouble.” I rub the back of my neck with my hand, knowing I'm full of shit.

“I wouldn't say that.” His brown eyes narrow, and his fingers play with the top button of his vest. Both of us sit in silence for a beat, unsure what to say. “I have so much guilt, Hardin. If you hadn't made it through high school and gone to college, I don't know what I would've done.”

“Nothing—you would have been living your perfect life here,” I snap.

He flinches as if I've slapped him. “That's not true. I only want the best for you. I didn't always show it, and I know that, but your future is very important to me.”

“Is that why you had me accepted into WCU in the first place?” We've never discussed the fact that I know he used his position to get me into this damn school. I know he did. I didn't do shit in high school, and my transcripts prove it.

“That, and the fact that your mother was at her breaking
point with you. I wanted you to come here so I could get to know you. You aren't the same boy you were when I left.”

“If you wanted to know me, you should have stuck around longer. And drunk less.” Fragments of memories that I've tried so hard to forget push their way into my mind. “You left, and I never had the chance to just be a boy.”

I used to occasionally wonder how it felt to be a happy child with a strong and loving family. While my mum worked from sunup to sundown, I would sit in the living room alone, just staring at the dingy and slanted walls for hours. I would make myself some shitty meal that was barely edible and imagine that I was sitting at a table full of people who loved me. They would laugh and ask how my day went. When I'd get into a fight at school, I'd sometimes wish I had a father around to either pat me on the back or bust my ass for starting trouble.

Things got much easier for me as I grew up. Once I was a teenager and I realized I could hurt people, everything was easier. I could get back at my mum for leaving me alone while she worked by calling her by her first name and denying her the simple joy of hearing her only child say “I love you.”

I could get back at my father by not speaking to him. I had one goal: to make everyone around me as miserable as I felt; that way, I would finally fit in. I used sex and lies to hurt girls, and made a game of it. That backfired when my mum's friend spent too much time around me; her marriage was ruined, along with her dignity, and my mum was heartbroken that her fourteen-year-old son had done such a thing.

Ken looks like he catches on, as if he knows exactly what I'm thinking. “I know that, and I'm sorry for all the things you were subjected to because of me.”

“I don't want to talk about this anymore.” I push the chair back and stand up.

My father stays seated, and I can't help the thrill of power
that I get from standing over him this way. I feel so . . . above him in every way possible. He's haunted by his guilt and regrets, and I'm finally coming to terms with mine.