After We Collided (The After Series) (31 page)

H
ardin!” Trish snaps.

“What? I’m just offering the man a drink. Being social,” he says.

I watch Ken, who I can tell is debating whether or not to take Hardin’s bait, whether to let this become a full-blown argument.

“Stop it,” I whisper to Hardin.

“Don’t be rude,” Trish tells him.

Ken finally reacts. “It’s fine,” he says and takes a drink of his water.

I look around the room. Karen’s face has paled. Landon is staring at the large television on the wall. Trish downs her wine. Ken looks bemused, and Hardin is glaring at him.

Then he shows a simmering smile. “I know it’s
fine.
”

“You are just angry, so go ahead and say what you please,” Ken says. He shouldn’t have said that. He shouldn’t have treated Hardin’s emotion in this area so trivially, like it was a young boy’s opinion that merely had to be endured for a moment.

“Angry? I’m not angry. Annoyed and amused, yes, but angry, no,” Hardin says calmly.

“Amused by what?” Ken asks.
Oh, Ken, just stop talking.

“Amused by the fact that you’re acting as if nothing ever happened, as if you weren’t a massive fuckup.” He points at Ken and Trish. “You two are being ridiculous.”

“You’re crossing the line here,” Ken says.
Jesus, Ken.

“Am I? Since when do you get to decide where the line is?” Hardin challenges him.

“Since this is my home, Hardin. That’s why I get to decide.”

Hardin is on his feet immediately. I grab his arm to stop him, but he shakes me off easily. I quickly set my glass of wine on the side table and get up. “Hardin, stop!” I beg and grab hold of his arm again.

Everything was going well. Awkward, but well. And then Hardin had to go and make a rude remark. I know he’s angry at his father for his mistakes, but Christmas dinner is not the time to bring this up. Hardin and Ken had begun to repair their relationship, and if Hardin doesn’t stop now, it will get much worse.

Ken stands up with an air of authority and asks, much like a professor might, “I thought we were moving past this. You came to the wedding?” They’re only feet away from each other, and I know this will not end well.

“Moving past what? You haven’t even owned up to anything! You’re just pretending that it
didn’t happen
!”

Hardin is yelling now. My head is swimming, and I wish I had never extended Landon’s invite to Hardin and Trish. Once again I’ve caused a family argument.

“Today is not the day for us to be discussing this, Hardin. We’re having a nice time, and you had to go and start a fight with me,” Ken says.

Hardin asks, raising his hands in the air, “When
is
the day, then? God, can you believe this guy!”

“Not Christmas. I haven’t seen your mother in years, and this is the time you choose to bring all of this up?”

“You haven’t seen her in years because you fucking left! You left us with nothing—no fucking money, no car, nothing!” Hardin shouts and steps into his father’s face.

Ken’s face gets red with anger. And then he’s yelling. “No
money? I sent money every month! A lot of money! And your mum wouldn’t accept the car that I offered her!”

“Liar!” Hardin blows out a hard breath. “You didn’t send
shit
. That’s why we lived in that crap house and she worked fifty hours a week!”

“Hardin . . . he isn’t lying,” Trish interjects.

Hardin’s head snaps around to his mother. “What?”

This is a disaster. A much bigger disaster than I saw coming.

“He sent money, Hardin,” she explains. She puts her glass down and comes over to him.

“Where is the money, then?” Hardin asks his mother, disbelief clear in his tone.

“Paying your tuition.”

Hardin points an angry finger at Ken. “You said
he
was paying the tuition!” he yells, and my heart aches for him.

“He is—with the money that I’ve saved over the years. Money that he sent us.”

“What the fuck?” Hardin rubs his forehead with his hand. I move to stand behind him and thread my fingers through his free hand.

Trish puts a hand on her son’s shoulder. “I didn’t use all of it for your tuition. I paid the bills as well.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me this? He should be paying it—and not with money that was meant to keep us fed, keep us in a
house
day to day.” He turns to his father. “You still left us, whether you sent money or not! You just left without so much as a fucking call on my goddamned birthday.”

Excess saliva pools in the corners of Ken’s mouth, and he begins blinking rapidly. “What was I supposed to do, Hardin? Stay around? I was a drunk, a worthless drunk—and the two of you deserved better than what I could give you. After that night . . . I knew I had to go.”

Hardin’s body goes rigid, and his breathing comes in ragged breaths. “
Don’t you speak of that night!
That happened because of
you
!”

When Hardin pulls his hand out of mine, Trish looks angry, Landon looks terrified, Karen . . . well, she continues crying, and I realize that I’m the one that’s going to have to stop this.

“I know it did! You don’t know how much I wish I could take that back, son—that night has haunted me for the last ten years!” Ken says hoarsely, clearly trying not to cry.

“It haunts
you
? I fucking
watched it happen
, you prick! I was there to clean up the fucking blood off the floor while you were still out getting shit-faced!” Hardin balls his fists.

Karen whimpers and covers her mouth before leaving the room. I don’t blame her. I hadn’t realized that I was crying until the warm tears hit my chest. I had a feeling something would happen today, but nothing like this.

Ken puts his hands in the air. “I know, Hardin! I know! There’s nothing I can do to erase that! I’m sober now! I haven’t had a drink in years! You can’t hold that against me forever!”

Trish screams as Hardin lunges at his father. Landon rushes over to try to help, but it’s too late. Hardin pushes Ken back against the china cabinet, the replacement for the one Hardin had broken months ago. Ken grabs Hardin’s shirt and is trying to hold him back when Hardin’s fist connects with his jaw.

I stand frozen, as always, as Hardin attacks his own father.

Ken manages to turn himself and Hardin around before Hardin can hit him again. Instead, Hardin punches through the glass cabinet door. Seeing the blood, I break out of my stupor and grab Hardin’s shirt. His arm jerks back, knocking me into a table. A glass of red wine topples over, covering my white cardigan.

“Look what you did!” Landon yells at Hardin and rushes over to my side.

Trish is standing by the door, giving her son a murderous
glare, and Ken looks at his broken cabinet, then me, as Hardin stops his attack against his father and turns to face me.

“Tessa, Tessa—are you okay?” he asks.

I nod mutely from the floor, watching a trail of blood running off his knuckles and down his arm. I didn’t get hurt; my sweater being ruined is too trivial to mention in the middle of this chaos.

“Move,” Hardin snaps at Landon and takes his place next to me. “Are you okay? I thought you were Landon,” he says and helps me up with his one bruised but unbloodied hand.

“I’m fine,” I repeat and move away from his touch once I’m upright.

“We’re leaving,” he growls and goes to wrap his arm around my waist.

I move farther away from him. I look over at Ken as he uses the sleeve of his crisp white button-down to wipe the blood off his mouth.

“You should stay here, Tessa,” Landon urges.

“Don’t fucking start with me, Landon,” Hardin warns, but Landon doesn’t seem to be fazed. He should be.

“Hardin, stop it now,” I snap. When he lets out a breath but doesn’t argue, I turn to Landon. “I’ll be fine.” It’s Hardin he should be worried about.

“Let’s go,” Hardin commands, but as he walks toward the door, he looks back to make sure that I’m behind him.

“I’m sorry . . . about all of this,” I tell Ken as I follow Hardin.

Behind me, I hear him softly say, “It’s not your fault, it’s mine.”

TRISH IS SILENT.
Hardin is silent. And I’m freezing. The leather seats are ice-cold on my bare legs, and my wet cardigan isn’t helping either. I turn the heat all the way up, and Hardin looks over at me, but I focus out the window. I can’t decide if I should be angry
with him. He ruined dinner and literally assaulted his father in front of everyone.

However, I feel for him. He has been through so much, and his father is the root of all his problems—the nightmares, the anger, the lack of respect for women. He never had anyone to teach him how to be a man.

When Hardin puts his hand on my thigh, I don’t move it. My head is pounding, and I cannot believe the way everything escalated so quickly.

“Hardin, we have to talk about what just happened,” Trish says after a few minutes.

“No, we don’t,” he responds.

“Yes, we do. You were way out of line.”

“I was out of line? How can you forget everything he has done?”

“I have not forgotten anything, Hardin. I have chosen to forgive him; I cannot hold on to anger for him. But violence is always out of line. And even short of that, that type of anger will consume you—it will take over your life if you let it. If you hold on to it, it will destroy you. I do not want to live that way. I want to be happy, Hardin, and forgiving your father makes it much easier for me to be happy.”

Her strength never ceases to amaze me, and Hardin’s stubbornness doesn’t either. He refuses to forgive his father for his past mistakes, yet he’s quick to ask for my forgiveness at every turn. Hardin never forgives himself either, though. Irony at its finest.

“Well, I don’t want to forgive him. I thought I could, but not after today.”

“He didn’t do anything to you today,” Trish scolds him. “
You
provoked him about his drinking for no good reason.”

Hardin removes his hand from my skin, leaving a smudge of blood behind. “He doesn’t get a free pass, Mum.”

“This isn’t about free passes. Ask yourself this: What do you get out of being so angry with him? What does that get you besides bloody hands and a lonely life?”

Hardin doesn’t answer. He just keeps staring straight ahead.

“Exactly,” she says, and the rest of the ride is silent.

When we get back to the apartment, I head straight for the bedroom.

“You owe her an apology, Hardin,” I hear Trish say somewhere behind me.

I pull my ruined sweater off and let it fall onto the floor. I slip my shoes off and push my hair from my face, tucking the strands behind my ears. Seconds later Hardin opens the bedroom door; his eyes go to the red-stained fabric on the floor, then up to my face.

He stands in front of me and takes my hands in his, his eyes pleading. “I’m so sorry, Tess. I didn’t mean to push you like that.”

“You really shouldn’t have done that. Not today.”

“I know . . . are you hurt?” he asks, wiping his wounded hands against his black jeans.

“No.” If he had physically hurt me, we would have much bigger problems.

“I’m so sorry. I was in a rage. I thought you were Landon . . .”

“I don’t like when you get that way, so angry.” My eyes pool with tears as I recall Hardin’s hand being cut open.

“I know, baby.” He bends his knees slightly so he’s eye level with me. “I would never hurt you purposely. You know that, don’t you?” His thumb traces over my temple, and I nod slowly. I do know that he would never hurt me, physically at least. I have always known that.

“Why did you comment on his drinking in the first place? Things were going great,” I say.

“Because he was acting like nothing happened. He was being this fucking pretentious prick, and my mum was just going along
with it. Someone had to stand up for her.” His voice is soft, confused, the polar opposite of how it was thirty minutes ago when he was screaming in his father’s face.

My heart aches again; this was his way of defending his mother. The wrong way, but to Hardin it’s his instinct. He pushes his hair from his forehead, blood staining his skin.

“Try to consider how he feels—he has to live with that guilt forever, Hardin, and you don’t make it any easier. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be angry, because that’s a natural reaction, but you of all people should be more forgiving.”

“I—”

“And you have to stop with the violence. You can’t just go around beating people up every time you get pissed off. It’s not right, and I don’t like it at all.”

“I know.” He looks down at the concrete floor.

I sigh and take his hands in mine. “We need to get you cleaned up; your knuckles are still bleeding.” I lead him to the bathroom to clean his wounds for what feels like the thousandth time since I met him.

H
ardin doesn’t even wince as I clean his wounds. I dip the towel back into the sink full of water, attempting to dilute the blood from the white fabric. He looks up at me as I stand over him. He’s seated on the edge of the bathtub, and I stand between his legs. He holds his hands up once more.

“We need to get something to put on your thumb,” I tell him as I twist the towel to wring out the excess water.

“It’ll be fine,” he says.

“No, look how deep it is,” I scold him. “The skin is already mostly scar tissue, and you just keep tearing it back open.”

He doesn’t say anything; he just studies my face. “What?” I ask him.

I drain the pink water and wait for him to respond. “Nothing . . .” he lies.

“Tell me.”

“I just can’t believe you put up with my shit,” he says.

“Me, either.” I smile. I watch as a frown takes over his face. “It’s worth it, though,” I add, meaning it. He smiles, and I bring my hand to his face, running the pad of my thumb over the pit of his dimple.

His smile grows. “Sure it is,” he says and stands up. “I need a shower.” He removes his shirt before leaning down to turn the shower faucet.

“I’ll be in the room, then,” I tell him.