“Oh, let me guess how quick you were to unload to Zed about how fucked up I am,” I growl back at her.

“No! I didn’t tell him anything, actually. I’m sure he already knows it.”

“Are you going to let me explain my side of this?” I ask her.

“Sure,” she remarks, attempting to pull her suitcase from the top shelf in the closet. I move to help her.

“Move,” she snaps, obviously out of patience with my bullshit.

I step back and let her get the case down. “I shouldn’t have left last night,” I tell her.

“Really?” she sarcastically says.

“Yes, really. I shouldn’t have left and I shouldn’t have drunk so much—but I didn’t cheat on you. I wouldn’t do that. I only slept at her house because I was too drunk to drive—that’s it,” I explain.

She crosses her arms and gets that classic mad-girlfriend pose. “Then why lie?”

“I don’t know . . . because I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Well, cheaters usually don’t admit when they cheat.”

“I didn’t cheat on you,” I tell her. She sighs, obviously not convinced.

“It’s really hard to believe you when you blatantly lie all the time. This time isn’t any different.”

“I know. I’m sorry for lying before, about everything, but I wouldn’t cheat on you.” I put my arms in the air.

She neatly places a folded shirt in her suitcase. “Like I said, cheaters don’t admit they cheated. If you didn’t have anything to hide, you wouldn’t have lied.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, I didn’t do anything with her,” I say, defending myself as she adds another article of clothing.

“So what if I got wasted and stayed the night at Zed’s house? What would you do?” she asks me, and the thought nearly sends me over the edge.

“I’d fucking kill him.”

“So it’s not a big deal when you do it, only if it were me?” She calls me out on my double standard. “None of this even matters—you made it clear that I’m only temporary in your life,” Tessa says. She walks out of the room and into the bathroom across the hall to get her toiletries. She really is going with Landon to my father’s house. This is bullshit. She isn’t temporary to me, how could she even think that? Probably because of all the shit I said to her last night and my lack of words today.

“You know I’m not going to let this go,” I tell her when she zips her suitcase.

“Well, I’m leaving.”

“Why? You know you’ll be back.” My anger speaks for me.

“That’s exactly why I’m leaving,” she says, her voice shaky as she grabs her suitcase and leaves the room without looking back.

When I hear the front door slam shut, I lean my back against the wall and slide to the floor.

Chapter seventy-nine

TESSA

Nine days. Nine days have gone by without a single word from Hardin. I didn’t think it was possible for me to go a single day without speaking to him, let alone nine. It feels like one hundred, honestly, though each hour does hurt microscopically less than the prior one. It hasn’t been easy, not even close to that. Ken made a call to Mr. Vance asking that I be allowed to take the rest of the week off, which only meant missing one day anyway.

I know I’m the one who left, the one who walked away, but it kills me that he hasn’t even tried to get in touch with me. I have always given more in the relationship, and this was his chance to show me how he truly feels. I guess in a way he’s showing me—it’s just that what he feels is the opposite of what I had desperately wanted. Needed.

I know that Hardin loves me, I do. However, I also know that if he loves me as much as I thought he did, he would have made it a point to show me by now. He said he wasn’t going to let this go, but he did. He let it go, and he let me go. The part that scares me the most is that the first week I was walking around completely lost. I was lost without Hardin. Lost without his witty comments. Lost without his crude remarks. Lost without his assurance and his confidence. Lost without the way he’d sometimes draw circles on my hand while holding it between his, the way he’d kiss me for no reason and smile at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. I don’t want to be lost without him; I want to be strong. I want my days and nights to be just the same whether I’m alone or not. I’m beginning to suspect I may always be alone, as dramatic as the thought seems; I wasn’t happy with Noah, yet Hardin and I didn’t work. Maybe I’m like my mother in that way. Maybe I’m better off alone.

I didn’t want it to be over this way, so cut-and-dried. I wanted to talk about everything, I wanted him to answer my calls so we could come to some sort of agreement. I just needed space, I needed a break from him to show him that I’m not his doormat. It backfired on me because he obviously doesn’t care as much as I thought he did. Maybe this was his plan all along: get me to break up with him. I’ve known a few girls who go that route when leaving their boyfriends.

During the first day I did expect a call, text, or hell, I really expected Hardin to come bursting through the door screaming at the top of his lungs and causing a scene while his family and I sat in the dining room in silence, no one quite sure what to say to me. When that didn’t happen, I lost it. Not crying-in-the-corner, feeling-sorry-for-myself lost it. I mean I lost myself. Every second I lived in anticipation of Hardin coming back to grovel for my forgiveness. I almost gave in that day. I almost went back to the apartment. I was ready to tell him to hell with marriage, I don’t care if he lies to me every day and doesn’t respect me, as long as he never leaves me. Thankfully, I snapped out of that and salvaged some respect for myself.