After 3

Chapter 274.

Songs for this chapter are:

 Hundred- The Fray

Say Something- A great big world

Almost Lover - A fine frenzy 

 (A book isn't worth reading if it doesn't make you feel so remember that when you're threatening to stop reading because it's not going the way you want! xo)

Hardin's POV.

Tessa finally fell silent only minutes ago, her body leaned toward me and she allowed herself to lay against me for physical support. Her swollen eyes closed and now she's asleep despite the loud rain pounding down on the flimsy greenhouse.

As I sit here listening to the sounds of the unforgiving storm outside, I can't help but draw comparisons to the shit storm I've made out of my life. I'm an asshole, the biggest one, the worst possible fucking kind of dickhead there is.

I shift slightly, hoping that she won't wake when I lay her head down onto my lap. I really need to get her out of here, out of the rain and away from the mud but I know what she will do when she opens her eyes. She's going to cast me away, tell me that I'm not wanted here, and fuck, I'm not ready to hear those words again.

I deserve them, all of them and then some, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm a god damned coward and I want to enjoy the silence while it lasts. Only here in the sweet silence I can pretend to be someone else. I can, just for a minute, pretend that I'm Noah. Well, a less annoying version of him but if I were him things would have been different. Things would be different now. I would have been able to use words and affections to win Tessa over from the beginning instead of a stupid game. I would have been able to make her laugh more often than cry. She would have trusted me wholly and completely and I wouldn't have taken that trust, crumbled it into ash then pissed on it. I would have savored her trust and maybe even been worthy of it.

But I'm not Noah, I'm Hardin and being Hardin doesn't mean shit.

If I didn't have so many fucking issues inside my head I could have made her happy. I could have shown her the light in life, just as she has done for me. Instead, here she sits, broken and completely fucked up. Her skin streaked with dark mud, the filth on her hands has now begun to dry and her face, even in sleep, is twisted into a painful frown. Her hair is wet in some places, dry and matted in others and I begin to wonder if she has changed her clothes more than once since she left London. I would have never sent her back here if I would have known she would find her dad's body in my apartment.

The confusion that I feel when it comes to Tessa's father and his death is overwhelming. The instinct to brush it off comes first but the loss of him is heavy on my chest. I didn't know him long and I barely tolerated the man, but he was decent enough company and I would never admit it but I sort of liked him. He was obnoxious and I absolutely loathed the way he emptied box after box of my cereal, but there was something I adored about the way he loved Tessa and his optimistic look on life, even though his life fucking sucked.

As soon as he finally had something, someone worth living for, he is gone. My eyes burn to release some sort of emotion, grief maybe. Grief for losing a man I barely knew or liked, grief for losing the idea of a father I thought I had with Ken, grief for losing Tessa, and just a tiny bit of hope that she will come around and not be lost forever.

My selfish tears mix with the drops of moisture falling from my hair and I bow my head, fighting the urge to bury my face into her neck for comfort. I don't deserve her comfort, I don't deserve anyone's comfort.

I deserve to sit here alone and weep like a pitiful rogue with silence and desolation, my oldest and truest friends.

The pathetic sobs that leave my mouth are lost in the sound of the rain and I'm thankful that she's asleep and unable to witness this breakdown that I can't seem to control. My own actions are the driving force behind every fucked up thing that's happening right now, even down to Richard's death. If I wouldn't have agreed to take Tessa to England, none of this shit would have happened.