“I can tell. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know . . . are you sure that’s okay?” I can’t bear to hurt him again by talking about the guy I left him for.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he says and pours himself a glass of water before sitting across from me at the table.

“Okay . . .” I say and tell him basically everything. I leave out the sex details, since those are private.

Well, they aren’t. But to me they are. I still can’t believe that Hardin told his friends everything that we did . . . that’s the worst part. Even worse than showing the sheets is the fact that after telling me that he loved me, and making love, he could apparently turn around and make a mockery of what had happened between us in front of everyone.

“I knew he was going to hurt you, I just had no idea how bad,” Noah says. I can tell how angry he is; it’s strange to see this emotion on his face, given how calm and collected he normally is. “You’re too good for him Tessa; he’s scum.”

“I can’t believe how stupid I was—I gave up everything for him. But the worst feeling in the world is loving someone who doesn’t love you.”

Noah grabs his glass and twists it in his hands. “Tell me about it,” he says softly.

I want to smack myself for saying what I just said, saying it to him. I open my mouth, but he cuts me off before I can apologize.

“It’s okay,” he says and reaches out to rub his thumb over my hand.

God, I wish I did love Noah. I would be much happier with him, and he would never do something like Hardin did to me.

Noah catches me up on everything I’ve missed since I left, which isn’t much. He’s going to go San Francisco for college instead of WCU, which I find I’m grateful for. At least one good thing came out of my hurting him: it gave him the push he needed to get out of Washington. He tells me about what he’s researched on California, and by the time he leaves, the sun has fallen, and I realize that my mom has stayed in her room during his whole visit.

Stepping out to the backyard, I wander to the greenhouse where I spent most of my childhood. As I stare through my reflection in the glass and into the little structure, I see that all its plants and flowers are dead, and it’s generally a mess, which feels fitting at the moment.

I have so many things to do, to figure out. I need to find somewhere to live and find a way to get all of my stuff from Hardin’s apartment. I was seriously considering just leaving everything there, but I can’t. I have no clothes except the ones I’ve been keeping there and, most importantly, I need my textbooks.

Reaching into my pocket, I turn my phone on, and within seconds my inbox is full and the voicemail symbol appears. I ignore the voicemails and quickly scan the messages, only looking at the sender. All except one are from Hardin.

Kimberly wrote me: Christian said to tell you to stay home tomorrow, everyone will be leaving at noon anyway since the first floor needs to be repainted, so stay home. Let me know if you need anything. xx.

Having the day off tomorrow is a huge relief. I love my internship, but I’m beginning to think I should transfer out of WCU, maybe even leave Washington. The campus isn’t big enough for me to be able to avoid Hardin and all of his friends, and I don’t want the constant reminder of what I had with Hardin. Well, what I thought I had.

By the time I go back inside the house, my hands and face are numb from the cold. My mother is sitting in a chair reading a magazine.

“Can I stay tonight?” I ask her.

She looks at me briefly. “Yes. And tomorrow we’ll figure out how to get you back into the dorms,” she says and goes back to her magazine.

Figuring I’ll get no more from my mother tonight, I go up to my old room, which is exactly the way that I left it. She hasn’t changed a thing. I don’t bother removing my makeup before bed. It’s hard, but I force myself to sleep, dreaming of when my life was much better. Before I met Hardin.

My phone rings in the middle of the night, waking me. But I ignore it, briefly wondering if Hardin’s able to sleep at all.

THE NEXT MORNING all my mother says to me before leaving for work is that she’ll call the school and force them to let me back into the dorms, in a different building far from my old one. I leave, intending to head to campus, but then decide to go to the apartment, taking the exit to the road that leads there and driving quickly to keep from changing my mind.

At the complex, I scan the parking lot for Hardin’s car, twice. Once I’m sure he isn’t around, I park and hurry across the snowy lot to the door. By the time I get to the lobby, the bottoms of my jeans are soaked and I’m freezing. I try to think of anything except Hardin, but it’s impossible.

Hardin must have really hated me to go to this extreme to ruin my life and then to move me into an apartment far from anyone I know. He must be pretty proud of himself right now for causing me this much pain.

As I fumble with my keys before unlocking the door to our place a tidal wave of panic crashes over me, nearly knocking me the ground.

When will it stop? Or at least decrease?

I go straight to the bedroom and grab my bags from the closet, roughly shoving all my clothes in them without care. My eyes flicker to the bedside table, where a small frame stands, displaying the picture of Hardin and me smiling together before Ken’s wedding.

Too bad it was all fake. Leaning across the bed, I grab it and throw it against the concrete floor. It shatters into pieces and I jump over the bed, grab the photo, and rip it into as many pieces as I can, not realizing that I’m sobbing until I choke on my own breath.