“No, I don’t, Tessa!” he yells, and I roll my eyes. At that, he pauses, then stands and looks out the window, then back at me. “Okay, yes, so maybe I do. But I really do care about you.”

“Well, you should have thought about that when you were bragging about your conquest,” I say steadily.

“My conquest? Are you fucking serious right now? You aren’t some conquest of mine—you’re everything to me! You’re my breath, my pain, my heart, my life!” He takes a step toward me. What’s makes me the saddest is that these are the most touching words that Hardin has ever said to me, but he’s screaming them.

“Well, it’s a little too late for that!” I scream back. “You think you can just—”

He catches me off guard by wrapping his hand around the back of my neck and pulling me to him, crashing his lips to mine. The familiar warmth of his mouth nearly brings me to my knees. My tongue is moving along with his before my mind catches up to what’s happening. He moans in relief and I try to push him away. He grabs my wrists in one hand and holds them on his chest as he continues to kiss me. I keep struggling to get out of his grip, but my mouth continues to move along with his. He backs up and pulls me with him until he’s against the counter, and his other hand reaches out to the side of my neck, holding me still. All of the pain and heartache inside me begin to dissolve and I relax my hands in his. This is wrong but so right.

But wrong.

I pull away and he tries to reconnect our lips, but I turn my head. “No,” I say.

His eyes soften. “Please . . .” he begs.

“No, Hardin. I need to go.”

He lets go of my wrists. “Go where?”

“I . . . I don’t know yet. My mother is trying to get me back into a dorm.”

“No . . . no . . .” He shakes his head, his voice becoming frantic. “You live here, don’t go back into the dorms.” He runs his hands through his hair. “If anyone should, it’s me. Just please stay here so I know where you are.”

“You don’t need to know where I am.”

“Stay,” he repeats.

If I’m being completely honest with myself, I want to stay with him. I want to tell him that I love him more than I want to breathe, but I can’t. I refuse to get pulled back in and be that girl who lets guys do whatever the hell they want to her.

I pick up my bags and say the only thing that will keep him from following. “Noah and my mother are waiting, I have to go,” I lie and walk out of the door.

He doesn’t follow, and I don’t let myself turn around to see the pain he’s in.

Chapter five

TESSA

When I get to my car I don’t cry like I had assumed I would. I just sit and stare out the window. The snow sticks to my windshield, blanketing me inside. The wind around the car is chaotic, picking up the snow and swirling it, completely sheltering me. With each flake of snow coating the glass, a barrier between the harsh reality and the car is formed.

I can’t believe that Hardin came to the apartment while I was there. I had hoped to not see him. It did help, though, not the pain but the situation in general. At least now I can try to move on from this disastrous time in my life. I want to believe him and that he does love me, but I got into this situation by believing him. He could just be acting like this because he knows he doesn’t have control over me anymore. Even if he does love me, what would that change? It wouldn’t take back everything he did, it wouldn’t take back all the jokes, the terrible bragging about the things we did, or the lies.

I wish I could afford that apartment on my own, I would stay there and make Hardin leave. I don’t want to go back to the dorms and get a new roommate—I don’t want a community shower. Why did it all have to start with a lie? If we’d met in some different way, we could be inside that apartment right now, laughing on the couch or kissing in the bedroom. Instead, I’m in my car alone with nowhere to go.

When I finally start the car, my hands are frozen. Couldn’t I be homeless in the summer?

I feel like Catherine again, only not my usual Wuthering Heights Catherine. This time Catherine in Northanger Abbey is who I relate to: shocked and forced to make a long journey alone. Granted, I’m not making a seventy-mile journey from Northanger after being dismissed and embarrassed, but still, I feel her pain. I can’t decide who Hardin would be in this version of the book. On one hand, he’s like Henry, smart and witty, with a knowledge of novels as great as mine. However, Henry is much kinder than Hardin, and that’s where Hardin is more like John, arrogant and rude.

As I drive through town with nowhere to go, I realize that Hardin’s words had a bigger impact on me than I would like to admit. Him begging me to stay almost put the pieces back together just to break them again. I’m sure he only wanted me to stay to prove that he could. It’s not like he’s started calling and texting again since I drove away.

I force myself to drive to campus and take my last final before winter break. I feel so detached during the exam and it feels impossible that everyone on campus could be so clueless about what I’m going through. A fake smile and small talk can hide the splitting pain, I suppose.

I call my mother to check on the status of getting into a new dorm, only to have her mumble “no luck” and quickly hang up the phone. After driving aimlessly for a bit, I find myself a block away from Vance and realize it’s already five in the evening. I don’t want to take advantage of Landon by asking him to stay at Ken’s house again. I know he wouldn’t mind, but it’s not fair of me to put Hardin’s family in the middle of this, and honestly that house holds too many memories. I couldn’t stand it. I pass a street lined with motels and pull into the lot of one of the nicer-looking ones. I suddenly realize that I’ve never actually stayed at a motel before, but it’s not like I have anywhere else to go.