The cop gets an aggressively annoyed look on his face, but the other driver sees my anxiety and says softly, “There,” and points to the ambulance.
My heart stops beating.
Wandering over in a daze, I see the ambulance doors are open . . . and Tessa is sitting on its back bumper, an ice pack on her cheek.
Thank God. Thank God it’s only small.
I rush over to her, and the words start tumbling from my mouth. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Relief takes over her features when she sees me. “I had an accident.” Above her eye is a small bandage, and her lip is swollen and split on the side.
“Can you go?” I ask rudely. “Can she go?” I ask the young EMT who’s standing nearby.
The woman nods and walks away quickly. I reach for Tessa’s ice pack and move it, revealing a knot the size of a golf ball. Her cheeks are stained with tears, and her eyes are swollen and red. I can already see the black eye forming under her delicate skin.
“Fuck—are you okay? Was it his fault?” I turn and try to find that asshole again.
“No, I ran into him,” she says, wincing as she grabs the ice pack and puts it back on her skin. Then some of the relief leaves her eyes as she looks up at me and asks, “Where were you all day?”
“What?” I ask, honestly confused, between my hangover and seeing her like this.
With a colder look in her eyes, she says, “I said, ‘Hardin, where were you all day?’ ”
I snap back to the situation. Fuck.
And right as I’m about to make an excuse, Carly walks up and smacks me on the ass. “Well, Mr. Dark and Moody, can I go? You can walk back to your car from here, right? I really need to get back home.”
Tessa’s eyes go wide. “Who are you?”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Not this. Not now.
Carly smiles and gives Tessa a little nod. “I’m Hardin’s friend Carly. Sorry about your accident.” Then she looks at me. “Can I go now?”
“Bye, Carly,” I snap.
“Wait,” Tessa says. “He was with you last night at your place?”
I try to make eye contact with her, but she continues to stare at Carly, who says, “Yeah, I was just trying to take him back to his car.”
“His car? Where’s that?” she says, her voice shaking.
“Bye, Carly,” I say again and glare at her.
Tessa stands up, though her knees buckle a little. “No—tell me where his car is.”
I grab hold of her elbows in an attempt to stop her, but she pushes me away and then whimpers from the pain of the motion. “Don’t touch me,” she says through her teeth.
“Carly. Where is his car?” Tessa asks again.
Carly raises her hands and looks back and forth between Tessa and me. “At the bar where I work. Okay, I’m going now,” she says and wanders off.
“Tess . . .” I plead. God, why am I such a fuckup?
“Get away from me,” she replies. Her cheek goes in a little; I can tell she’s biting down on it to keep her tears at bay. Now that she’s standing here, staring off in the distance and trying to appear emotionless, I’m missing the days of her constant crying.
“Tessa, we have . . .” I begin, but my voice cracks. Now I’m the emotional one, and for once I don’t care. The panic from seeing the front end of her car smashed still courses through me, and I don’t want anything other than to hold her right now.
She still doesn’t look at me. “Go. Now. Or I’ll tell the officer to make you.”
“I don’t give a fuck about them—”
Her eyes whip back toward me with a vengeance. “No—I’m done listening to you! I’m not sure what happened last night, but all morning I knew—somehow knew—you were with someone else. I was just trying to force myself not to believe it.”
“We can work this out,” I beg. “We always have.”
“Hardin! Do you not see that I was just in an accident?” she yells and starts crying, prompting the EMT to walk back over. “Actually, you probably can’t tell, your version of reality is so warped. You write me a note last night about going out with your dad this morning, then you text me that you fell asleep drunk in your car after drinking with Landon. With Landon! You must think I’m stupid enough to believe anything—even things that contradict each other.” She glares at me. “Of course, you’re a walking bundle of contradictions, so, yeah, I can see how you might mistakenly think the rest of reality is, too.”
The realization of just how stupid I was fills me, and I can’t speak for a moment. I’m so stupid, so very, very stupid. And not just because I couldn’t keep my stories straight.
The EMT takes that moment to put a hand on Tessa’s shoulder and says, “Is everything okay over here? We need to get you to the hospital, just to check everything out.”
Wiping her tears from her cheeks, Tessa looks dead at me and says to her, “Yes. I’m ready. I’m ready to leave now.”
Chapter seventy-eight
HARDIN
I crack open my fourth beer and spin the cap on the glossy wooden surface of our coffee table. When is she going to be here? Is she going to be here?
Maybe I should just text her and tell her that I did have sex with Carly, just to end both of our miseries.
A loud knock on the door breaks me from my plotting.
Here we go. I hope she’s alone. I grab my beer, take another swig, and head for the door. The knocking quickly shifts to pounding, and I swing open the door to find Landon. Before I can react, his hands grip the collar of my T-shirt and he slams me against the wall.