“I won’t.” Tessa turns away from me, and I study the way she turns her head to smile back at me.
One of my greatest wishes in life would be for her to understand, to truly understand, that she is rare. She’s one of the few people in this world who know forgiveness, and when many would call her weak, she is truly the opposite. She’s strong, strong for standing by someone who hated himself. Strong for showing me that I’m not damned, that I am worthy of love, too, despite growing up thinking the opposite. She was strong enough to walk away from me when she did, and she’s strong enough to love unconditionally. Tessa is stronger than most, and I hope she knows that.
chapter seventy-five
TESSA
When I enter the apartment, I take a moment to gather my thoughts, which are shooting this way and that. When I reach the binder lying on the table, all of the pages are shoved inside, out of order.
I reach for the first page, holding my breath as I prepare myself to read. Will his words change my mind? Will they hurt me? I’m not even sure that I’m ready to find out, but I know that I need to do this for myself. I need to read his words and his emotions to see what was going through his mind all of those times when I couldn’t read him.
That’s when he knew. That moment was when he fucking knew that he wanted to spend his life with her, that his life would be meaningless and empty without the light that Tessa brings into it. She gave him hope. She made him feel as if maybe, just maybe, he could be more than his past.
I drop the page to the floor and start on another.
He lived his life for himself and then it shifted, it became much more than waking up and going to sleep. She gave him everything he never knew that he needed.
He couldn’t believe the shit that came from his mouth. He was disgusting. He hurt the people that loved him and he just couldn’t stop. “Why do they love me?” he constantly wondered. “Why would anyone love me? I’m not worthy of it.” Those thoughts filled his head, haunted him no matter how much he hid from them; they always returned.
He wanted to kiss away her tears, he wanted to tell her that he was sorry and that he was a ruined man, but he couldn’t. He was a coward, and he was damaged beyond repair, and treating her this way made him hate himself even more.
Her laugh, her laugh was the sound that brought him out of the darkness and into the light. Her laugh dragged him, by his damn collar, through the bullshit clouding his mind and infecting his thoughts. He wasn’t the same man that his father was, and he decided then, as she walked away from him, that he would never let the mistakes of his parents control his life again. He decided then that this woman was worth more than a broken man could offer, and so he did everything in his power to make it up to her.
Page after page, confession after dark confession, I continue to read. My tears have stained my cheeks, along with some of the pages of his beautiful yet twisted story.
He needed to tell her, he needed to tell her how fucking sorry he was for the nerve he had to throw children in her face. He was selfish, thinking only of the way he could hurt her, and he wasn’t ready to admit what he truly wanted out of life with her. He wasn’t ready to tell her that she would make the most amazing mother, that she would be nothing like the woman who raised her. He wasn’t ready to tell her that he would try his hardest to be good enough to help raise a child with her. He wasn’t ready to tell her that he was absolutely terrified of making the same mistakes that his father had made, and he wasn’t ready to admit that he was afraid of failing. He didn’t know the words to express that he didn’t want to come home drunk, and he didn’t want his children to run and hide from him, the way that he did his own father.
He wanted to marry her, to spend his life by her side, reveling in her kindness and her warmth. He couldn’t imagine a life without her, and he was trying to figure out a way to tell her this, to show her that he really could change, and that he could be worthy of her.
Time passes somehow, and before long, hundreds of pages are scattered on the floor. I am unaware of how much time has passed, and I couldn’t possibly count the tears that have fallen from my eyes or the sobs that have escaped through my lips.
I keep going, though; I read every single page, out of order, scattered and disarranged, but I make sure to soak in every single confession from the man that I love, the only man outside of my father that I have ever loved, and by the time I reach the end of the stack of pages, the apartment has grown darker and the sun has begun to set.
I look around the mess that I’ve made and try to take it all in. My eyes scan the floor, resting on the crumpled ball of paper on the entry table. Hardin said that it’s the last page, the very last page of this story, our story, and I try to calm myself before reaching for it.
My hands shake as I pick it up, unwrap the crinkled page, and read the words written there.
He hopes that she will read this someday and that she will understand just how broken he was. He doesn’t ask for her pity, or her forgiveness; he only asks that she see just how much she affected his life. That she, the beautiful stranger with a kind heart, turned into his lifeline and made him into the man he is today. He hopes that with these words, no matter how harsh some of them are, she will be proud of herself for dragging a sinner from the pits of hell and raising him into her heaven, allowing him redemption and freedom from the demons of his past.
He prays that she will take every single word to heart, and that maybe, just maybe, she will still love him after everything they have gone through. He hopes that she will be able to remember why she loved him, why she fought so hard for him.
Lastly, he hopes that wherever she may be as she reads the book that he wrote for her, she will read it with a light heart and that she will reach out to him, even if these words find her years from now. She has to know that he hasn’t given up. Tessa has to know that this man will always love her, and that he will be waiting for her for the rest of his life, whether she returns to it or not. He wants her to know that she was his savior and that he could never repay her for everything she has done for him, and that he loves her with his entire soul and nothing will ever change that.
He wants to remind her that whatever their souls are made of, his and hers are the same. Their favorite novel said it best.
I gather every last bit of strength left inside me and leave the scattered pages on the floor of the apartment, the last page of the book still in my hand.
chapter seventy-six
TESSA
Two Years Later
You are absolutely stunning, such a beautiful bride,” Karen gushes.
I nod, agreeing with her. I adjust the straps on my own gown and look back into the mirror. “He is going to be so stricken. I still can’t believe how fast this day has come.” I smile, placing one last bobby pin into the thick wave of hair pinned up in ringlets and glistening under the bright lights in the back room of the church.
I may have sprayed too much glitter onto her hair.
“What if I trip? What if he doesn’t show at the altar?” Landon’s gorgeous bride has a soft voice, one so full of nerves that she may snap any moment.
“He will. Ken drove him to the church this morning.” Karen laughs, reassuring the two of us. “My husband would have alerted us by now.”
“Landon wouldn’t miss this for the world,” I promise. I know he wouldn’t, because I saw his face and wiped away the tears under his eyes when he showed me the ring he’d picked out for her.
“I sure hope not. I will be really pissed.” She lets out a nervous laugh. Her smile is so lovely, even with the anxiety buzzing beneath the surface of the beauty; she’s holding herself together quite well.
My fingers gently brush over her dark curls, adjusting the sheer veil on her head. I glance at her beautiful face in the mirror and lift my hand to touch her bare shoulder. Her brown eyes are filled with tears, and she’s chewing nervously on her lower lip.
“It will be fine, you’ll be fine,” I promise. The silv
er of my dress shines under the light, and I admire the beauty of every detail behind this wedding.
“Is it too soon? We’ve only been back together for a few months. Do you think it’s too soon, Tessa?” she asks me.
I’ve grown so close with her in the past two years, I could sense her worry when her fingers started trembling as she helped me zip my bridesmaid’s gown.
I smile. “It’s not too soon. You two have been through so much in the last few years. You’re just overthinking this. I know a thing or two about that.”
“Are you nervous to see him?” she asks, eyes searching my face.
Yes. Terrified. Maybe a little panicked. “No, it’s only been a few months.”
“Too long,” Landon’s mother says under her breath.
My heart grows heavy, and I press back the distant ache that accompanies every thought surrounding him. I swallow the words I could and maybe should say. “Can you believe that your son is getting married today?” I quickly change the subject.
My distraction works like magic, and Karen smiles, squeals, and begins to tear up at once. “Oh, my makeup will be a mess.” She pats her fingertips under her eyes, and her light brown hair moves with her as she shakes her head.
A knock at the door silences the three of us. “Honey?” Ken’s voice is soft and cautious. Approaching the bride’s room full of emotional women will do that to a man. “Abby just woke from her nap,” Ken tells his wife as he opens the door, his daughter on his hip. Her dark brown hair and bright brown eyes are striking, lighting up every room the little girl enters. “I can’t seem to find the diaper bag.”
“It’s over there, next to that chair.” Karen points. “Could you feed her? I’m afraid she’ll throw mashed peas at my dress.” Karen laughs, reaching for Abby. “Terrible twos have come a little early for us.”
The little girl smiles, showing a full row of tiny half teeth. “Mama,” the chubby toddler calls, reaching both of her little hands to grasp the strap of Karen’s dress.
My heart melts every time I hear Abby speak. “Hi, Miss Abby.” I poke the little girl’s cheek, making her giggle. It’s a beautiful sound. I ignore the way Karen and Landon’s soon-to-be-wife stare at me with sympathy in their eyes.
“Hi.” Abby buries her face into her mom’s shoulder.
“Are you ladies almost ready? We only have about ten minutes until the music will start, and Landon’s getting more anxious every second,” Ken warns.
“He’s okay, right? He still wants to marry me?” the worried bride asks her future father-in-law.
Ken smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Yes, dear, of course he does. Landon’s nervous as he could be, but Hardin’s helping with that.” Every one of us, myself included, laughs at this.
The bride rolls her eyes in humor and shakes her head. “If Hardin’s ‘helping out,’ I better cancel the honeymoon now.”
“We better get going. I’ll feed Abby something small to hold her over until the reception.” Ken kisses his wife on the mouth before taking the toddler back into his arms and leaving the room.
“Yes. Please don’t worry for me, I’m okay,” I promise the two women. I am okay. I have been okay with the long-distance kind-of-relationship with Hardin. I miss him constantly, yes, but the space has been good for us.
The worst part of being okay is that okay is far from happy. Okay is that gray space in the middle where you can wake up each day and carry on with your life, even laugh and smile often, but okay isn’t joy. Okay isn’t looking forward to each second of your day, and okay isn’t getting the most out of life. Being okay is what most people settle for, myself included, and we pretend that okay is fine, when we actually hate it, and we spend the majority of our time waiting to break out of just being okay.
He gave me a taste of how great life can be outside of okay, and I’ve missed it ever since.
I’ve been okay for a long time, and I’m not sure how to get out of it now, but I hope for the day that I can say I’m great instead of I’m okay.
“You ready, Mrs. Gibson?” I smile at the lucky woman in front of me.
“No,” she says, “but I will be as soon as I see him.”
chapter seventy-seven
HARDIN
Last chance to bail,” I say to Landon while helping him adjust his tie.
“Thanks, jerk,” he fires back, pushing my hands away to mess with the crooked tie. “I’ve worn a hundred ties in my life, yet this one refuses to straighten out.”
He’s nervous, and I feel for him. Sort of. “Don’t wear one, then.”
“I can’t just not wear a tie. I’m getting married.” He rolls his eyes.
“That’s exactly why you don’t have to wear a tie. It’s your day, and you’re the one spending all this money. If you don’t want to wear a tie, don’t wear a fucking tie. Hell, if I was the one getting married today, they would be lucky if I wore pants.”
My best friend laughs. His fingers twist and tug at the tie around his neck. “Good thing you aren’t, then. I wouldn’t come to that spectacle.”
“We both know that I’ll never be married.” I stare at myself in the mirror.
“Maybe.” Landon’s eyes meet mine in the mirror. “You’re okay, right? She’s here. Your dad saw her.”
Hell no, I’m not. “Yeah, I’m okay. You act like I didn’t know she was coming or that I haven’t seen her in the last two years.” I haven’t seen her nearly enough, but she needed the distance from me. “She’s your best friend and your bride’s maid of honor. This is no surprise to me.” I pull the tie from my own neck and hand it to him. “Here, since yours is a piece of shit, you can have mine.”
“You have to wear a tie—it goes with your tux.”
“You know damn well you’re lucky I’m wearing this thing in the first place.” I tug at the heavy material covering my body.
Landon’s eyes close briefly, and he sighs in both relief and frustration. “I suppose you’re right.” He smiles. “Thanks.”
“And for wearing clothes to your wedding?”
“Shut up.” He rolls his eyes and runs his hands down the sleeves of his crisp black tuxedo. “What if she doesn’t show up at the altar?”
“She will.”
“But what if she doesn’t? Am I crazy for getting married so fast?”
“Yes.”
“Well, thanks.”
I shrug. “Crazy isn’t always a bad thing.”
He takes me in, his eyes searching my face for some sort of hint that I may unravel at any time. “Are you going to try to talk to her?”
“Yes, obviously.” I tried to make conversation with her at the rehearsal dinner, but Karen and Landon’s bride were stuck by her side like glue. Tessa’s helping to plan the wedding was a surprise to me; I didn’t know she was into that type of thing, but apparently she’s pretty damn good at it.
“She’s happy now; not completely, but mostly.”
Her happiness is the most important thing, and not just to me; the world simply isn’t the same when Tessa Young isn’t happy. I would know, I spent an entire year draining the life from her while simultaneously making her shine. It’s fucked-up and makes no sense to the outside world, but I have never, and will never, give a shit about the outside world when it comes to that woman.
“Five minutes, guys,” Ken’s voice sounds from the other side of the door. This room is small and smells like old leather and mothballs, but this is Landon’s wedding day. I’ll wait until after the reception to complain about it.
Maybe I’ll just take my complaints straight to Ken. I suspect he’s the one paying for this shit anyway, given the state of the bride’s parents and all.
“You ready, you crazy bastard?” I ask Landon one last time.
“No, but I will be when I see her.”
chapter seventy-eight
TESSA
Where’s Robert?” Karen looks around the small wedding party. “Tessa? Do you know where he ran off to?” she asks, panic in he
r voice.
Robert had taken on the task of entertaining the toddler while the women were getting their hair curled and faces painted on. Now that the wedding is starting, he’s taken his role back on, but he’s nowhere to be found, and Karen can’t hold Abby while helping with the first part of the wedding.
“Let me call him again.” I glance around the crowd, searching for him. Abby thrashes in Karen’s arms, and she looks panicked once again.
“Oh, wait! There he is . . .”
But I don’t hear the rest of Karen’s sentence. I’m completely distracted by the sound of Hardin’s voice. He’s walking out from the long hallway to my left, his mouth moving in that slow way it always has, as he talks to Landon.
His hair is longer than it looked in the pictures I’ve seen of him recently. I can’t help that I’ve been reading every single one of his interviews, every article about him, whether it’s true or false, and maybe, just maybe, I’ve emailed a few heated complaints to bloggers who have printed terrible things about him and his story. Our story.
The sight of the metal ring in his lip surprises me, even though I knew it had reappeared. I had forgotten how good it looks on him in person. I’m taken, absolutely consumed, by seeing him again, thrown back into a world where I fought hard in and lost nearly every battle that was thrown my way, only to leave without the one thing that I was fighting for: him.
“We need someone to walk with Tessa; her boyfriend didn’t show up,” someone says. At the mention of my name, Hardin’s focus snaps forward; his eyes search for half a second before he finds me. I break the connection first, looking down at my high heels barely peeking out from underneath my floor-length dress.
“Who’s walking with the maid of honor?” the bride’s sister asks everyone nearby. “There’s too much going on,” she says with a huff as she walks past me. I’ve done more than she has for this wedding, but her stress level would make you believe otherwise.