Chapter 29 (1/2)

I know how crazy I’m acting, but, for once, I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of me. I don’t give him a chance to answer before I continue. “You are so selfish! You think pushing me away and closing yourself off is good for me? You know damn well how this goes by now! You can’t last without me—you’ll just be miserable, and so will I. You aren’t doing me any good by hurting me, yet I find you like this?”

“You don’t know what you’re even talking about,” Hardin says, his voice low and intimidating.

“I don’t?” I throw my hands up. “She’s wearing your fucking shirt!” I scream, and point at the fucking whore, who hops down from the counter, tugging at the hem of Hardin’s shirt to cover her thighs. She’s much smaller than me and the shirt looks gigantic on her. The image will be burned into my memory until my last day, I know it will. I can feel it burning into me now, my entire body is burning, on fire with rage, and in this moment of pure, raw, fucking anger . . . it all clicks.

Everything makes sense to me now. My earlier thoughts regarding love and not giving up on the one you love couldn’t be further from the truth. I was wrong this entire time. When you love people, you don’t let them destroy you along with themselves, you don’t allow them to drag you through the mud. You try to help them, try to save them, but the moment that your love is one-sided or selfish, if you keep trying, you are a fool.

If I loved him, I wouldn’t let him ruin me, too.

I have tried and tried with Hardin. I have given him chance after chance after chance, and this time I thought everything would be fine. I actually thought this would work. I thought if I loved him enough, if I only tried harder, it could work and we could be happy.

“Why are you even here?” he asks, interrupting my epiphany.

“What? You thought I would let you get away with being a coward?” Behind the pain, the anger begins to sizzle. I’m terrified for its departure, but I almost welcome the resolve as it settles over me. For the last seven months, I have been weakened by Hardin’s words and this cycle of rejection, but now I see our volatile relationship for what it is.

Inevitable.

It’s always been inevitable, and I can’t believe that it took me all this time to see that, to accept it.

“I’ll give you one last chance to leave with me now and go back home, but if I walk out of this door without you, that will be it.”

His silence and the smug look in his impaired eyes pushes me further over the edge.

“Thought so.” I’m not even yelling anymore. There is no point. He isn’t listening. He never has. “You know what? You can have all of this, you can drink and smoke your fucking life away”—I step closer, stopping only a few feet from him—“but this is all you will ever have. So I hope you enjoy it while it lasts.”

“I will,” he responds, cutting through me. Again.

“So, if she isn’t your girlfriend . . .” Mark says to Hardin, reminding me that we aren’t alone in the room.

“I am no one’s girlfriend,” I snap.