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“Tessa, dear, are you okay?” she asks frantically.
“Do I look that bad?” I shrug weakly.
“No, of course not,” she lies. “You just look . . .”
“Exhausted. Because I am. Finals took a lot out of me,” I tell her.
She nods and smiles warmly, but I can feel her eyes on my back the entire walk down the hall to my office. After that, my day drags on, no end in sight, it seems, until late morning, when Mr. Vance knocks at my door.
“Good afternoon, Tessa,” he says with a smile.
“Good afternoon,” I manage.
“I just wanted to touch base with you and let you know how impressed I am with your work so far.” He chuckles. “You’re doing a better and more detailed job than many of my actual employees.”
“Thank you, that means a lot to me,” I say, and immediately the voice in my head reminds me that I only have this internship because of Hardin.
“That being the case, I would like to invite you to the Seattle conference this coming weekend. Often these things are pretty boring, but it’s all about digital publishing, the ‘wave of the future’ and all that. You’ll meet a lot of people, learn some things. I’m opening a second branch in Seattle in a few months, and I need to meet a few people myself.” He laughs. “So what do you say? All expenses would be paid and we’ll leave Friday afternoon; Hardin is more than welcome to come along. Not to the conference but to Seattle,” he explains with a knowing smile.
If only he really knew what was going on.
“Of course I would love to go. I really appreciate your invitation!” I tell him, unable to contain my enthusiasm and the immediate relief that, finally, something decent is happening to me.
“Great! I’ll have Kimberly give you all the details, and explain how to expense things . . .” He rambles on, but I wander off while he does.
The idea of going to the conference soothes my ache slightly. I will be farther away from Hardin, but on the other hand, Seattle now reminds me of when Hardin wanted to take me there. He has tainted every aspect of my life, including the entire state of Washington. I feel my office getting smaller, the air in the room getting thicker.
“Are you feeling okay?” Mr. Vance asks, his brow lowers in concern.
“Uh, yeah, I just . . . I haven’t eaten today and I didn’t sleep much last night,” I tell him.
“Go ahead and go home, then, you can finish what you’re doing at home,” he says.
“It’s okay—”
“No, go on home. There are no ambulances in publishing. We’ll manage without you,” he assures me with a wave, then strolls off.
I gather my things, check my appearance in the bathroom mirror—yup, still pretty horrible—and am about to step into the elevator when Kimberly calls my name.
“Going home?” she asks and I nod. “Well, Hardin’s in a bad mood, so beware.”
“What? How do you know?”
“Because he just cussed me out for not transferring him to you.” She smiles. “Not even the tenth time he called. I figured if you wanted to talk to him, you would have on your cell.”
“Thank you,” I say, silently grateful she’s as observant as she is. Hearing Hardin’s voice on the line would have made the aching hole in me grow that much more quickly.
I manage to make it to my car before breaking down again. The pain only seems to get worse when there are no distractions, when I’m left alone with my thoughts and memories. And, of course, when I see the fifteen missed calls from Hardin on my phone and a notice that I have ten new messages, which I won’t read.
After pulling myself together enough to drive, I do what I’ve been dreading to do: call my mother.
She answers on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Mom,” I sob. The word feels odd coming out of my mouth, but I need the comfort of my mom right now.
“What did he do?”
That this has been everyone’s reaction shows me just how obvious the danger of Hardin was to everyone, and how oblivious I’ve been.
“I . . . he . . .” I can’t form a sentence. “Can I come home, just for today?” I ask her.
“Of course, Tessa. I’ll see you in two hours,” she says and hangs up.
Better than I thought, but not as warm as I had hoped for. I wish she were more like Karen, loving and accepting of any flaw. I wish she could just soften up, just long enough for me to feel the solace of having a mother, a loving and comforting one.
Pulling onto the highway, I shut my phone off before I do something stupid, like read any of those messages from Hardin.
Chapter three
TESSA
The drive to my childhood home is familiar and easy, requiring little thought on my part. I force myself to let out every scream—literally, as in screaming as loud as I possibly can and until my throat is sore—before I arrive in my hometown. I find this is actually much harder to do than I thought it would be, especially since I don’t feel like yelling. I feel like crying and disappearing. I would give anything to rewind my life to my first day of college; I would have taken my mother’s advice and changed rooms. My mother had worried about Steph being a bad influence; if only we’d realized it would be the rude, curly-haired boy that would be the problem. That he would take everything in me and spin it around, tearing me into tiny pieces before blowing on the pile and scattering me across the sky and beneath his friends’ heels.
I have only been two hours away from home this whole time, but with everything that’s happened, it feels so much farther. I haven’t been home since I started school. If I hadn’t broken up with Noah, I would have been back many times. I force my eyes to stay focused on the road as I pass his house.
