After 3

Chapter 235.

Songs for this chapter are:

Towers- Little Mix

Say Something- A great big world

Take it all- Adele

(I am loving all these song suggestions!)

Tessa's POV.

"Hardin!" I push open the door and call his name. He's halfway across the front yard already.

When he turns around, his face is twisted in confusion. "Yeah?"

"Can you tell Landon to call me if he doesn't want to come inside." I quickly respond. I know Landon would come inside my mother's house but I'm sure Hardin wants to leave now, and unlike Landon, he wouldn't be okay with sitting in the car waiting.

"Oh, okay."

I wait for him to turn back to me, I don't know what it is exactly that I'm expecting, a goodbye, a hug, something, but it doesn't come. He opens the passenger door of Landon's car and climbs inside.

My hand moves through the air in a small and pathetic wave goodbye.  Landon rolls the window down and waves back, promising to call me tomorrow.  Hardin must have insisted that Landon get on the road, now.

The moment that Landon's car is out of sight, the emptiness weighs heavy on my chest and I walk inside. Noah is leaning against the threshold between the living room and kitchen, "Is he gone? " he asks.

"Yeah, he's gone." My voice is distant,  unfamiliar. 

"I didn't know you guys weren't together,"

"We, well.. we are just trying to figure everything out."

"Can you tell me one thing before you change the subject?" His eyes scan my face, "I know that look, you're about to find a reason to." Even after being apart from me for months, he still knows me so well.

"What do you want to know?" I ask before agreeing to his request.

"If you could go back would you? I heard you say you want to erase the last six months, would you really?" He asks, his blue eyes stare into mine.

Would I?

I sit down on the couch to ponder his question, would I take it all back? Erase everything that has happened to me in the last six months? The bet, the endless fights with Hardin, the downward spiral of my relationship with my mother, Steph's betrayal, all the humiliation, everything.

"Yes, I would, in a heartbeat."

Hardin's hand on mine, the way his inked arms wrapped around me, pulling me to his chest.  The way he would sometimes laugh so hard that his eyes would pinch closed and the sound would fill my ears, my heart, and the entire apartment with such a rare happiness that nothing could erase the memory.

"No, I wouldn't. I couldn't." I change my answer and Noah shakes his head.

"Which is it?" He chuckles and sits on the recliner across from the couch.

"I wouldn't erase it."

"You're sure? It's been a bad year for you and I don't even know the half of it."

"I'm sure." I nod, meaning it. "I would do some things differently though, with you." I tell him again.

"Yeah, me too." Noah quietly agrees and grabs the television remote from the cup holder attached to the recliner. Whistles and cheering crowds fill the small living room and I stare at the screen, replaying Hardin's laugh through my mind until I eventually fall asleep.