“Oh.” The pain from Noah’s sorrow-filled voice and the reminder of my mother’s hatred for me causes my chest to ache.
“Yeah . . . she is pretty pissed at you.”
“I know . . . she threatened to stop helping me with college.”
“She will get over this, I know she will. She’s just hurt,” he says.
“She is hurt? You’re kidding me, right?” I scoff. He cannot be defending her.
“No, no—I know she is going about it the wrong way, but she’s just angry that you are . . . you know with . . . him.” The disgust in his voice is evident.
“Well, it isn’t her place to tell me who to be with. Is that why you called me? To tell me that I shouldn’t be with him?”
“No, no—Tessa, it’s not. I just wanted to make sure you are okay. This is the longest we have gone without talking since we were ten years old,” he says. I can picture the frown on his face.
“Oh . . . I’m sorry for snapping at you. I just have a lot going on right now and I thought you were calling to—”
“Just because we aren’t together anymore doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be there for you,” he says, and my heart aches. I do miss him; not my relationship with him, but he’s been such a huge part of my life since I was a child, it’s hard to let that go entirely. He was there for me through everything, and I hurt him, without even calling to explain or apologize. I feel terrible about how I left things with him, and tears well up in my eyes.
“I’m sorry for everything, Noah,” I say softly and sigh.
“It’ll be okay,” he says back, equally softly. But then, as if needing to change the topic, he says, “So I heard you got an internship,” and our conversation continues until I arrive at Vance.
When we get off the phone he promises to talk to my mother about her behavior toward me, and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from me. Of anyone, Noah could always manage to get her to calm down when she was at her worst.
The rest of my day goes smoothly. I spend the entire day finishing my first manuscript and making notes for Mr. Vance. Hardin and I text on and off to nail down the details on where to meet, and before I know it the day is over.
When I arrive at the address Hardin sent me, I’m surprised to find that it’s about halfway between campus and Vance Publishing. My drive would only be twenty minutes if I lived here, when I live here. It still seems like such an abstract idea, Hardin and I living together.
I don’t see my car when I pull into the parking lot, and when I try to call Hardin’s phone I get his voicemail. What if he changed his mind? He would tell me, wouldn’t he?
Just as I start to panic, Hardin pulls my car into the lot and parks next to me. At least, it looks like my car, but it also looks different. The silver paint is no longer chipped, and overall it looks shiny and new.
“What did you do to my car?” I say when he climbs out.
“It’s nice to see you, too.” He smiles and kisses my cheek.
“Seriously, what did you do?” I cross my arms.
“I got a paint job. Jesus. You could thank me.” He rolls his eyes.
I bite my tongue only because of where we are and what we are about to do. Besides, the paint job does look really good. I just don’t like the idea of Hardin spending money on me, and paint jobs are not cheap.
“Thank you.” I smile and lace my fingers through his.
“You’re welcome. Now let’s go inside.” He leads me through the parking lot. “You look good driving my car, especially in that dress. I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day. I wish you would have obliged my request that you send me naked pictures of yourself,” he says, and I elbow him. “Just saying. Would have made class much more interesting.”
“Oh, so you went to class,” I say, laughing.
He shrugs and opens the front door of the building for me. “Here we are.”
I smile at his uncharacteristic gesture and walk inside. The lobby of the building isn’t what I expected at all. It is all white: white floors, clean white walls,