he lets out a long chuckle that fades until we’re just sitting, holding hands and waiting.
A few minutes later there is a knock . . . well, a pounding at the door.
Hardin stands. “I’ll be right in the other room. I love you.” He gives me a swift kiss before exiting.
I fill my lungs with the deepest breath I can manage and open the door. My mother looks eerily perfect, as always. Not a single smudge mars her heavily made-up eyes, her red lipstick is smooth and silky, her blond hair is neatly piled almost in a halo around her head.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing moving out of that dorm without telling me!” she shouts without introduction and pushes past me into the apartment.
“You didn’t give me much of a choice,” I counter, then focus on breathing in and out to stay as calm as I can.
She spins back to glare at me. “Excuse me? How did I not give you a choice?”
“You threatened to not help me pay for my dorm,” I remind her and cross my arms.
“So, I gave you a choice, but you made the wrong one,” she snaps.
“No, you’re the one who’s wrong here.”
“Listen to you! Look at you. You aren’t the same Tessa that I dropped off at college three months ago.” She waves her arms to gesture up and down my body. “You are defying me, even yelling at me! You have some nerve! I have done everything for you, and here you are . . . throwing it all away.”
“I am not throwing anything away! I have an excellent internship that pays me very well; I have a car, and a four-point-oh grade point average. What more could you possibly want from me?” I shout back.
Her eyes light up from the challenge, and her voice is full of venom as she says, “Well, for starters, you could have at least changed your clothes before I came. Honestly, Tessa, you look like hell.” As I look down at my pajamas, she switches to a new criticism. “And what is this . . . you wear makeup now? Who are you? You’re not my Theresa, that is for certain. My Theresa wouldn’t be hanging out in some devil worshipper’s apartment in her pajamas on a Friday night.”
“Do not speak about him that way,” I say through my teeth. “I have already warned you.”
My mother squints her eyes and cackles. Her head falls back in laughter, and I fight the urge to smack her across her perfectly painted-on face. I immediately cringe at my violent thoughts, but she’s pushing me too far.
“And another thing,” I say slowly, calmly, to make sure I deliver the pronouncement just so. “This isn’t just his apartment. It is our apartment.”
And just like that, I get her to stop laughing.
chapter ninety-two
This woman I’ve lived with values her sense of control so much that there are few times I’ve managed to surprise her, let alone stun her. But here, I have really, truly stunned my mother. Her posture is erect and her face has fallen.
“What did you just say?” she asks slowly.
“You heard me. This is our apartment—as in, we both live here.” I put my hands on my hips for dramatic effect.
“There is no way that you live here. You can’t afford a place like this!” she scoffs.
“Would you like to see our lease? Because I have a copy.”
“This whole situation is even worse than I thought . . .” she says, then shifts her eyes to stare behind me, as if I’m not even worth looking at while she calculates her formula for my life. “I knew you were being foolish by messing around with that . . . that boy. But you are just plain stupid for moving in with him! You don’t even know him! You haven’t met his parents—aren’t you embarrassed to be seen in public with him?”
My anger boils over. I glance at the wall, trying to gather some composure, but it’s too much and before I can stop myself, I am in her face. “How dare you come into my home and insult him! I know him better than anyone, and he knows me better than you ever could! And I have actually met his family, his father at least. You want to know who his father is? He’s the goddamn chancellor of WCU!” I scream. “That should satisfy your sad little judgmental streak.”
I hate throwing Hardin’s father’s title around, but this