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kittenkwueen · 1 year

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The biggest lie we’ve been told is that school is a place to nurture creativity, whereas it really is the place that a child’s imagination goes to die.

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kittenkwueen · 1 year

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After: Ever Never

Part One: Chapter One, Page Six

After the run-in with Noah, my ex, I've decided. I was going to get it together and do something fresh, new, and different. Gardening could be something, but after my dad, I spent most of my time crying and sitting there in silence. Hardin came for me then. Now he's gone.

I've got it. A tattoo. It's a memory. Something to never forget Because this is what my body is, a canvas, a permanent canvas. No way. Could never do it.

As I walk into the shower, I listen to an audiobook. I need something contemporary, something new. With college being my main focus, it feels good to almost be done. I need fiction. Something to escape the many days of neglecting my hair and even showering.

The thing with departure is that you lose routine. Seeing your deepest love with someone other than yourself is a tough pill, more brutal than any you could imagine. Or, it's beautiful seeing someone you loved love again. Because, as I've said, love is more challenging to give than hate. I do not hate Hardin.

This book isn't helping. It reminds me of the more profound love. Pride and Prejudice. “Till this moment, I never knew myself.” That couldn't be more true. I cannot even think, shower, sleep, or eat without the thought of him. I'm never lonely because I can't stop. Writing about him, thinking of him, doing things we have done together. He's my heroin. I'm the addict.

My mother always reminds me that the man in the relationship is always wrong, even as she shed those obviously fake tears at Dad's funeral. She is evil. Evil deceives you and manipulates its way to your head until you're as desperate as ever to turn to it. Not anymore, Carol. Not. Anymore.

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kittenkwueen · 1 year

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After: Ever Never

Part One: Chapter One: Page Five

I miss the less complex days. Before him, before Noah, Trevor. I should have taken the dare. It always makes me curious how different life would be. I can't live a thousand more lives like this. How did Dracula do it? Survive so long. Oh, he ripped people's throats out. Fair enough, I guess. I could barely hurt a fly, but I'm great at breaking hearts and hurting feelings. Noah is Patient Zero, and Hardin is Patient One. No. Not again, brain. Focus.

We are in a secluded enough place I can feel Noah's heat radiating, but it's not the same irresistible heat as Hardin. He never needed expensive cologne or Gap shirts that were lame as ever. His whole demeanor spoke for him. He wasn't some rich kid or a prude, not like me. He liked to have fun and respected people enough. In so many ways, he was the party.

Noah stares, waiting for a conversation starter; I never give him one. I go straight for the kill.

"You need to stop watching me, Noah. It's freaking me out."

His face is beat red, eyes shut from the cringe and embarrassment of it all, I swear he almost tries to save himself, but I know him far too well and quickly combat his "I'm sorry Tess-" speech.

"You always say it won't happen again, Noah, or that we just happen to be at the same place at the same time. Just let it go. Let me go."

Hardin never made me feel this kind of shitty, the type where it hurts to reject someone because you know how it feels; I was treated like a diamond with Hardin. I did not desire any gem or affection because he was always here. He is still here right now because I'm thinking of him. That's the thing with memory; when you go to therapy, you start having realizations. Those are tough pills to swallow besides the drugs that come with going to therapy. I know it. Zoloft, Adderall, Cymbalta.

I don't want to wake up, not when being with Hardin. Hell, even thinking about him feels good. So undeniably good I haven't felt anything since. Even when my dad died, I felt things, they were not good, but I felt them.

But here I am, with Big-nosed Noah, for what feels like the third time this week, before it was a few times every few weeks, but now. Now it's getting out of hand. Before it gets to be too much, I walk away, needing to clear my head and my mind. It's time for a trip. A long. Healthy. Retreat. Something the opposite of what Bella Swan from Twilight would experience. Instead of meeting an Edward Cullen, I'll meet good books and maybe a hairdresser. PS I look like a witch.

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kittenkwueen · 1 year

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After: Ever Never

Part One: Chapter One Page Four

It was him. I can feel the bile in my throat threatening to escape me. Before, it was sweet, but now he's getting creepy. It's not in my nature to shut someone down, let alone cheat. yet somehow, with Noah, I feel shyer than I ever have with Hardin. And Hardin was the bad boy, the player.

Hardin welcomed my awkwardness. Noah well. He's just Noah. His big nose always seems to find my hair or clothing. Today is no different.

"Sorry, you just came out of nowhere."

"Noah, you're a soccer player. You're more likely to be found in a field than in a cafe. You don't even drink coffee."

"W-well I-."

"My mom put you on babysitting duty again? Or are you watching me again, Noah?"

"Tessa I just..."

I roll my eyes staring up at him, confused about what to say. He's grown, but it does not change where we stand. He's been watching me since the whole book deal happened. Hardin and I had no real conversation after that.

My life was on paper, he was too, and I was scared. Paranoid that I could be judged. Paranoid about being called things, "slut, whore." I was probably the first to be torn apart from a game of truth or dare. It's such child's play and so stupid, but how do I escape it? I can't.

Noah wouldn't do that, and sometimes I hate myself for not being able to love him. That's the thing with love. It's harder to give than hate.

What's even harder to give than love is to fake it. Noah loves aspects of me. He may care for me as a person. Hardin cared for me because I was his person. His favorite person. And now. That's gone. My world moves slower, so slow I can analyze my whole life in thirty seconds, come back and talk to Noah right now.

"Noah, I'm seriously fine. Please don't watch me again."

"Tessa, we all worry about you."

"I'm not a child. Don't treat me like one."

After realizing the mess, I groan, grabbing napkins to clean the floor.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs."

Noah grumbled an apology under his breath as we dried the area in relative silence. He looks older and more mature, but it doesn't change the fact he's creepy.

Hardin would do things like this, but I've slept with him, lived with him. Noah? We've shared awkward kisses and light touching. Scott would sacrifice the world for me to even smile. Noah just begs or stalks, and it's not normal.

What even is normal anymore? Since the game of truth or dare, the day I met Hardin, nothing has felt okay. Every second we spend apart, my memory of him intensifies. And every second I spend with Noah gives me the creeps. I'm in a twilight zone of feelings these days, I saw a puppy and I cried because I wanted to get one for Hardin. Yay emotion.

"Noah, we should go. Talk somewhere else." I try to keep my voice soft so he takes it as a friendly conversation. As expected, like a child, he got over-excited anyway. This is so not going to end well.

We finish up, and I give the desk lady a nod. She gives me an attitude. Weirdly enough, she reminded me of Trevor just now. Not now, brain. Not. Now. Yell at Noah, cry about boys later. A boy. But what's the difference.

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kittenkwueen · 1 year

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After: Ever Never

Part One: Chapter One: Page Three

The rain subsides, but the ache in my head says differently. It keeps telling me to write. I get into another cafe and dry off with damn near all the paper towels in the bathroom. Whoops.

I reek of two days ago when I took my last shower, but who cares. I need to write, to reflect. To grieve. To forgive. It's now that I realize I haven't grieved. I haven't ever missed Hardin Scott because I've woken up to the thought of him every waking moment. I begin to type. Unable to control myself.

Sometimes, we don't allow ourselves to miss someone just by thinking about them. We have to build comfort around them to do that. To get through the pain that life brings to us. Hardin was my comfort. He gave me comfort. Or I thought he did. He himself was not the comfort. It was the things he did, the fact I knew he would kill for me. Live for me, die for me. We are more doomed than I realized.

Therapy? No. Yoga? That went well last time. (After We Collided) Therapy is just self-reflection. When you sit in a chair or that couch at an office, it feels the same as the trauma itself. It brings out our demons.

I can't keep living life wishing it was different with Hardin. Clearly, he has moved on, so why can't I? It has to be that he has chased me every time we have separated.

He did live for me. And now he lives for her, and I will never be her again. That thought makes me gag, literally. Time to go. Except it's not.

While on my phone, I face plant into a hard chest which throws me off. Instead of falling, my eyes meet a big nose, and I know I've hit the jackpot of embarrassment. I just spilled their coffee all over their chest and the wood floor.

They at least smell decent, familiar almost. It's then that I see shoulder-length hair and know exactly who it is. This is the universe's way of telling me that this is karma.

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kittenkwueen · 1 year

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After: Ever Never

Part One: Chapter One: Page Two

We all fall in love three times in life. I manage to type into my keyboard in my phone in the notes section. Maybe this is how Hardin managed. Writing our story is what made the tough times easier. Reading it would have to help someone. By the looks of his book talk, it was the case.

We all fall in love three times in life. So what are they? When you see your unborn child in an ultrasound. That'll never happen to me, but it happened to my mom and her mom. It has to be true. Those stupid boy crushes you had as a kid, the one you plan your whole life with, where you promise yourself to one another, then the next day, next week, or year, you don't exist.

Then there's the fall in deep love. The one that goes as deep as Edward and Bella's. Adam and Eve's. No, Adam and Eve are too light. That is not our story. Hardin would be ashamed to even be compared to those two. Weren't they siblings anyway? Gross. Probably shouldn't include that.

After the lie, the mistake, I think about it all the time. How I gave myself to him, how wounded it felt. I'd take it all over feeling so alone in this love. Because loving you, Hardin Scott, is a lot like dancing with the devil in the dark. Dating you was to hate you. I don't know what love is without hate.

Hell, I was raised to hate anyone different. Not the homeless kids or the smelly ones but the bad boys, alcoholics, people that smoked weed, the whores. Ones that used their beauty for success.

You were beautiful to me, your imperfection, you stood out to me, Hardin. In your clique, you were their king, but you were my savior.

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kittenkwueen · 1 year

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After: Ever Never

Part One: Chapter One

After staring at him give his speech on self-improvement and his book "After" I can't help but feel a sharp pang in my chest, the words flow from him seamlessly, and right then and there, I know that this is Hardin.

He was meant to do this, to be this; the truth is in the eyes, and right now, Hardin is pleased. In many ways, Hardin was my savior, love, and retribution to claim something for once without Carol, my mother. I loved how he worshipped me. For once in my life, I have to walk away. Another second of this, and I'll scream for the boy I once loved because I can't give him up. I love him too much, but nothing escapes when I open my mouth.

I'm no Jane Austen. But Hardin, Hardin has a talent. He was born to do this, and I, Tessa Young, have played my role in his story. It's over.

As one says at a funeral, I mutter a goodbye and leave the area, running in the rain, anything to escape him, it, my head, my life. For so long, I've let Carol drive me; I know nothing other than Hardin, how my soul always finds his. We are kindred spirits, but we are broken, and this time, I don't know how the story will end. Everyone says I bring out the best in him, but he brought the best out of me.

Before, and now, after him. You may ask how, and that's fair. When you think of love, you think of your first. He was my first. He consumed me, took me in. What I failed to realize is I, too, like him, am a parasite. We thrive on each other, the pain, and the suffering. At the moment, it feels good, but then reality sets in, and we realize we are emotionally draining and damaging to each other. Love like that is the best and the worst.

It consumes you, so you allow the abuse. You take it all in because love is supposed to hurt. It's supposed to feel like anguish sometimes because love without fighting doesn't exist. Right?

Even if we make up, what happens next? We fall in love again? Live together? Grow old? We won't have to worry about getting pregnant.

It's not like Hardin would up and leave. He's not that kind of toxic. In many ways, he's known to have a temper, lash out and be an asswipe, but one thing Hardin Scott would obsess over is knowing that he'd gotten me pregnant. Not because he would finally make me his but because he would eventually have something. Something that couldn't lie or run away from him. His. And I'd do anything to give that to him.

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