Chapter 235: Chapter 235

“Christian?” I say just before hanging up.

“Yes, Tessa?”

“Will you tell Kimberly?” I hold my breath and wait for his answer to my highly inappropriate question.

“Of course I’ll tell her,” he softly responds, his accent thick and smooth. “I love her more than—”

“Okay.” I’m trying to understand, but the only image that’s coming to mind is Kimberly smiling in their kitchen, her head tipped back in laughter and Christian’s eyes sparkling as he watches her in amazement, as if she’s the only woman in his world. Does he look at Trish that way?

“Thank you. Let me know if you need anything. Again, I’m sorry for what you saw earlier, and I hope that your opinion of me hasn’t been completely destroyed,” he says and hangs up the phone.

I take one last glance at the hideous monster on the wall and walk back into the hotel room.

Chapter one hundred and forty-one

HARDIN

Where are you?” His angry voice booms down the hall, creeping into the kitchen. The front door slams, and I jump down from the kitchen chair, grabbing my book. My shoulder knocks into the bottle on the table, sending it crashing to the ground into too many pieces. The brown liquid covers the floor, and I hurry to hide it before he finds me and sees what I did.

“Trish! I know you’re here!” He yells again. His voice is closer now. My small hands pull the towel from the stove and throw it onto the floor to cover the mess I made.

“Where’s your mum?”

I jerk back at the sound of his voice. “She’s . . . she’s not here,” I tell him, standing to my feet.

“What the fuck did you do?” he shouts, pushing past me and seeing the big mess I made. I didn’t mean to make the mess. I knew he would be angry.

“That bottle of scotch was older than you,” he says. I look up to his red face and he stumbles. “You broke my fucking bottle.” My dad’s voice is slow. It always sounds like this when he comes home lately.

I back away, taking small steps. If I can just get to the stairs, I can get away. He’s too drunk to follow me. He fell down them last time.

“What’s that?” His angry eyes focus on my book.

I hug it tighter to my chest. No. Not this one, too.

“Come here, boy.” He circles around me.

“Please don’t,” I beg the man as he rips my favorite book from my hands. Miss Johnson says that I’m a good reader, better than anyone else in fifth year.

“You broke my bottle, so I get to break something of yours.” He smiles. I back away as he tears the book in two and rips out the pages. I cover my ears and watch as Gatsby and Daisy float around the room in a white storm. He grabs some of the pages in the air and rips them into small pieces.

I can’t be a baby, I can’t cry. It’s just a book. It’s just a book. My eyes are burning, but I’m not a baby, so I can’t cry.

“You’re just like him, you know? With your stupid fucking books,” he slurs.

Just like who? Jay Gatsby? He doesn’t read as much as me.

“She thinks I’m stupid, but I’m not.” He grabs the back of the chair to keep from falling. “I know what she did.” Suddenly his face goes still, and I think my dad is going to cry.

“Clean up this shit,” he groans and leaves me alone in the kitchen, kicking the binding of my book as he leaves.

“HARDIN! HARDIN, WAKE UP!” A voice calls me from my mum’s kitchen. “Hardin, it’s only a dream. Please wake up.”

When my eyes fly open, I’m met with worried eyes and an unfamiliar-looking ceiling above my head. It takes me a moment to realize that I’m not in my mum’s kitchen after all. There’s no spilled scotch or ripped-up novel.

“I’m so sorry for leaving you in here alone. I just went to get some breakfast. I didn’t think—” Her voice breaks off into a sob, and she wraps her arms around my sweat-covered back.

“Shh . . .” I smooth her hair. “I’m fine.” I blink a few times.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she quietly asks.

“No, I can’t even remember it, really,” I tell her. The dream has turned blurry, fading out more with each stroke of her hand across the bare skin between my shoulder blades.

I let her hold me for a few minutes before breaking away. “I got breakfast for you,” she says, wiping her nose with the sleeve of my sweatshirt she’s wearing. “Sorry.” She smiles shyly, holding the snot-covered sleeve up in front of me.

I can’t help but laugh, my nightmare forgotten. “There have been worse things on that sweatshirt,” I cheekily remind her, trying to make her laugh. My thoughts travel back to when she jacked me off in the apartment while I was wearing said sweatshirt, and quite the mess was made.

Her cheeks flush, and I reach for the tray of food next to her. She has piled it high with different types of bread, fruit, cheese, and even a small box of Frosted Flakes.

“I had to fight an old woman for that.” She grins, nodding toward the cereal.

“You did no such thing,” I tease her as she brings a grape to her lips.

“I would have,” she insists.

The mood has shifted drastically since our arrival in the middle of the night. “Did you change the flight?” I ask her and tear into the Frosted Flakes, not bothering to pour them into the small bowl she put on the tray.

“I wanted to talk about that with you.” Her voice lowers. She didn’t change the flight. I sigh and wait for her to finish. “I talked to Christian last night . . . well, this morning.”