nevertheless~

part 60

TESSA'S POV

"I think that you should speak to Ken", he pleads to me and I do not know the words to deny him or agree him with.

"Hardin, that's not possible. I can't speak with your father about such a thing, when he doesn't even know who I am, or he doesn't know that you trust me with this thing. I'm a total stranger to him.", I put my point ahead as I bite into the pear.

Hardin came back from his morning briefing and when he did come back, I could tell with the air that I entered after my shower that something had happened. After last night, I didn't think more obstacles would be in our way, but I guess life is very funny in that terms. Today, we have a day off thankfully and I would want nothing more to understand Hardin's family background or his relationship with his parents but if the day is going to go in understanding Hardin's family, this wouldn't be the first choice I'd make.

I don't think that after yesterday it would be the best decision to talk to your troubled father and even troubled mother and explain all that to your girlfriend. I haven't been able to tell Hardin about how the years of abuse my mother let down on me has shaped me into the cold and hard to read person I've become, so I don't think it'd be any different for him, if we subtract everything I'd been through.

"But that's what he needs. The voice of a third person.", he tries to convince me.

"Hardin's, it's simply not smart. Imagine if the roles were reversed. If your girlfriend was in place of your father, it'd never work.", I say, trying to explain to him how stupid this idea of his is. You can't bring two very different kinds of emotions together to fix something else.

"Tessa, then what do I do?", he asks, completely crumbled to the nail, a tired and exhausted man.

"I wish I could think of something. How about you first speak to your mother?", I propose the idea, as Hardin comes to sit down beside me on the bed, a look of pure tire on this every charged man. It's really marveling to me, how all the books, scriptures we read, chats and conversations we have, all of them always tell us that family is the one a person returns to, when they have weak bones, when they have been worked to the nail, when they just want to let out a cry and yet there are so many like Hardin and I, who have been worked to the nail by our families, who are thoroughly tired of them, who have cried on occasions because of them. How when family is supposed to be the pillar that holds you together, when the whole world wants you to crumble into nothingness, our families respectively, turned to be one of the hands that lead the world that wants to crumble us.

"I don't think that is a good idea", he says and rubs his hands over his face.

"Why?"

"She's a bitch.", is the response I get which follows.

"A cruel, blood sucking, insensitive, pitiful, self sabotaging, ego driven, bitch", he follows that up with his curse.

"Oh.", I comment, not knowing what to say and how to feel about such a woman.

"I really want you to speak to him, Tessa. I wouldn't offer, if I didn't trust in you.", he says, watching me with watchful and hopeful eyes.

"I want to, only do you think it wise for me to make this sort of first impression? I mean, what normal couple meets their parents like this? I don't want my first time speaking to your father to be like this, where I'm trying to explain him good parenting.", I explain.

"Please. It's gonna be a long call and I don't think I can do that alone.", he says.

"Alright. I will, but I need a heads up about him. I can't mess up in front of him, if we are going to be talking about his problems and what's going on back home. I need to know things about him. I don't...I don't know Hardin. Oh god", I start to feel the weight that has been suddenly put on me too.