After Everything (Hessa Fanfic)

12

Tessa POV

I woke up just as they made the announcement we were landing. One of my headphones had fallen out and was lying on my lap. My head was tilted to the side, leaning against Robert's shoulder.

'Oops, sorry.' I giggled awkwardly, sitting up again.

'No worries.' Robert smiled. 'You must have been exhausted, you were asleep before we even took off.'

'Oh wow.' I squeaked. 'That's annoying, I'll probably struggle to sleep tonight now.'

'Have you got class tomorrow?' He asked.

'Yes, but not until 10am luckily. Have you?'

'Yes, 8.30am start for me.' He pulled a face.

Robert's med school schedule was way busier and more intense than mine. Really, I couldn't complain about school at all, I was so lucky and grateful to finally get accepted into NYU.

The move to Seattle already affected my record, making it harder for me to get accepted into NYU but I made it work, taking up as many restaurant shifts as I could to keep me busy whilst I waited for the letter to finally arrive.

And to also keep me busy enough to keep my mind off Hardin, of course. As much as I could anyway.

'It was nice of him to give us a lift.' Robert said, as we had walked into the airport.

'Yes, I agree. Very nice.'

'You seem suspicious.' He asked.

'Not quite suspicious... I guess surprised, but in a good way. I did know he was a better person now, it's just nice to see.' I told him as we joined the queue at the check-in desk.

'When you've seen a certain side to someone, it can be hard to see them in another light. There was this theory we studied when I took a psychology class last year, I can't remember what it's called. It basically theorises that if somebody is always nice to you and then one day they're mean to you, you will always see them as mean. But if somebody is always mean to you, and then they're nice to you, you will never remember the niceness. That's a bit of a waffle, but it was something along those lines.'

'That's interesting, I guess it does makes sense. The meanness would break the trust the niceness built.'

'There was some study they did on it with chimps. They would come in and give them food at the same time everyday, then come in with no food. Then they didn't believe the food was coming the next day. It was something like that.'

'Poor chimps.' I said, pulling a sad face.

'Don't worry, it would have been an ethical experiment or we wouldn't have studied it.' He reassured.

'Good.' I laughed.

'You know though, you two did look good together this weekend.' He told me as we got to the front of the queue.

'Really?'

'Yeah, very natural. You seemed really comfortable with him.'

'Thanks, Robert.' I smiled, feeling slightly awkward by his admission.

As he went to the desk and began his check-in, I waited at the front of the line and pulled out my phone.

I was slightly disappointed to see nothing from Hardin yet, but I wasn't being realistic. He only would have just driven off and was probably still on his way back to Ken's.

I was tempted to put my phone away and see how long it would take him to send me a message but Karen's words ran around my head.

You have to meet him halfway. It has to be 50/50.