After 3

Chapter 266.

Songs for this chapter are:

Bravado- Lorde

Little House- The Fray

Taking the world on- Meese

Tessa's POV.

I trip over my own bare feet while rushing behind Hardin into the front yard of the house where he spent his haunting childhood. One of my knees lands on the grass but I quickly steady myself and get back on my feet. The front screen door is pulled open and I hear Hardin fumble with the door knob before his fist pounds against the wood.

"Hardin, please. Let's just go to the hotel," I try to convince him as I approach. He ignores my presence completely and bends down to grab something from the ground next to the porch. I assume it's a spare key but I'm quickly proven wrong when a fist sized rock is pushed through the glass pane on the center of the door. Hardin snakes his arm through, thankfully avoiding the sharp ridges of the broken glass and unlocks the door.

I look around the quiet street but nothing seems amiss. No one is outside to notice our disruption of the quiet neighborhood and no lights have flickered on at the sound of the glass breaking. I pray that Anne and Robin aren't staying next door at Robin's house tonight.

"Hardin," I repeat. I am walking on water here, trying my hardest to keep from sinking under. One slip up and we both will drown.

"This fucking house has been nothing but a tormenter of mine," he grumbles, stumbling over his boots. He catches himself on the arm of the small couch before he falls. I survey the living room and I'm grateful that most of the furnishings have been packed into boxes or  have already been removed from the house in preparation for the demolition following Anne's move.

He narrows his eyes and focuses on the couch. "This couch here," he presses his fingers against his forehead before finishing, "that's where it happened, you know? That exact same fucking couch," my stomach turns.

"Maybe one of my fucking father's could have thought to buy a new one." His eyes close momentarily.

"I'm so sorry, I know this is so much for you right now." I try to comfort him but he continues to ignore me.

He opens his eyes and walks into the kitchen and I follow a few feet behind. "Where is it.." he mumbles and drops to his knees to look inside the cabinet under the kitchen sink. "Gotcha," he says, holding up a bottle of clear liquor. I don't want to ask who's liquor it was- or is, and how it got there in the first place. Given the thin layer of dust that appears on Hardin's black t-shirt when he rubs the bottle against the fabric, I'd say it's been hiding in there for at least few months.

I follow him as he returns to the the living room, unsure of what he will do next. "I know you're upset and you are completely justified to be angry," I stand in front of him in a desperate attempt to gain his attention. He refuses to even glance down at me.

"Can we please go back to the hotel?" I reach for his hand but he pulls away. "We can talk and you can sober up, please. Or you can go to sleep, whatever you want but please, we need to leave here."

Hardin ducks around me and walks back to the tattered couch. "She was here," he uses the bottle of liquor to point to the couch. My eyes prick with tears but I swallow them down,  "and no one came to fucking stop it. Neither of those fuck-ups," he spits and twists the top off of the full bottle. He presses the bottle to his lips and tips his head back, gulping it down.

"Enough!" I shout, stepping closer to him. I'm fully prepared to yank that bottle right from his hands and pour it down the sink. I don't know how much more alcohol his body can stand before he passes out.