After

Chapter 46.

An obnoxious buzzing wakes me up in the middle of the night. I almost forgot Hardin was in my room. How do we always end up together? And more importantly where is that annoying noise coming from? I follow the noise and it leads to Hardin's pocket, of course it does. It stops as I reach my bed so I take a second to take in how peaceful Hardin looks in his sleep. There is no constant crinkle in his forehead from him constantly frowning, and there is no purse to his pink lips. I sigh and turn around only to have the buzzing start again. I reach my hand down and try to reach into Hardin's pocket, if his pants weren't so tight I probably could have removed the phone from his pocket, but I have no such luck.  

"What are you doing?" he groans. My feet carry me back a few feet away from my bed.  

"Your phone is going off and it woke me up" I whisper despite the fact we are the only people in the room. I watch silently as he digs into his pocket, his large hand struggles into the pocket but he pulls out his phone and answers it.  

"What?" He snaps into the mouth piece. A few seconds later he rolls his eyes and swipes his hand over his forehead.  

"I am not coming back there tonight, I am at a friend's house" Are we friends? Of course not, he is just giving whoever is on the phone an exuse why he isn't returning. I stand awkwardly and shift my weight from one leg to the other.  

"No, you can't go into my room. You know this, I'm going back to sleep now, so don't wake me up again, and my door is locked so don't waste your time trying" he hangs up and I back away instinctively, he is in a bad mood and I don't want to be on the receiving end of his poor attitude. I reach Steph's bed and grab the blanket off the floor, I dropped it in my attempt to find the noise.  

"Sorry that my phone woke you" he says quietly. "It was Molly" The annoyance I feel for her is never faltering.  

"Oh" I sigh and lay down on my side, facing my bed across the room. Hardin gives me a small smile as if he knows what I am thinking about Molly.  I can't ignore the small bubble of excitement that comes from him being here instead of with Molly, even though his actions make no sense to me.

"You don't like her do you?" He rolls onto his side to look at me and I shake my head.  

"Not really, but please don't tell her. I don't want any conflict or teenage drama" I beg. I know I can't trust him but hopefully he will forget to torture me with this information.  

"I won't, I don't care for her either" he murmermer and I roll my eyes.

"Yea, you really seem to dislike her" I sound just as sarcastic as I intended to.

"I don't, I mean she is fun and all but she is quite annoying" he admits making that bubble grow once more.

"Well maybe you should stop messing around with her" I suggest and roll onto my back so he can't see my face.

"Is there a reason I shouldn't mess around with her?"

"No. I mean if you think she is annoying then why keep doing it?" I know I don't want the answer but I ask anyway.

"To keep my occupied I guess."

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Talking about Hardin messing around with Molly hurts me worse than it should.

"Come lay with me" he interrupts my jealous thoughts.

"No"

"Come on, just lay with me. I sleep better when you are with me" he admits and I sit up and look at him.

"What?" I can't hide my surprise at his words. Whether he means them or not, they make my insides melt.

"I sleep better when you are with me, last weekend I slept better than I have in a while" he breaks eye contact with me and looks down.

"It was probably the scotch, not me" I try to make light of his confession, I don't know what else to do or say.

"No, it was you" he assures me.

"Goodnight Hardin" I turn over, if he keeps saying these things and I keep listening, I will be putty in his hands yet again.

"Why don't you believe me?" He almost whispers.

"Because you always do this, you say a few nice things and then you flip the switch and I end up crying"

"I make you cry?" How doesn't he know that? He has seen me cry more than anyone else I know.

"Yea, often." I feel emotional again.

I hear my bed squeak lightly and I close my eyes. His fingers graze my arm as he sits on the edge of Steph's bed. It is too late, well early for this. It is four a.m.

"I don't mean to make you cry"

"Yes, you do. That's your exact intention every time you say hurtful things to me. And when you forced me to tell Noah about us. For example, you just told me you sleep better when I am around but if I was to lay with you, the second we woke up you would tell me I am ugly, or that you can't stand me. You humiliated me after we went to the stream, I thought that..never mind. There are only so many times I can have this talk with you. " I breath.

"I am listening this time" His eyes are unreadable.

"I just don't know why you love this game so much, you play cat and mouse with me. You are nice, then mean. And I heard you tell Steph you would ruin me if I came around you, then you wanted to drive me home. You are just hard to figure out"

"I didn't mean that. That I would ruin you, I just .. I don't know I just say things sometimes" he defends.

"Why did you drop Literature?" I finally ask.

"Because you want me to stay away from you, and I need to stay away from you."

"So why don't you?" I am slightly aware of the shift in energy around us. Somehow we have moved closer, our bodies only inches apart. There always seems to be a magnetic force between us, pulling us together.

"I don't know" he huffs. He rubs his hands together then rests them on his knees.

I want to say something, anything but I can't without telling Hardin that I don't want him to stay away and that I think about him every second of everyday.

"Can I ask you something and you will be completely honest?" he finally breaks the silence. I nod.

"Did you .. did you miss me this week?" That was the last thing I expected him to ask me.