Songs for this chapter are:

 All too well- Taylor Swift

 All I want- Kodaline

Fall Away- The Fray

Blood Bank- Bon iver

Something Great- One Direction

Hardin's POV.

Complications.

Life is full of them, mine seems to be chocked fucking full of them, overflowing and spilling out of the top in a never ending surge. Wave after wave of complications collide with the most important moments and things in my life and this moment is one that I can't allow to be drown.

If I stay calm, if I stay fucking calm and try to explain myself, I can hold back the tidal wave that is bound to crash through this small living room at any moment.

I can see it brewing behind the gray of her eyes. I can see the confusion swirling'' with anger, creating a heavy storm, and just like the sea before the lighting crashes and the thunder rolls. The water is calm, resting, just barely rippling on the surface, Tessa is the same in this moment.

She's standing, a sheet of white paper clenched between trembling hands and her expression is ominous, warning me of the danger ahead.

Honestly, I have no fucking idea what to say to her, where to start. It's such a complicated story and I am pure shit at problem solving. I have to get a grip, I have to make more of an effort to mold and shape my words, to form an explanation that will keep her from running, again.

"What is this?" Her eyes move across a page before she tosses it into the air with one hand and crumples the corners of the small stack left in her grasp.

"Tessa," I take a cautious step toward her.

"Do not take another step toward me." Her face is hard, guarded in a way that I'm not used to, as her feet shuffle backward.

"I need you to listen to me." I beg, searching her clouded features. I feel like shit, complete and utter shit. We had just gotten back to us and I had finally gotten back to her, and now this.

"Oh, I'm listening alright." Her voice is loud, her tone sarcastic.

"I don't know where to start, just give me a minute and I'll explain."

My fingers run over my hair, tugging at the roots, wishing I could trade her pain for mine and rip my hair straight from the scalp. Yeah, a fucked up image.

Tessa stands, impatiently patient, her eyes moving from page to page. Her brows lift and drop, her eyes tighten and widen, as I begin.

"Stop reading it," I take a step and grab the manuscript from her hands. The pages fall to the floor, joining the other bullshit pooling at her feet.

"Explain it. Now." She urges, her eyes cold, a thunderous gray that honestly terrifies me.

"Okay, okay," I shift on my heels. "Okay, I have been writing." I confess.

"How long?" She steps toward me. I'm surprised by the way my body retracts as if it's afraid of her.

"A long time," I avoid the truth.

"You'll tell me, and you'll tell me now."

"Tess,"

"Don't Tess  me. I'm not the same little girl you met a year ago. You're going to tell me now or you'll get the hell out of here." She purposely steps on a page and I can't find it in me to blame her. "Well, I can't kick you out because it's Landon's place, but I will leave if you don't explain this. Now." She adds, showing that, despite her anger, she's still sweet.

"I've been writing for a long time, since the very beginning of us, but I didn't have any intention of doing anything with it. I was only venting, using the paper to figure out what the fuck was going on in my head, but then I had this idea,"

"When?" Her finger presses against my chest, jabbing at me in what she must think is forceful, but she couldn't be more wrong. I won't tell her that, not right now.

"I started it after we kissed."

"The first time?" Her hands spread, shoving my chest and I wrap my fingers around them as they push against me again. "You were playing me," she wretches her hands from mine and digs her open hands into her long hair.

"No, I wasn't! It wasn't like that!" I try not to raise my voice back at her, but I fail.

"He could barely stand the sound of her voice at two in the morning," she angrily mocks.

It takes me a second to recognize her words. "That wasn't about you, that part wasn't about you, I swear it."

"Really Hardin? It wasn't about me? Who else were you coming home to at two in the morning?"

"Well, it was about you but it wasn't me speaking. I was just writing shit at that point, you know my head was fucked up back then."

"So.." she glares at me. "So you wrote terrible things about me, enough of them to fill an entire book that I knew nothing about, and I'm supposed to be okay with it because your head wasn't right? No matter how your head was, that isn't an excuse for hiding it until now." She paces the small living room, fuming and whirling.

Her hands clench at her sides before she throws them into the air, again. "So many secrets, too many secrets. I'm over it."

"You're over it?" I gape at her. Her body is still moving restlessly around the room. "Talk to me, tell me how you feel about all of this."

"How I feel?" She shakes her head, her eyes wild. "I feel like this was a wake up call, the string that pulled me back into reality and away from the ridiculous hopes of the last few days. This is us," she waves her hand back and forth. "There is always some bomb waiting to explode, and I'm not foolish enough to wait to be destroyed. Not anymore."

 "This isn't a bomb Tessa. You act as if I was writing this to purposely hurt you!"

She opens her mouth to speak before closing it again, at a loss for words, I'm sure. When she collects herself she says, "And just how did you think I would feel when I saw this? You knew I would find out eventually, why didn't you just tell me about it? I hate the way this feels."

"The way what feels?" I ask with caution.

"This feeling, it's like a burning in my chest when you pull stuff like this and I hate it. I haven't felt this way in so long and I never wanted to feel it again, yet here we are." The sound of defeat is clear in her soft voice and my skin raises to bumps when she turns away from me.

"Come here," I reach for her arm and pull her as close to me as she will allow. Her arms cross in front of her as I crush her against my chest.

She doesn't fight me off, but she doesn't hug me. She stands still, and I'm not sure if the worst is over. "Tell me what you are feeling," my voice comes out awkward and short. "What you are thinking,"

She pushes against my chest again, with less force this time, and I let her go. She bends down at her knees and picks up one of the pages.

I had originally starting writing this as a form of expression and honestly, I ran out of shit to read. I was in between books and Tessa, Theresa Young at the time, started to intrigue me. She started to annoy me and piss me off and I found myself thinking about her more and more.

When she was in my head, there didn't seem to room for anything else. She became an obsession and I convinced myself that it was a part of the game, but I knew better than that but I wasn't ready to admit it. I remember the way I felt the first time I saw her, the way her lips looked so pouty and the way I cringed at her outfit.

Her skirt touched the floor and her flat shoes were causing the damn thing to drag across the floor. "Um, yeah.. my name is Tessa." She stared down at the floor when she spoke her name for the first time and I remember thinking she had an odd name, I hadn't paid much attention after that. Nate was nice to her and I was irritated by the way she stared at me, judging me with those gray eyes.

She nagged at me everyday, even when she didn't speak to me, especially then.

"Are you even listening to me?" Her voice breaks through the memory and I look over at her to find her fuming again.

"I was.." I hesitate.

"You weren't even listening." She accuses, rightfully so. "I can't believe you would do this. This is what you were doing all of those times I came home and you would put your binder away, this is what I found in the closet just before I found my father.."

"I won't make excuses, but half of the shit in there is trash, complete trash."

"Trash?" Her eyes scan the page in her hand, "She couldn't hold her liquor, she stumbled through the room in a messy way,the way tasteless girls move when they drink too much to impress others."

"Stop reading that shit," I pull the page from her but she quickly snatches it back.

"No! You don't get to write my story and tell me that I can't read it. You still haven't explained anything." She moves across the living room, lifting a shoe from the rug near the front door. She pushes both feet into her shoes and adjusts her shorts.

"Where are you going?" I ask her, prepared to follow her.

"I'm going for a walk." I can tell she's mentally cursing herself for giving me any bit of information.

"I'll come with you,"

"No. You won't." Her keys are in her hands and she gathers her messy hair above her head, twisting it and tying it back to control it.

"You are barely dressed," I remind her. She sends me a murderous glare, just like I knew she would and for a second I swear I can literally fucking see her contemplating taking her clothes off completely.

Without a word, she leaves the apartment, slamming the door behind her.

Nothing was accomplished just now, nothing solved. The plan I had to control the complications turned into a fucking disaster and now shit is even more complicated. I kneel down on the floor, forcing myself not to follow her, throw her over my shoulder while she's kicking and screaming, and lock her in her room until she's ready to talk to me.

No, I can't do that. That would be backtracking on all the "progress" I've made. Instead, I gather the scrambled pages from the floor and read over some of the words, reminding myself why I decided to try and do something with this shitty writing in the first place.

..

"What is that you keep trying to hide over there?" Nate leaned over, being nosy as ever.

"Nothing man, mind your business." I scowled, staring across the courtyard. I didn't know how I started to sit here everyday, at this exact time. It had nothing to do with Tessa and annoying ass Landon meeting at the coffee shop every morning. Nothing at all do with that.

I didn't want to see the obnoxious girl. I really didn't.

"I heard you and Molly last night in the hallway, you sick fuck." Nate flicked the ashes off of his cigarette and made a face at me.

"Well, I wasn't going to let her in my room and she wouldn't take no for an answer," I laughed, proud that she was so willing to blow me at any moment, even in the hallway next to my room. I didn't tell them that I turned her down and ended up jerking off while thinking of a certain blonde.

"You're an asshole." Nate shook his head. "Isn't he an asshole?" He asked Logan as he approached the run down picnic table.

"Yeah, he is." Logan held his hand out for a cigarette from Nate and I tried not to look at the girl in the potato sack skirt waiting to cross the street.

"One of these days you're gonna fall in love and I'm going to laugh my fucking ass off. You'll be the one giving oral in the hallway and the chick won't let you in her room," Nate got a kick out of mocking me this way but I could barely hear him.

Why did she dress that way? I found myself wondering, as she rolled up the sleeves of her long sleeved shirt. I watched, pen in hand, as she walked closer, her eyes focused on the sidewalk in front of her and she apologized too many times when she bumped into a puny boy, causing a book to fall from his hands.

She bent down to help him and apologized way too many times. She smiled at him and I couldn't help remembering how soft her lips were when she forced herself onto me the other night. I was surprised as fuck, I didn't take her as the type to make the first move and I was fairly positive that she had only kissed her lame ass boyfriend before me. Her gasping and the way her hands were so eager to touch me made that pretty clear.

"So what's going on with the bet?" Logan nods toward Tessa as she smiles widely, spotting Landon in all his nerd-glory, backpack and all.

"Nothing new." I instantly replied, covering the paper in front of me with my arm. How was I supposed to know what was going on with the mouthy, poorly dressed girl?  She had barely spoken to me since her crazy ass mom and lame ass boyfriend showed up pounding on her door Saturday morning.

Why was her name written on this paper? And why was I feeling like I was going to break out in a full on sweat if Logan didn't stop staring at me like he knew something that I didn't.

"She's annoying, but she seems to like me more than Zed at least."

"She's hot." The two guys said at the same time. "If I was a dickhead, I would go against the two of you. I'm better looking anyway," Nate teased, sharing a laugh with Logan.

"I want nothing to do with this shit. This is all fucking stupid really, you shouldn't have fucked his girlfriend." Logan tried to scold me.

"It was worth it," I laughed, looking back to the sidewalk across the court. She had disappeared and I changed the subject, asking about that weekend's party coming up.

As the two of them bickered over how many kegs to buy, I found myself writing down how afraid she looked on Friday when she nearly pounded my door in to get away from that creepy, Neil, who tried to make a move on her. He's a bastard. I was sure he would remain pissed at me for the bottle of bleach I poured on his bed Sunday night. It wasn't like I gave a shit about her, it was the principle of the situation.

After that, the words just kept writing themselves. I had no control over it and with every interaction I had with her, I had more to say about her. About the way she crinkled her nose in disgust when she explained to me that she hated ketchup. With every small detail I learned about her, my feeling grew. I would deny them until later, but they were there.

When we lived together it grew harder to write, I found myself writing much less often, but when I did, I would hide my latest writing in the closet in a shoe box. I had no idea that Tessa found the damn thing until now, and here I am, wondering when I will stop complicating my damn life.

More memories flood my mind and I wish I could just plug her into my head, so she could read my thoughts and decipher my intentions.

If she was in my head, she could see the conversation that led me to New York City to meet with publishers. It wasn't something that I had ever intended to do, it just happened. I had written down so many moments, so many memorable moments between us. The first time I said I loved her, the second time when I didn't take it back. Thinking about all of these memories while cleaning up this mess is overwhelming and I can't help the memories from setting up shop in my mind.

..

I was leaning against the goal post, pissed and bruised. Why had I started a fight with those guys in the middle of the stupid ass bonfire anyway? Oh yeah, because Tessa left with Zed and he hung up on me, leaving me with nothing but his sarcastic tone and the knowledge that Tessa was in his apartment.

It drove me much crazier than it should have. I wanted to forget about it, block it out and feel physical pain in place of the unwelcome burn of jealousy I felt. Would she fuck him? I kept thinking. Would he win?

Was it even about winning anymore? I couldn't tell. The lines had blurred sometime and I couldn't exactly put my finger on when it happened but I was aware of it, sort of.

I had sat down on the grass, wiping the blood from my mouth when Tessa approached me. My vision was slightly blurred but she was clear to me, I remember that. During the drive back to Ken's house she was fidgety, unsure, and acting as if I was some rabid animal.

She focused on the road and asked, "Do you love me?"

I was surprised, hell, I was really fucking surprised and not prepared to answer her question. I had already proclaimed love for her, then took it back, and there she was, crazy as ever, asking me if I loved her while my face was swelling and bruising.

Of course I loved her, who the fuck was I kidding?

I avoided answering her question for a while, until it was unavoidable and I found the words spilling out of me, "It's you. You're the person that I love the most in the world," I confessed. It was true, as embarrassing and uncomfortable as it was to admit, I loved her and I knew from then on, that my life would never be the same After her.

If she left me, if she spent the remainder of her life absent from mine, I would still never be the same. She had altered me, and there I stood, bloody knuckles and all, wanting to be better for her.

The next day, I found myself giving the pile of crumpled, coffee stained pages a title. After.

..

I still wasn't ready or actually considering publishing it until I made the mistake of bringing it to one of my group therapy sessions a few months ago. Luke grabbed the binder from under my plastic chair as I told the story of burning my mother's house to the ground. The words were forced, I hate talking about that shit, but I kept my eyes above the curious eyes watching me, and pretended that Tessa was there, in the room, smiling and proud of me for sharing my darkest time with a group of strangers who were just as fucked up as I am..was.

..

I reached down to grab the binder as Dr. Tran dismissed our group. My panic was short lived when i looked over at Luke and found the binder in his hands.

"What is all this?" He asked me, his eyes going over a page.

"If you would have met me a month ago, you would be swallowing your fucking teeth right now." I glared at him, grabbing the binder from his grasp.

"Sorry man, I'm not good at social etiquette." His smile was uncomfortable and for some reason it made me feel as if I could trust him.

"Clearly," I rolled my eyes, shoving all the lose pages back into the pockets.

"Will you tell me what it is if I buy you a root beer from next door?" He laughed.

"How sad are we? A couple of recovering alcoholics, persuading to read a life story." I shook my head, wondering how I got to this point at such a young age, but I was so thankful for Tessa, if it wasn't for her, I would still be hiding in the darkness, left to rot.

"Well, root beer won't make you burn any houses down and it won't make me say hurtful things to Kaci," he replied. I knew he was going to Dr. Tran for more than couple's counseling, but I decided not to be a complete dickhead and call him out on it.

"Fine. Root beer is fine." I agreed and we walked to the restaurant next door. I ended up ordering a shit load of food, on his tab, and I ended up letting him read a few pages of my confessional.

Twenty minutes later I had to put an end to it. He would read the entire thing if I let him. "This is amazing, really man. This is.. fucked up in some parts, but I get it. It wasn't you talking, it was the demons."

"Demons, huh?" I took a long draw, finishing off the root beer in my glass.

"Yeah, demons. When you're drunk you are full of them. Some of this I just read, I know wasn't written by you. It had to be the demons." He smiled and I shook my head. He was right, of course, but I couldn't help picture a creepy little red dragon thing on my shoulder, writing the fucked up shit that was printed on some of those pages.

"You'll let her read this when you finish it, right?" He asked. I dipped a cheese stick into the sauce and tried not to cuss him out for ruining my amusing thoughts about little demon creatures.

"No, no way would I let her read this shit." I tapped my finger across the leather binding, remembering how excited Tessa was for me to use it when she bought it. I fought the idea of course, but now I love the stupid thing.

"You should. I mean, take some of that twisted stuff out, especially the part about her being infertile. That was just wrong."

"I know," I didn't look at him, I looked down at the table and cringed, wondering what the hell was going through my mind when I wrote the shit.

"You should consider doing more with it, I'm not expert on Literature or Heningsway but I know that what I read was really, really good."

I swallow, choosing to ignore the mispronunciation of Hemingway.  

"Publish this?" I chuckled, "No fucking way." I ended the conversation there.

Job Interview after job interview, I was bored. So fucking bored and I left each one feeling even less challenged than the last, and I couldn't imagine sitting in any of those shitty offices. I wanted to work in publishing, I really did, but I found myself rereading page after page of my fucked up thoughts and the more I read and remembered, the more I wanted.. no needed, to do something with it.

It just sat there, begging for me to at least try, and I had this idea in my head that if she saw it, after I could cut some of the harsh shit out, she would love it. It became an obsession, and I was surprised by the interest people seemed to have in watching someone else's road to self-recovery.

Fucked up, but they ate the shit up. I gave each potential house a copied version through email. Apparently the days of bringing in a stack of half hand written, half typed, pages, are over.

This would be it though, or so I thought. I thought this book would be the grand gesture that she needed to accept me back into her life. Granted, I thought it would be months from now, when the book is printed and she's had more time to do whatever the fuck she's been doing here in New York City.

I can't sit here any longer. There is a limit to my newly found patience and I've reached it. I hate, absolutely loathe the idea of Tessa walking around this massive city alone, dressed in pajamas in the afternoon. She's been gone long enough and I have explaining to do, a lot of it.

I grab the last page of the book and shove it into my pocket, not bothering to fold it. Then, I text Landon and tell him to leave the door unlocked if he comes in or out, and head out of the apartment to find her.

I don't have to go far. When I step outside, she's sitting on the front stairs leading to the building. She's gazing off into nothing, her eyes focused and hard. She doesn't notice me when I approach her. It's only when I sit down next to her that she looks up at me, her eyes are still distant but I watch closely as they slowly soften.

"We need to talk," I tell her. She nods and looks away, waiting for an explanation.

(Hey guys!!! I broadcast an email, I hope you received it but I wanted to share the news here too! AFTER IS BEING PUBLISHED!!!! By Simon and Shuster and I am so excited and so grateful to all of you and to Wattpad for helping me and standing behind me. Wattpad has done so much for me and I am so grateful to them and I appreciate you all reading and commenting and supporting me through three books now!! The deal is for three books, and there will be some changes, lots of editing (We know I need the editing:P)

The first book is scheduled to be released in November, and I will tell you more information as I am allowed to. You can find the article about it on Publisher's weekly! I'm still in shock and this is literally a dream come true for me! This just shows that Wattpad is the best place to be writing right now, so never, ever give up, no matter how many reads you have. Every single one of us started with zero reads so don't be discouraged!

Also, Jewlr approached me to work with them on an After jewelry collection and I was so happy and flattered and the pieces turned out great. You can actually design your own piece and engrave it and everything! I know the pieces are a little pricey (they are very high quailty if that helps), so don't feel like you owe me anything or pressured to buy! We are giving away five pieces though, one winner was chosen today, and it's run through my twitter (Imaginator1dx) and so you can follow it there if you want to try to win a piece of After jewelry. The webiste to look at the jewelry is www.jewlr.com/after or you can use my site, www.wattpad.com/after to view it as well!

Again, thank you guys for being the best readers and friends, and i can't believe we are close to the end! If you have questions about publishing or jewelry or life in general, post on my board and I'll try and answer them the best I can! Thank you again, again and again. You are all my favorite people in the world and I'm sorry this is so long, it's like 2am and I'm emotional from writing this chapter lol. Goodnight for me!!