After (The After Series) by Anna Todd Page B

extra hard on me.” I can’t believe I am being this honest with him. I know it’s a matter of minutes before he turns on me.
    “That’s just not true. I’m no meaner to you than I am to the rest of the general population.”
    I shoot up. I knew I couldn’t have a normal discussion with him. “I don’t know why I keep wasting my time!” I yell. I start walking back toward the main pathway and lawn.
    “Hey, I’m sorry. Just come back over here.”
    I groan, but my feet react before my brain can catch up, and I end up standing a few feet away from him.
    He sits on the curb where I was previously sitting. “Sit,” he demands.
    And I do.
    “You’re sitting awfully far away,” he says, and I roll my eyes. “You don’t trust me?”
    “No, of course I don’t. Why would I?”
    His face falls slightly as my words hit him, but he recovers quickly. Why would he care if I trusted him?
    “Can we just agree to either stay away from each other, or be friends? I don’t have it in me to keep fighting with you.” I sigh, and he moves a little closer.
    He takes a deep breath before he speaks. “I don’t want to stay away from you.”
    What? My heart beats out of my chest.
    “I mean . . . I don’t think we can stay away from each other, with one of my best friends being your roommate and all. So I suppose we should try to be friends.”
    Disappointment bubbles up from nowhere, but this is what I want, right? I can’t keep kissing Hardin and cheating on Noah.
    “Okay, so friends?” I say, pushing down this feeling.
    “Friends,” he agrees and reaches out his hand for me to shake.
    “ Not friends with benefits,” I remind him as I shake, only to feel the blood rush to my cheeks.
    He chuckles and moves his hand to play with his eyebrow ring. “What makes you say that?”
    “Like you don’t know. Steph already told me.”
    “What, about me and her?”
    “You and her, and you and every other girl.” I try to fake a laugh but it comes out as a cough, so I cough a little more to try to cover.
    He raises his eyebrow at me but I ignore him. “Well, me and Steph . . . that was fun.” He smiles as if remembering something and I swallow the bile rising in the back of my throat.
    “And yeah, I have girls that I fuck. But why would that concern you, friend?”
    He’s so nonchalant about the whole thing, but I’m in shock. Hearing him admit to sleeping with other girls shouldn’t bother me but it does. He isn’t mine: Noah is. Noah is. Noah is, I remind myself.
    “It doesn’t. I just don’t want you to think that I will be one of those girls.”
    “Aww . . . are you jealous, Theresa?” he mocks me, and I shove him. There is no way in hell I will ever admit that.
    “No, absolutely not. I feel sorry for the girls.”
    He raises his eyebrows playfully. “Oh, you shouldn’t. They enjoy it, trust me.”
    “Okay, okay. I get it. Can we please just change the subject?” I sigh and lift my head back to look at the sky. I need to clear the image of Hardin and his harem out of my mind. “So, will you try to be nicer to me?”
    “Sure. Will you try not to be so uptight and bitchy all the time?”
    Looking at the clouds, I dreamily say, “I’m not bitchy; you’re just obnoxious.”
    I look at him and start laughing; fortunately he joins in. It’s a nice change from screaming at each other. I know we haven’t really resolved the big issue here, which is the feelings that I may or may not have for him, but if I can just get him to stop kissing me, I can focus back on Noah and stop this terrible cycle before it gets worse.
    “Look at us, two friends.” His accent is so cute when he isn’t being rude.
    Hell, even then it is, but when his voice is soft his accent makes it so much softer, like velvet. The way words roll off his tongue and through his pink lips . . . I can’t think about his lips. I tear my eyes away from his face and stand up, wiping my skirt off.
    “That skirt really is dreadful,