Previously: Hardin and Tess went to the same coed shower to shower.
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Samantha: The chapter starts with Tessa telling us she stopped to use the toilet. Cool. She then notices that Hardin isn’t in her line of sight so maybe he went off with those 1 dimensional girl characters. (M: 1D joke? I love it.) (S: Thank you for catching it.) She also realizes he didn’t bring any clothes so he’s just gonna be putting on dirty clothes after his shower. Don’t any of you stress, though, he’s still going to look the best apparently. Phew.
She gets back to her room after an uneventful shower and finds Hardin sitting on her bed. “Take that school girls,” she thinks and okay. What does this make you?
Marines: You mean apart from the kind of girl who sees every other girl in direct competition to herself, even with nothing to back up that position? Um, also a schoolgirl.
Samantha: He comments on how long it took her and she comments on how he’s supposed to be nice now and we all groan in perfect, exhausted, unison.
Tessa sits down for some scintillating sentences where she tries to put on eyeliner. She gives up and Hardin tells her she doesn’t need it. We get it, Hardy, you’re a cliché. She tells him he likes it and he makes fun of her for wanting to take all day to do it. He then catches himself and apologizes but like, your default setting is to be a dick to the girl you supposedly like. Why does she even want to wait around for you to “change?”
Mari: It’s been like 5 minutes and he’s had to catch himself being rude twice. WHY DOES TESSA WANNA DATE HIM?
Samantha: Hardin puts on a t-shirt from the trunk of his car as they head out car shopping. Tessa compliments his white tshirts and he compliments her ass in those apple bottom jeans. Tessa pats herself on the back for wearing them. Mentally, because literally would be just slightly weirder. Hardin then makes fun of Tessa’s plans of seeing a Prius because they get good gas mileage, and I’m so glad we brought him along. This time though Tessa is laughing along and this book really wants me to think this douchey behavior is cuter than his pervious douchey behavior. Nah. (M: How are we supposed to keep up?) Hardin tells her she’s cute sometimes and remember how Tessa has a boyfriend she promised not to cheat on again?
They don’t find a car, Hardin tells a Zed anecdote, and they stop for frozen yogurt. While they’re eating, Hardin’s dad shows up cause we that dramz.
Ken invites Tessa over for dinner and assumes she’s his girlfriend. That’s a real leap of an assumption there, Kenny, just cause two people are eating yogurt together. Hardin grumpy cats that they can’t come and Tessa is somehow SHOCKED, SHOCKED at him being a dick to his dad. (M: Where was she when he was destroying daddy’s home and also saying, “I hate my dad”?) She then accepts Ken’s offer for dinner? Which is strange? If the person I was with, platonically or romantically, very clearly did not want us to go to their parents house I wouldn’t overrule them on the spot? Definitely not without talking to them and trying to understand their feelings? Am I crazy?
Mari: This is the tough spot bad writing puts you in because Hardin is a dick but Tessa is wrong like what even do we do?
Samantha: Drink, probably.
She also says that she’s a friend of Landon’s and Hardin’s eyes blaze at her like small dumpster fires. After Ken leaves, Hardin kicks a chair across the room? Of the yogurt place? Like a crazy person? He storms out and Tessa rushes after him.
Tessa is inconsiderate and Hardin is the worrrrsssssst.
Next time on After: A fight in Chapter 44.
I'm a 28 year old graduated English major and almost librarian. I can often be found singing too loudly (poorly) in the car or spending some time (hours) on Tumblr. I am a lover of Harry Potter, the Spice Girls, and too many other things.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
