Hardin's POV
Honestly, since my father's death, I had barely been holding up. I'd lost my zeal for everything, and the only thing that kept me going wasn't just my mother, but Tessa as well.
I had pretended for years that I wasn't in love with her, and that was a lie. I was only ever scared of admitting my love for her. I was afraid of losing another person.
Life had already taken my father and put my mother in a sickbed for years—loving Tessa, letting myself feel that much, felt like putting myself in that same position all over again.
"Hello, brother, I want some ice cream," the sixteen-year-old Tessa had said, pulling me by the hand many years ago on Christmas Eve to an ice cream store, where we bought some ice cream before she forced me to win her a few games at the stalls nearby,
